Bat Care

The bat my mother-in-law found in her living room is a big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, as evidenced by her long, foxy muzzle. Little brown bats look kind of smoosh-faced but not in a cute, Boston-terrier like way; more in an otherworldly way. Their faces and muzzles are furry, not naked like the big brown's. Here's a photo of a little brown bat from batguys.com. I could definitely love a little brown bat, but it isn't as sweet and familiar looking as the big brown bat.


Little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus. Photo from batguys.com

Big brown bats are irreproachably cute micro foxes. And they're only big in comparison to pipistrelles and little brown bats. They're about 4 to 5 inches long, with a 11-13 inch wingspan. They weigh only 1/2 to 5/8 ounce. They don't have hollow bones or air sacs like birds; their flight is the feat of an acrobat who must flap continuously to stay aloft.

The vast majority of bats found in homes are big brown bats. They seem to be better (or worse, depending on how thrilled you are at finding one in your kitchen) at getting into the occupied parts of houses.

Care of overwintering bats is not difficult, because they sleep all day and almost around the clock. I can change the papers, food and water in her tank without ever disturbing her as she hangs on the sidewall, hidden in her toweling. She eats live mealworms, which are fed my new favorite nutritious substance, chick starter, with carrots for moisture. This is called "gut loading." The idea is, if you feed the worms good stuff, the bat or whatever eats them gets good stuff, too. I can attest that mealworms grow like Topsy when kept in chick starter. It would seem to me to be a good idea for anyone feeding mealworms to wild birds to keep them in chick starter rather than plain old fashioned oats. But then I'm all about taking care of wild things, and I'm thinking a lot more about nutrition these days, having had some evidence that we can hurt the things we love most with the wrong foods.

When the towels get soiled, every four days or so, I gently fold her into her dirty washcloth and place her in a lidded Tupperware. Then I thoroughly clean the tank and gently transfer her to freshly-laundered towels on the tank wall. That's my favorite part, because I get to talk to her and transfer her from one towel to another. At first I had to unhook her feet from the dirty towel, but now she scuttles up onto the clean towel as soon as I open my hand. Bats learn fast.

Routine care doesn't make her mad any more. I get just a little whiff of musk from her facial glands, a pleasantly skunky waft, a desultory chitter. And her fur is smooth and shiny, not all rumbly like it was when I first got her. She's been preening. I can see the towels shake as she rearranges her fur. Sometimes I see her licking her hooks and feet and armbones like a cat. She can scratch her head and neck with her hind feet. Having always thought of bats as kind of bound up in their own wing and tail membranes, I'm pleased and surprised to see how flexible and mobile they are.

I risk a stroke toward her back end as I hold her head and wings securely in the glove. It's amazing. Her fur is so soft you can't even feel it. She doesn't so much as turn her head, but she kind of shrinks in when I touch her. Her whole being vibrates, and I imagine she is talking, saying something about my temerity for daring such a thing.




She hangs there all day, sleeping and preening and scratching, folded into her towels. She much prefers dark colored cloths. She's become so tame that it's hard to get her to chitter and cuss at me now. I wish I had taken photos of her teeth when she was just captured--they are impressive! Edges like a pinking shears, oversized for her tiny mouth, and strong--she would bite the tweezers and nearly twist them from my fingers, clang!! No wonder I was a little eepy about her.

Here's the not-so-easy part of keeping a bat over the winter. It needs to be released when the weather warms reliably in spring, when the nights stay in the 50's. And several weeks before that, it needs to have a heated place where it can exercise and get its muscles conditioned for flight. And there's the rub. I have a tent made of nylon screening that would be a fabulous flight space, except for the fact that any big brown bat worth its salt would be outta there in two minutes. They're escape artists par excellence. At the Ohio Wildlife Center, they have to roll up towels under the flight room door, for goodness' sake, because the bats will go out that tiny space. Smart, smart, smart. And tiny, tiny, tiny, and endlessly flattenable, like flying Flat Stanleys, bats are. So I'll have to head to Columbus for flight conditioning several weeks before release time. And pray that Dee Dee doesn't have her bab(ies) before she's released near her maternity roost.


All right. I've made some of this bat care thing sound easy. But I have to tell you that you MUST have a permit from your state to keep any wild animal, and for a rabies vector species like a bat, you must also have a RVS certification on that permit. This is for your own protection as well as the bat's. They're not pets. They do a good job of looking like them on my blog. But I don't cuddle them and I handle them as little as possible. They're wild animals and they're destined for release.

The day my permit came in the mail with the rabies vector certification on it, I decided that I wouldn't trade it for a diamond ring. What can you learn from a diamond ring?

