(no subject)

From the Austin AmericanStatesman:

Raining squirrels at the Capitol

If you're visiting the Capitol this weekend, be careful: Baby squirrels might be tumbling from trees or lying prone underfoot. There's been a rash of the fellas -- a little rat, a lotta tail -- falling out of trees lately, reported one official at the State Preservation Board, which looks after the Capitol.

Twice this week a woman picked up the squirrels and delivered them to Wildlife Rescue, an Austin nonprofit that rehabilitates injured and orphaned animals. ("If you're calling about a deer press 1; for hawk, owl or raccoon press 2; baby bird press 3 . . .") These are tough times for the young rodents. Spring's high winds lift baby squirrels out of their nests.

"It's not unusual with the winds we've had for baby squirrels to fall out of trees or get blown out of them," said Sheryl Coffman, the animal care manager at Wildlife Rescue. "They hit their little noses."

Sometimes older males are to blame: Eager to mate again they thrust the offspring out of the trees soon after they're born. Often the youngsters will be reclaimed by their mothers. But there's always Wildlife Rescue, which is currently caring for about 50 baby squirrels (hundreds are brought in each year). The animals spend several months in age-appropriate groups and are then weaned and released.

Squirrels are not the only ones to lose their balance. Last month a flock of 150 cedar waxwing birds fell out of the sky near Far West Blvd. after getting drunk on overripe ligustrum berries. Many didn't make it. The rest were in a detox about a week and then released.

-- Asher Price, 445-3643,

asherprice@statesman.com

What you want to note here about Austin is not so much that we have rains of baby squirrels or that we have hundreds of drunken birds, it's that Austin has detox centers for birds.

In other news, it's about 80 degrees and raining and there are sirens all over the place. Why do people forget how to drive in the rain from one week to the next?