Pointers plan to swim Lake St. Clair
for cystic fibrosis awareness

Weather permitting, Grosse Pointer Ric Geyer and nine friends will go for a swim in Lake St. Clair Tuesday.

Not a biggie, you say. Well, they are planning to swim from the Old Club on Harsen’s Island and end up near the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club.

That’s a 14-mile, eight-hour splash. Two swimmers will attempt to cross the entire lake, while others will swim legs of various lengths. The chase boat will be donated and captained by Mike Stevens, who will also be one of the swimmers.

“We are hoping to avoid the driving rain, lightning and hail that characterized last year’s swim,” said Ric, managing partner of 4731 Consulting. The objective is to raise funds for Ric’s son’s medical trust fund and raise awareness of a hereditary disease – cystic fibrosis.

Young Rickie, seen here with his dad, turned 9 on Aug. 10. He was diagnosed three years ago and is functioning almost normally most of the time under the care of Dr. Samya Nasr of Mott’s Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan.

You can donate to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation via Ric’s website.

Things that go screech in the night

 When the folks in the 500 block of Pemberton heard screeching in the middle of the night this summer, they didn’t call Park police – they just located the owl family that was living in the neighborhood.

Sharon McMillan reports there were five of the small owls – two adults and three babies. Besides screeching, the birds also hoot, rasp, chuckle-rattle and bark, according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Animal Diversity website.

Sad to say (since most screech owls mate for life), the mother owl was found injured at a Pemberton resident’s back door and the male and babies sat in a nearby tree until she died, then disappeared.

A few weeks later one baby returned and posed in the low branches of a tree while Sharon and her son found the right angle to shoot pictures from. As they walked around it, the owl swiveled its head to follow their movements.

Screech owls have yellow beaks and eyes, large feet, feathered toes and large ear tufts, according to the U of M scientists. About 30 to 50 percent of the babies survive and the oldest owl noted in the wild was over 14 years old.

They eat bugs, worms, frogs, snakes, mice, bats and even small birds and have been known to bring live blind snakes and acrobat ants to their nests in tree cavities to eat the insects that infest them, according to the U of M folks.

They range from southern Canada to Florida and from the Rocky Mountains east to the Atlantic coast.

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