My Matchday - 244 Prostar Stadium

Shrewsbury Town 0v1 Rochdale

League Two

Saturday 13th March 2010

Shrewsbury is a historic market town in the county of Shropshire. The town centre features over 660 listed buildings, its medieval narrow streets and passages features many timber framed buildings from the 15th and 16th centuries.
The town remains largely intact as it wasn’t bombed during World War II. The last conflicts in the town came between the English and Welsh, its geographical position caused many tiffs between the countries amid the 7th and 13th centuries. The most significant came in 1069, when a Welsh invasion was thwarted by William The Conqueror. William gave Roger de Montgomery the town as a reward and he build Shrewsbury Castle in 1074.
The most famous Salopian is English naturalist Charles Darwin, but the town’s is mostly well known for the annual Shrewsbury Flower Show, one of the oldest and largest horticulture events in the country which attracts over 100,000 visitors during mid August every year.

Shrewsbury Town formed in 1886 originally playing on the Racecourse Ground at Monkmoor. In 1889 the club moved to Amblers Field, where they played for four seasons before another move, this time to Sutton Lane when elected to the Birmingham League.
In 1895 the club looked to have found a permanent home at the Barracks Ground. The Shrews turned professional and drew crowds of 5,000 and stayed there for the next 15 years until an offer of a ground in the town centre on the banks of the River Severn.
After 97 years Shrewsbury Town left there quaint home at Gay Meadow for a brand new stadium on the southern outskirts of the town between Meole Brace and Sutton Farm in 2007.
The New Meadow or to give its official sponsorship name for the next four years - Prostar Stadium, was built by Hall Construction and has a capacity of 9,875.
The stadium has four separate stands equal in size and appearance with blue seats and amber lettering. The North Stand is the away end and differs slightly from the South Stand having a police control box in the corner and electric scoreboard central.
The main stand is the Roland Wycherley East Stand, which is slightly larger than the West Stand having hospitality boxes along the top, both stands have four floodlight pylons perched on the roof.
There’s the option to expand the capacity to over 12,500 with the corners filled between the Roland Wycherley Stand, South Stand and West Stand, which is only likely if the Shrews progress up the Football League. At the moment the corners are used as bicycle parks, I’ve never seen so many bikes parked outside a football ground, the stadium’s outpost means that cycling is the best mode of transport to the match.

Rochdale strengthened their position at the top of League Two with a well earned victory at play-off hopefuls Shrewsbury.
The decisive goal came just after the hour mark. A free kick from Kennedy was nodding home at the far post by substitute Joe Thompson for his sixth goal of the season.
Rochdale were twice denied by the woodwork in the first half, after six minutes a wind assisted cross by Kennedy came back off the post, then a free kick from the left back hit the crossbar in stoppage time. In between Dale went close with efforts from Hibbert, Elder and Langmead was twice denied by keeper Button.
The Shrews best chance fell to Cansdell-Sherriff on 58 minutes, his near post header from a corner kick saw the woodwork again called into action.
Shrewsbury were reduced to ten men on 74 minutes, Cansdell-Sherriff was caught in possession by Dagnall, who then dragged back the striker, denying him a clear run on goal, which gave the referee no option but to produce a red card.
The leaders comfortably held on to their one goal advantage to stretch their lead at the top of League Two to nine points and look champions elect.

This was my first return to the banks of the River Severn in just over 30 years. I left Central Station at 0730, Shrewsbury is served by trains from Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly. I took the cheaper option of going via Manc, but due to unnecessary waiting time and an uncomfortable rattler train from Manchester-Newcastle, which was invaded by a gang of drunken scrapping Yorkshire tarts - I wish I had paid the extra cash and took the Brum route.

My previous jaunt came on the 23rd February 1980 for a Newcastle away match in what turned out to be my first and only visit to the much missed Gay Meadow.
There’s three things I can clearly recollect from that day; This was my first away match travelling with the Supporters Club on the old dirty yellow Armstrong Galley coaches, which became a regular occurrence over the subsequent years.
I do remember the match well, as Newcastle got absolutely tanked by a rampant Shrews side. Goals from Maguire, King and Biggins with an injury time Alan Shoulder penalty small consolation, which made the 3-1 score line look closer than it actually was. Although me and Ian celebrated that goal as if it was a last minute winner, two young un’s joyful seeing a goal on opposition soil.
The third was a player amongst the United line-up that afternoon. A Scottish international who was playing his third and final game in a loan spell from Aston Villa. Most Newcastle supporters might not know, or if they did, have probably forgot, that we actually had midfield schemer Alex Cropley on loan.
Cropley made his name at Hibernian, before a six-figure move to Arsenal in 1972. He signed for Villa two years later in a £125,000 deal, going on to make 67 appearances scoring 7 goals.
Proud Scot Cropley was actually born in Aldershot, his career later took him to the States with Toronto Blizzard, then on to Pompey before returning to Hibs in 1982.
An eventful career which was unfortunately blighted by injuries including a double leg break in 1975, much loved at Hibs and the Villa, but his short time at Newcastle is probably best described as ‘anonymous’ typified by that bloody good hiding at Gay Meadow.

