These are still up for grabs...any takers?? See message below for details :) Sharon

Mojo, I have seen a few hawk migrations, but nothing that spectacular. It's hard to say just how much was speculation or exaggeration, but I have no doubt, he did see perhaps a few hundred. Once upon a time, hawks were far more numerous than now. There were also more individual farmers, more chickens, sheep, pigs and even personal milk cows on each farm.....all of which relied on their respective feed. That feed attracted millions of rodents--food for most raptors. Only 3-4 species were ever truly chicken hawks. The Cooper's, goshawk, and merlin [formerly called "pigeon hawk"] and great horned owl were the real culprits. I used to have old issues from the '40's and '50's of Farm Journal and Farm Quarterly which had some really scary but true facts about which hawks were the true "chicken hawks." Yes, I really appreciate the editors of those magazines, even back then, urging our farmers NOT to kill the innocent species. Buteos were so often blamed for the kills if they were seen feeding on a bird or kitten actually killed by a GH owl or even another fur-bearing predator. This resulted in millions of hawks indiscriminately destroyed by people. Pesticides were another yet another issue. I really loved it the one time several migrating Swainson's literally filled the huge elm just outside my bedroom window in 1998 when I lived on a farm near Hugoton, Kansas. It was dusk. I went to the west side of the house and looked at another big elm further from the house, where Icould see the hawks and there were probably about 15-20 in that tree, too. In the 3 years I was there, I only saw this happen once. The biggest flock of raptors ever witnessed, again, only once, was a stream of turkey vultures flying to roost. their flock only mayby 20-40 feet across, but several miles long. It was the most curious flight pattern I had ever seen, but only turkeys...not a black in the bunch! They flew over my house or right by it en route! I estimated it took some 20 minutes for all the birds to pass. Totally awesome!

My 17 year old son played the drums for over a year, practiced daily and went to loud concerts. Not anymore. He has hair cell damage in one ear. It drives him crazy. He has no hearing loss per say, just a weird buzz, crackle in that ear. He was told that loud noises such as concerts, drums and such can make the tiny hairs in the ear lay down much like grass when you walk on it. If you don't stand or walk on the grass again it will slowly start righting itself and eventually be standing up again. The best way for someone to not "walk on their hair cells" is to stop exposing oneself to loud noises or to wear protective ear plugs. There are all kinds available in drug stores and from ear doctors. There are even special ones that can be custom made for musicians. I took him to an Audiologist who suggested wearing ear plugs every day until the problem corrected itself. After months of no improvement, I took him to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. An MRI of the brain was done on him thinking the problem might be related to a tumor or aneurysm since it was only affecting one ear. Thankfully his brain looks fine. We will now investigate custom ear plugs from an audiologist. I hope this helps your daughters realize the seriousness of loud music, I know my son is pretty bummed by the prospect of having this irritating problem in his ear all the time. By the way, I was a nightclub DJ back in the 70s and 80s. Our legal limit for both records and live bands was 110db. I had a decibel reader and had to keep harping on the lives bands to keep the levels down. They hated me for it and contiued to push the limits all the time. Your only defense it seems is to protect yourself by wearing good ear plugs. Jodi-

We sure did! Hubby is a huge Beatles fan, he started playing drums when he saw Ringo on the Ed Sullivan show. Maroon 5 did an awesome job of singing the songs, as did the others. Really liked the group of guys......don't know their name, the guitar player had long blonde hair. They were terrific as well. Neither of us like Yoko. Love that Ringo and Joe Walsh are brothers-in-law......Joe married Ringo's wife's sister a few years ago. Edited to correct the "wife's sister" This post was edited by jasdip on Tue, Feb 11, 14 at 11:33