Camera Problems

Mr. Wibbles never did finish his shed. Most of it ended up coming off in one piece, with two or three shreds of it separated from the whole here and there. However, there is one piece about 3/4" long that remains stuck under his chin. Why that didn't come off we're not sure, but my wife thinks that with his wobble he might have an especially tough time rubbing that spot against a surface (since he frequently tilts his head at a slight angle). I've got his humidity around 85%, but since that doesn't seem to be getting the job done we may end up having to help the guy out.

So we fed him on Wednesday night and I was all prepared to film the whole thing for posterity when the new digital camera I own reported that the batteries were exhausted. Normally I would take the camera's word for it, but I've had this camera for less than a week and I've already changed the batteries twice. This time I used a flashlight to check the batteries and wouldn't you know, they were fine and had plenty of life left in them. The camera takes several different kinds of batteries; right now we're using AA's. We'll switch to lithium or one of the other options and see if that does any better, but something tells me I'll be taking advantage of the warranty.

Long story short: no pics or video of the feeding. So here are my observations.

(1) He ate 2 F/T (frozen/thawed) mouse fuzzies.

(2) He nailed them both on his first attempts.

(3) If you only saw the strike that took the first mouse, you'd never know he was a wobbler.

(4) Before taking the 2nd mouse, he was lurching around spastically. Think of the movie "Men in Black", and the bug in the Edgar suit. He moved around like that, tilting/flopping to the left, then abruptly jerking around the other way, his head not quite positioned the way it should be. It got more pronounced when I dangled the mouse for him. Possibly he was scared, but eventually his tongue flicked, he suddenly became quite calm, and a second later he struck perfectly and double-coiled.

I was quite proud.