I arrived in the town at 11.35, which gave me amble time to explore the town’s public houses, calling in The Shrewsbury Hotel, Montgomery’s Tower, The Salopian Bar and The Three Fishes. After a canny bevvy I needed to walk it off so took the long walk to the stadium instead of catching the bus.
After the game I got talking to a Shrews fan who walked me back into the town, taking various shortcuts which allowed me time for a quick pint in The Bulls Head which is next to the train station.
I caught the 1754 back to Manchester for my connecting train at 1942. After an eventful journey home It was pleasing to finally arrive back in Newcastle at 2220, having enjoyed a nice quiet relaxing day in leafy Shropshire.

STFC 0 RFC 1(Thompson 62)

att.6081

Admission £18

Programme £2.50

Links

Bevvy Almanac
Simple Piemans visit earlier this season.

Ground no.244 Prostar stadium - Matchday Webalbum (15 pictures)

Big Brown Batgirl

Big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus

Fasten your seatbelts. I'm gonna go all bats on you. And you're going to love it. Bats are pretty much my favorite animal now, right after ligers. Which, as you probably know, are bred mainly for their skills in magic.

Back to bats.

It's a late winter Wednesday. My mother-in-law, Elsa Thompson, notices a bat flying around in her living room and kitchen. While most people would scream and dive for cover, Elsa takes mild note of the event and hopes she will eventually find the bat where she can catch it. She's done this before. And she is not your garden-variety mother-in-law, being co-founder of both Bird Watcher's Digest and The Marietta Natural History Society.

Friday. Elsa opens the basement door and sees a bat roosting in the jamb, near her pegboard full of pots and pans. She captures it in a towel and installs it in a glass vase with a towel in the bottom and colander over the top. Later, she adds a ball of raw hamburger and a cut-up grape. She calls me and tells me she's seen the bat tugging at the grape. What else should she offer it? That evening, I swoop in on my way to the movies and give the bat a dozen mealworms off the end of a tweezers. Thank goodness I always keep mealworms on hand in a couple of plastic shoeboxes, where they reproduce and offer themselves up to save whatever foundling I have on hand, even in January. The bat is very hungry and thirsty, having expended valuable energy by flying around a warm house for three days. It's evidently found its way downstairs from the cold attic, where it should be hibernating.

While we're holding the bat in a towel, it squirms around and gets away, making loops around the living room. It vanishes and I stand stock-still in the living room, looking carefully. I find it resting atop a warm DVD player, and pick it up in the towel to continue feeding it. I will not realize until much later how lucky I was to have relocated that animal.

Sunday. I pick the bat up in the evening. Elsa's been ably caring for it and feeding it in the meantime. I've called the Ohio Wildlife Center and found out that protocol for a healthy bat found in a warm house in midwinter is to keep it until it can be released outside in spring. Oh! My! That sounds like a job! Thank goodness I'm permitted and certified by the State of Ohio to handle and keep rabies vector species like bats. Even so, I make plans to have Bill transport it to the OWC clinic in Columbus in the morning, where they are hosting eight overwintering bats in just the same straits. He's on his way to the airport anyway. You see, I am just a little eepy about handling and keeping a bat in my house. I am thinking rabies and disease and gloves and towels and guano and kids and eep eep eep.

Who are you, little one? You're so foreign to me. I have no mental template for how you should look or behave. I need to know you.

Something happens to my brain (not a dread viral disease, but a chemical shift) between Sunday night and Monday morning, and I decide not to unload the bat on OWC just yet. I've been researching bat care online. And I want to make sure it can feed itself from a dish. I want to make sure it's in top condition before I fob it off on anyone else. I want to get to know it better. And I have a small suspicion that I'm falling out of fear and into love.


It's a female, and she seems thin and ribby to me, maybe a bit dehydrated. She chitters and cusses at me in an ultrasonic voice when I handle her. She sounds like an angry hummingbird, bzzbzzbzzzbzzbzzzbzzbzzz! For the next two days, I hold her in my glove while I feed her crickets twice a day. I can feel her voice vibrating even when I can't hear her. Then I find a good piece online, written by Susan Bernard of Basically Bats, called Bats in Captivity, which warns that hand-fed bats might not take food again on their own. Uh-oh. I decide to offer mealworms and crickets in a little shallow dish, and water in another as they suggest, and quit handling her to feed her. It seems a better solution all around.

By now the bat is installed in a plastic pet carrier meant for small mammals and reptiles. I've got a washcloth doubled and draped down the side where she can hang upside down in comfortable darkness. The food and water dishes are on paper towels below her. Since she'd be hibernating anyway, she doesn't need to fly around, and she's perfectly still and sleeping all day. The next morning, the mealworm dish stands empty. Well, that was easy. The next night, I creep in with a little flashlight cupped in my palm so only a tiny ray of light sneaks out, and I catch her elbowing over to her mealworm dish, which she lustily empties. I let a little more light fall on her and she glares at me and retreats into her washcloth roost, a tiny, deeply offended Dracula, fleeing the dawn. By now I am completely in love. I'm glad I don't have to handle her and stress her, and she is, too.

Maybe I can do this bat care gig. She's a whole lot less trouble than a macaw. And she is really, really adorable.

I'll be speaking about this little messenger from above (and a bunch of other stuff) starting at 5:30 PM tomorrow night, Friday, March 12, at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, for its William and Nancy Klamm Memorial Lecture in its Explorer series. There will be live music, refreshment, exhibits, a book signing, Phoebe and a very excited, dino-crazy Liam in attendance. I've spent the week tearing my Letters from Eden talk all to bits as only a crazy Mac Lady can. It's all new. If you're anywhere near Cleveland, I'd love to meet you. Remember to blurt "BLOG!" You can register here.

If you miss the Cleveland talk, come hear me at nearby Black River Audubon's "Outstanding Speakers" series the very next night, Saturday, March 13, at 7 pm. It'll be at Lorain Co. (Ohio) Metroparks' Carlisle Visitor Center. Details are here. Another big weekend!

And on Sunday I'll tell you more about the big brown bat. There is a lot to tell.

Zick Dough, Improved

photo by Mary Ferracci

I've borrowed this wonderful photo from Mary's View. It's a bluebird from her yard in North Carolina who is hooked on Zick Dough. See anything wrong with this picture? It jumps right out at the Science Chimp. He's not putting weight on his left foot, and the toes are swollen. He's in pain. And it's all my fault.

I've been quietly working this winter, learning about bird nutrition, perfecting a recipe, trying to right some wrongs. I've posted before about the joys and drawbacks of feeding the homemade suet dough that a lot of people are calling Zick Dough. And I've said before that I feel a little squeamy about having my name on that recipe, even moreso since I figured out that it can give birds who eat too much of it a painful case of gout. You can read about that in the original posts, "Uh-Oh, Zick Dough" and "Crack is a Better Name for It." If you're just joining us for this story, I'll recap:

I've been feeding homemade suet dough for years. The basic recipe has always been:

OLD ZICK DOUGH

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup lard
2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 cups quick oats
1 cup flour

And the birds in my yard have gobbled it up, everything from chickadees, tits and nuthatches to woodpeckers, cardinals, sparrows, towhees and bluebirds. Bluebirds are the biggest fans of Zick Dough. And therein lies the problem.

As I've explained, eastern bluebirds are the ultimate addictive personalities. Given an easy food source, they will exploit it to the exclusion of almost everything else. If you stop and think about it, the recipe above is anything but a complete diet. It's fat, some limited protein, and carbohydrates, and it's really rich. It's kind of like living on, well, oats, lard and peanut butter.


Here is the foot of a female bluebird who gorged on Zick Dough all winter and into the spring of 2009. She can't put weight on it. It hurts. She's got gout. Or metabolic bone disease. Or something bad. And I strongly believe it was due to an improper diet, and I felt, and still feel, terrible about that.

The short-term answer was to suspend all feeding of Zick Dough. And her foot recovered, sort of. The swelling went down, but she had a permanently stiff middle toe, as if she were giving me the finger for feeding her low-value food. And I deserve it.

That bluebird disappeared sometime in the fall of 2009. I don't know what happened to her, but I'm sure that if she could come back to my feeder, she would have by now. I have to think that having a stiff foot was a handicap, and I'm ready to take the blame if she died before her time. I'll never know. All I know is she was here for years, and now she's gone. Maybe she was really old, and that's why she ate so much of the easy stuff.


photo by Mary Ferracci

I don't think it's a coincidence that a bluebird in North Carolina who also gorges on Zick Dough has the same problem. And that's my problem, and that of anyone who feeds this stuff to their backyard birds. Maybe that's you, too.

So. I'm cruising along early this winter, feeding my first batch of Zick Dough, enjoying my bluebirds and all the others, and so glad to be able to help them through the worst winter in memory. I didn't start feeding it until it got really cold--Christmas, for goodness' sake--and I planned to suspend feeding it the moment it got reliably warm. My suspicion is that feeding this rich food in warm weather is what got Gouty into trouble. So feeding it only in really cold weather was my interim answer to the problem.

One fine morning I get a Google Alert for Zick Dough (it's really out there on the Internet.) It's a piece written for the Maryland Bluebird Society's "Chatter" by Felicia Lovelett.

I devour it with great interest. In it, she cites my post, "Uh-oh, Zick Dough" in which I describe possible gout in my bluebird visitors. And she points out that suet dough mixes are very low in calcium, high in phosphorus, and "contain proteins that are relatively low in biological value." Further, she suggests that "Gouty" may have had Metabolic Bone Disease. Well, whether it was gout or MBD, there's no doubt she was all messed up, and I had good reason to suspect it was the steady diet of Zick Dough that messed her up. A male bluebird in my yard, also a heavy imbiber, had the same problem. And both recovered when I withheld the Zick Dough.

Ms. Lovelett suggests basing suet dough on a "formulated diet that provides adequate calcium, high quality proteins and other essential nutrients." And she mentions unmedicated chick starter as a base. Chick starter is an extruded pellet that crumbles easily. It's formulated to encourage growth and strong bones in young domestic chicks, kind of like puppy chow for birds. It's got a lot more nutritional oomph than yellow cornmeal, oats, peanut butter or lard.


My very next trip was to the feed store, where I bought a small (20-pound) bag of DuMor unmedicated chick starter. (You definitely want to check the label--the last thing we want is to give antibiotics to wild birds!) I spent some time fiddling around with proportions and finally came up with this:

NEW ZICK DOUGH: SMALL BATCH

Melt in the microwave and stir together:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup lard

In a large mixing bowl, combine
2 cups chick starter
2 cups quick oats
1 cup yellow cornmeal and
1 cup flour

Add melted lard/peanut butter mixture to the combined dry ingredients and mix well.

I made a small batch first, and laid out two piles of Original Recipe and New Improved. It was a gas, watching the birds sample both.


Yes, it looks different...Some, like the titmice, tried the new but preferred the old mix. One female cardinal stuck to the old mix. The other cardinals preferred the new recipe.

Of my pair of bluebirds, the female liked the old mix, and her mate liked the new.


Importantly, they all accepted it immediately, and the switch to the new recipe was seamless and instant. I really hadn't expected it to be that easy. I figured out that the tufted titmice just like bigger chunks to carry off, and the new mix is more crumbly, so they can't find a big wad as easily with the new recipe.

All the birds are perfectly happy with the new mix, and everyone is eating better this winter.

While I'm at it, I'm going to pass along my secrets for mixing Zick Dough in large batches. Here's my quintupled recipe.

NEW ZICK DOUGH: BIG BATCH

5 cups (1 40 oz jar) peanut butter
5 cups (1/3 of the 64-oz bucket) of lard (Wal-Mart, in the Shortening aisle)
10 cups chick starter (available at any feed store)
10 cups quick oats
5 cups yellow cornmeal
5 cups flour

Measuring peanut butter and lard by the cup is a pain in the butt. Instead of measuring, I just use a bowl scraper to empty out a 40-oz jar of PB into a medium-sized mixing bowl. It takes up half the bowl. Then, I fill the rest of the bowl with lard. This saves a lot of time and mess in trying to stuff peanut butter and lard into a measuring cup. There's no way to do that without getting it all over you.

Put the bowl in the microwave and melt the mix down (about 5 minutes on High). Stir it together.

Have all the dry ingredients--chick starter, oats, cornmeal and flour--well blended in a lobster pot before pouring in the molten peanut butter/lard mixture.
Stir well with your heaviest spoon, making sure you get down to the bottom. I finish by working it with my hands. I sit on the floor with the lobster pot between my knees and Zick Dough up to my elbows, but I will spare you a photo of that.


The great thing about chick starter is it keeps the mix from getting so gummy and ensures a lovely texture to the final product. And it nourishes your birds. It's a win-win all around.

Mmm, good enough to sample. And yes, I do. I like to make sure it tastes good.


Disclaimer: Even New Zick Dough is too rich to be fed once the weather warms up. The birds will still beg, but please suspend feeding once it warms up and send them off to get the live insect protein they need. Here's Gouty, about three weeks after I suspended feeding Zick Dough. She's using both feet, and looks a lot better, no?



The last thing I want to do is pretend I have the final answer here. Like life, the Zick Dough recipe is a work in progress. I'll be watching to see how my birds fare this spring, having had a winter's worth of New Zick Dough. If your birds are hooked on Zick Dough, please find a feed store and pick up some chick starter--one 20-pound bag should last you all winter--and mix up the new recipe. It's easier to mix, smells lovely, and offers better nutrition to the birds we all love so well.


Thanks to Mary Ferracci for her photos and her friendship. And to Felicia Lovelett, for the chick starter idea. Answer my email, willya?

My Matchday - 243 The Shay

FC Halifax Town 3v0 Prescot Cables
Unibond Division One North
Saturday 6th March 2010 Halifax is a Minster town in the Calderdale borough of West Yorkshire. Halifax Minster dates back to the 12th century and is dedicated to John the Baptist, the towns coat of arms carries an image of the saints head, as local medieval legend proclaims the head of John the Baptist was buried here.
The town is well known for manufacturing wool and is also the birthplace of the Toffee Crisp! Toffee King John McIntosh started off from a humble shop in 1890, before becoming a thriving family business selling those chocolate delights including Quality Street and Rolos worldwide. John McIntosh merged with Rowntrees to form Rowntree-McIntosh in 1969 before being taking over by Nestle in 1988.
Nowadays the Halifax name is made famous by the bank and former building society. ‘The HalifaX’ has giving TV viewers some of the most irritating and overall annoying advertisements in the history of British television, their advertising campaigns have been a collection of excruciating visual and aural pain which is clearly at the top of my ‘foot through the tele’ moments.

FC Halifax Town formed out of the ashes of Halifax Town who went into administration during 2007-08 season. Debts of £2million with over £800,000 owed to HM Revenue and Customs saw the club wound up. The Shaymen reformed in July 2008, be it three steps further down the pyramid, the FA placing them in the Unibond League Division One North.
The original club formed in 1911, ten years later becoming founder members of the Football League Division Three North. The club peaked in 1970-71 finishing 3rd in the old 3rd Division missing out on promotion by one place, four points behind Fulham and five behind champions Preston North End.
Town were relegated to the Conference in 1992 before finally managed to regain their Football League status in 1998, until becoming the first club to be twice relegated into the Conference in 2001/02.
This time there was no League return, losing the 2006 play-off final to Hereford United with a narrow 3-2 defeat in extra-time. That 109th minute winning goal by Ryan Green was the beginning of the end, as the club then struggled both on the field and financially off it, which finally led to the club’s death within two years.

Having originally played on grounds on Sandhall Lane and Exley, The Shay was purposely built for Halifax Town’s arrival into the Football League. The name ‘Shay’ derives from the Old English word for ‘shaw’ meaning a small woodland area.
Work commenced in October 1920, players, directors and fans worked together to get the ground ready for the following season, with League football kicking off on 3rd September 1921 with a 5-0 over Darlington in front of 10,000 spectators.
The first stand was purchased from Manchester City’s old Hyde Road ground, which still stands and the only survivor of the big oval ash banked stadium, with terracing and stands far from the shrunken pitch.
The Skircoat Stand as it is now called, is still currently the main stand. The stand was once split between terracing and seats but is now all seated in blue with white lettering and gives the appearance that it may have been extended due to the uneven roof. Access is gained at the top of the stand along a long gangway, once inside at the top there’s a press area with some seats out of use. The front of the stand has blue supporting pillars and the peaked roof still has old fashioned type advertising at the side.

The Shay introduced Speedway for the first time in 1949, to accommodate this the pitch was made smaller to make way for the dirt track. The sport only lasted for three years but returning in 1965, again more construction work took place and this time it was a success, the Halifax Dukes stayed for the next twenty years and got bigger attendances than their football landlords.
The largest attendance came in February 1953 for an FA Cup 5th round tie with Tottenham Hotspur which drew a crowd of 36,885, with floodlights first switched on in 1961, Red Star Belgrade being the first illustrious opponents under lights.

The Shay is very different to what many people will remember when visiting as a '92 club', as three sides of the ground have completely changed with funding from the Football Foundation and Calderdale Council, the stadium owners since 1987.
The North Stand was built in 1998 which allowed Halifax Town to return to the Football League when winning the Conference. The stand is only used when there’s a large away support or when Halifax RLC host a big game. The South Stand is a similar terrace, completed over the following year and is the popular end with home fans. Both are large terraces with a blue frame and crash barriers with yellow gangways with excellent views of the pitch. The South Stand also has a five-a-side pitch and the Southdale lounge at the rear, there's also a large cabin temporary being used for hospitality purposes.
The East Stand will become the grounds main stand when finally completed. It replaced the old Patrons Stand which was demolished in 2000, but relegation meant work ceased after only two years. In 2008 the council stumped up £4.5m to finish the project which is has now finally complete and is planning to be opened by Easter.
The stand is quite impressive, decked out in blue with a capacity of 3,500 with hospitality suites along the top and centrally towards the south side.

FC Halifax strengthened their position in their quest for automatic promotion with a routine three goal win over a poor Prescot side.
On a heavily sanded pitch it was the visitors who started brightly but failed to trouble Halifax keeper Hedge, a trend which would continue for the rest of the afternoon as any wayward efforts tended to end up in the stands.
Halifax took the lead after half an hour and what an absolute beauty it was. A corner kick was headed clear but fell into the path of Winters, who hit a sweet volley from the edge of the box which flew high into the net.
Winters could have capped his man of the match performance with a second on 56 minutes, unlucky to see his 20 yard effort come back off the post, however two minutes later Town grabbed their second. Marshall ran on to a through ball but then seemed to bottle out of the 50-50 with goalkeeper Paxton, but an error from the keeper saw the ball fall kindly at his feet, leaving him to poke the ball into an empty net.
Halifax were reduced to ten men on the hour mark. Baker saw red after a lunge at centre half McIntosh. After a long delay Marshall was stretchered off, the victim was viciously booed off by some of the home support while the culprit had received a standing ovation, as a neutral spectator I have to ask the question … Why?
The numerical advantage didn’t make a difference as the home team had chances to add to the score. Prescot’s afternoon was typified by left back Laundon who received his second yellow card for childishly kicking the ball away, which summed up their frustrating afternoon.
The scoreline was complete in the third minute of injury time, good work by Dean set up Lowe to fire home from close range, which leaves The Shaymen four points behind leaders Lancaster but with a game in hand, with a meeting between the two teams still to come at The Shay next month.

My initial plan was a visit to Keighley, to see Silsden AFC play one of their last remaining fixtures in their ground share with their Rugby League landlords at Cougar Park.
I had booked some reasonably priced direct train tickets to Leeds, but after checking the Silsden forum on Friday night I discovered the NWCL game was postponed due to an egg chasing fixture clash.
So after digging out last weeks Non League Paper, I hastily checked out the fixtures and was relieved and also delighted to find that FC Halifax were at home, meaning I could finally pay a long overdue visit to The wonderful Shay.
My pre-booked trains nicely coincided with the 35-40 minute connection to Halifax, which gave me a good hour to have a look around and naturally have a couple of bevvies. After finally finding ‘The Barum Top Inn’ I then headed off towards the ground intending to stop off at the nearby GBG listed ‘Three Pigeons’. Before I got that far I walked past the Pump Room pub which somehow was beckoning me inside.
Its calling must have been the Geordie connection, as the lady behind the bar was a canny lass from Jarrow and the pub had the equivalent of ‘a little boy in a sweetshop’ choice of fine ales, I selected a pint of Goats Milk, and as I’m a native of Goatshead, it was a natural choice.
The pub had a friendly atmosphere, full of Yorkshiremen standing at the bar having deep discussions on their favourite subject - Yorkshire! I would have liked to have stayed longer but I had a match to go to, but its one I’d recommended to any future travellers.
I enjoyed my brief stay in Halifax. Those of you who visited the old Shay will be surprised how much it’s changed, although I feel the ground hasn’t lost any of its aura or appeal since its makeover. It’s just a shame what happened to the original Halifax Town as a cracking football ground like this is wasted languishing deep in the Unibond League.

FCHT 3(Winters 31 Marshall 57 Lowe 90)

PCFC 0

Att.1,322

Admission £10

Programme £2.50

Ground no.243 The Shay - Matchday Webalbum (21 pictures)

Challishing* in Whipple

I'm sitting at a table alive with daffodils and bicolored tulips in vases. I had to buy those. Two huge appleblossom pink amaryllis tower over them. Those, I grew from babies. Outside, the ground and sky are stubbornly, resolutely white. It was a weekend. Friday afternoon Bill and I hand-carried a ton or so of music equipment up a snowy hill in a blizzard to the van, because we couldn't pull down to the basement door. Loaded that. Bill, the kids and I drove in two cars to Columbus in a three-hour, white-knuckle nightmare of slush and overturned cars so we could play our Swinging Orangutangs gig for the Ohio Ornithological Society. The other Orangs made it, but everyone was hollow-eyed and shell-shocked by the time they staggered in. Something about seeing trucks losing control in front of you takes the shine off winter driving.

The people who were able to get there at all enjoyed it, and so did we. The band busted down the doors and had a great time, ate fire-hot chicken wings and drank bad margaritas at midnight and then flopped in our hotel. That was nice. I drove home with the kids on Saturday afternoon, ran out of gas, coasted down the providential exit ramp, walked to a station, bought a $9 one-gallon gas can, and spent twenty minutes just trying to figure out how to assemble the childproof nozzle and cap so I could put the damn gallon in my dead car. By then it had started snowing again, and I resumed my death grip on the wheel to guide us home. The roads were lousy; our driveway was very nearly impassable. Another foot. Another freakin' foot of snow. What is going on??

Sunday morning I shoveled leaden wet snow for two hours, and practically had to call a Whipple Township trustee meeting to get our driveway plowed out so we could have 19 people over Sunday afternoon for an early birthday celebration for Bill of the Birds, who was still in Columbus volunteering for the OOS event (he's the emcee with the mostest). I had raided my favorite stores in Columbus--Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I bought the biggest fattest Whole Foods spears of Mexican asparagus that you have ever seen; I was making sweet potato hash, baby Swiss quiche and slow-roasted baby back ribs for 20, and in my book having all that fabulous fresh food and an impassable driveway is an unqualified Domestic Emergency. Luckily the trustees agreed, at least in theory, and a huge tractor with a blade showed up to deliver this resolute foodqueen from disaster in her snowbound castle. The dinner was a smashing success. If I had had my choice, I wouldn't have started a full day of heavy cooking with several hours of shoveling wet snow and finding someone to remove same from a quarter-mile-long driveway. But this winter, at least for me, is all about having no choice. I feel like a feedsack full of boulders today.

Any more, our house feels like McMurdo Station, the outside having changed from my second home to an inhospitable, barely-navigable place that makes me miserable. The snow is a mess to walk through, all crusty and bumpy. The idea of taking a hike in it is about as appealing as pounding my shins with a hammer. Chet and I have grown fat and lazy in our enforced confinement. There was one day--one day--when we saw a few bare patches of grass, but by nightfall it was being covered up again, and within two days we had another foot of it on the ground.

After my shoveling and plowing adventure, I decided that I had one good thing to say about the latest foot of heavy wet snow. You can grab handfuls of it and scrub the starling sh*t off the bird feeders.

There. There's your silver lining.

Hence the vases upon vases of daffodils and tulips, the blooming amaryllis, the orchids. I am challishing**, and these are the decorations in my hospital room.


a detail of a new Guatemalan quilt I just broke out for the occasion.

My neighbor Beth said she saw a woodcock wandering along the side of our road. Poor thing. He should have been singing, displaying and mating for two weeks now. Instead he ekes out a living on almost nothing. I don't even want to think about what happens to woodcocks who arrive on schedule to find more than a foot of snow on their lekking and feeding grounds. I can't imagine what they find to eat. Maybe they go into the woods and poke around in the unfrozen parts of streams.

We're out of sunflower seed. Again. Gotta buy another 150 pounds of seed next trip into town. Gotta make another sextupled batch of Zick Dough. Gotta keep those bluebirds going. Gotta get another 40 lb. of corn for the four whitetail fawns who are losing all fear of me, the Good Corn Fairy. Gotta toss out the old pork roast for the three crows I adore, who will now come up right under the studio window and cock their bright eyes at me. If I look directly at them they turn their backs and wigwag away, arms crossed behind their backs, as if the last thing on their minds was begging, but they're begging, make no mistake. I've got them right where I want them, and they've got me. I love, love, love my crows.

I stick my nose into the daffodils and breathe deeply of their polleny yellow scent. The tulips, fainter but sweetly heady. They keep growing in the vase, their long stems twisting like curious necks. I don't know how they do that, grow with no bulb or roots as fuel, but I'm glad they do. Something has to be growing in this wasteland.


Never have I been so winter-weary, so thoroughly pummeled, pounded and beaten by a winter. I can't remember what it feels like to take the wheel of a car and not worry about the road conditions. I can't remember T-shirts or a warm breeze lifting the downy hairs on my arms. I can't remember going outside without a hat and parka.


So I fill the vases with storebought spring, and wait.


** a lovely Yiddish word meaning, "to die slowly, inch by inch."

Happy Birthday, Bill!

It has been a long winter. Beautiful, if somewhat harsh.



It seems fitting that you should have been born on the brink of spring.



Like springtime, you bring fun


music

dance


joy

and love.


Soon it will be time to take to the woods again


to look for the riches hidden all around us.

Remember us in all your travels


and hurry home


to find what waits for you here.