The birder returns! UPDATED!

Foggy morning at Bald Eagle State Park

Well, I finished that big project at work, and I've got soooo much stuff saved up for you! It's been an action-packed last few days around the homefront, and I'll try to give you a little insight into the doings at the Marsh House.

First, on a sad note, I found this last Thursday evening:

Here's his head, with some little red feathers just coming in:

Poor little guy. I gave him a proper burial in the area of the backyard we call the graveyard--where we bury every dead animal we find around the house. Since moving out to the "the country," I've noticed that we find a lot of dead animals. Life is raw and rough out there; death is, however, usually quick.

UPDATE:I had thought the bird was a downy woodpecker, but my birding friend from work Hillel tells me it's probably a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Man, that would've been a new yardbird, too! Poor little guy.

Saturday morning, Gretchen and I did something I haven't done in years: went fishing! Now I know that some people will decry this activity as somehow going against my tender feelings for nature and animals. However, I just can't help myself; I love fishing! Even when nothing is biting, sitting by the gently stirring waters of a lake is good for the soul. And there's nothing quite like the feeling of a swimming lifeform at the other end of the line, tugging and fighting. PLUS--I have always caught and released; I don't eat them! Kat doesn't like it at all; she says I'm hurting their little lips--which may be true. But I can't help it! I love it!

We only caught perch and sunfish that day; here's Gretchen the mighty Perch Master with a typical catch of the day:

This is Gretchen's wonderfully gentle and sweet dog, Domino:
She was so good; she just loves Gretchen, so she doesn't run all over the place causing trouble. She sits and waits or wanders only a short distance away, preferring to keep her mom in sight at all times. Great dog!

We had a great time fishing, despite the heat. It was nice to get out there again and wet a worm.

In the post after this one (so it'll be above it, which is kinda technically before it, but -- whatever!), I'll give you a view of the skies over the Marsh House.

Pardon the interruption...

...in my posting, but I'm working on a huge project at work so I need to take a couple of days off from the bloggy world. I'll be back--with posts on a sad bird window-strike, a fishing trip, and an other-worldly photo session!--in a couple of days.

New River, here we come! (next year)

For some time now, I'd been debating about whether I could manage another birding festival for the spring migration. Birding festivals ain't cheap, and I knew I couldn't do the fall migration this year because I'll be in Texas at my parents' 50th anniversary party. (I'm still hoping to get in a little birding time, as it's the same weekend as the Rio Grande Valley festival, but we'll be in San Antonio so I don't know what the birding will be like.)

I was thinking about Cape May in the spring, as I'd done the fall migration there last year. However, some members of the Flock started cheeping about going to a new place: New River Gorge in West Virginia. A bunch of emails, a couple of OCD planner-types, and some thorny algebraic calculations later, we've managed to figure out how a bunch of us can go to the festival!

You can find information on the festival here. The coolest part? Let me show you:

Yes indeed, Julie Zickefoose will be there! I had the birding experience of a lifetime last time I birded with Zick, and this time she'll be accompanied by hubby BT3, the darling children!, AND... CHET BAKER!

No, not THIS Chet Baker:

THIS Chet Baker:
Offisa Pupp!

Details to follow--but boy-oh-boy am I excited!

For Dr Zaius

Bloggy hero Dr. Zaius has been asking for more Niblet photos, so I asked Niblet and he was kind enough to pose a little bit for me last night. He's apparently been taking dance lessons.

Thanks to my ballet class, I can now stand en pointe.


Not to mention how well I dance the cha-cha.


Keep your eyes on mah badonk-adonk-donk...

And who is his teacher? Surely not...

Clawsie!

Still having the dumb, needing your help

I got a bunch of great responses to my random question about who your favorite singer is. So many choices!

So--let's narrow it down a bit. First off--my top three choices, from my list of (counting)13 singers: Barbra Streisand, Alison Krauss, Joni Mitchell. In that order. Ella Fitzgerald made the list, along with people like Sinead O'Connor, Chrissie Hynde, Shelby Lynne, Tricia Yearwood, Rosemary Clooney, and Karen Carpenter.

Now--your replies, with vote tallies:

WOMEN with 2 votes:
Ella Fitzgerald
Joan Baez
Barbara Streisand
Celine Dion

WOMEN with 1 vote:
Maria Callas
Eva Cassidy
Etta James
Grace Slick
Judy Collins
Emmy Lou Harris
k d lang
Billie Holliday
Christina Aguilera

Not a bad list at all. Good work, people! Now for the gents, none of which received more than one vote:
Josh Groban
Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
Waylon Jennings
Ray Charles
Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Nusrat Fata Ali Khan
George Michael
Barry White
Luther Vandross
Johnny Cash
Ray LaMontagne
Justin Nozuka
Michael Buble
Jack Johnson
Jason Mraz
John Denver

Not a bad lineup there, with some really distinctive voices and great song stylists.

SO--I'm going to do a poll! I'll put it in the sidebar for a month. For the women, I'll do the top four vote-getters. Then everyone can just vote and we'll see which singer tops the pops!

Now for the men, I'll need some help--as no one got more than one vote, and I didn't have any male singers on my list so my vote doesn't count, I'll ask everyone to vote for their top male singer from the list above. Go to it, people! When I get four top vote-getters, I'll do a male singer poll too. Until then, it's LADIES' NIGHT! Oh yes the music's right, oh yes it's ladies' night, oh what a night! (oh what a night)

A rare crosspost to my other bloggy--UPDATED!

Tired of thinking today; I am working on a mind-numbing project at work which involves check part numbers online. 3,400 part numbers. Three thousand four hundred partnos. As Matty Boy so aptly put it:

Only I think I have the cross-eyed, from looking at this spreadsheet of partnos.

So here's my question for you, as I look up partnos and listen to music in my tiny cubey:

Who's your favorite singer of all time? I mean, the one you think is the best voice you've ever heard.

P.S.--I still haven't had time to play with my fossil stuff from Maryland. Soon, people. Soon.

UPDATE! Here on my birdy blog so far, each commenter picked at least one female singer. On my other (political), almost all the super-opinionated types refused to pick! Here is a list culled from your comments:

Joan Baez (2 votes, including a tie with Madame Callas)
Ella Fitzgerald
Maria Callas
Eva Cassidy

All female vocalists--interesting! One person on the political blog did pick Paul McCartney.

Shall we qualify, then? To get a few more names into the mix? Here are a few thoughts:
1. My birding pal from work Hillel and I discussed the fact that some people are great singers (technically proficient, beautiful voice, etc.) while others are great vocalists, able to interpret a song like no one else but not necessarily the best technical voices. I think someone like Chrissie Hynde falls into this category. Not always pitch-perfect but emotionally honest and gut-wrenching.
2. The male/female thing--personally, I prefer the voices of women to men (go figure). However, someone like Andrea Boccelli can make me stop in my tracks to listen to him, as can Eric Clapton. Bono is also excellent. However, all the people on my initial list were females, from Streisand (the total package) to Shelby Lynne, Sinead O'Connor, and Alison Krauss (who IMHO could be, as the liner notes on one of her CDs say, "simply the best singer on the planet").
3. The question of genre loomed large for many. Let's narrow it to your favorite kind of music, with your favorite voice in that genre. Or not--whatever!

Some ideas to get your brains out of the dumb on a beeee-yootiful Friday morning.

Maryland Adventures

A quick photography note: All pictures in this post were taken by Gretchen and/or Kat unless otherwise noted.

We all had a good time in Maryland, visiting Old St. Mary's City and all their historic exhibits and hanging out at Calvert Cliffs on the Chesapeake Bay. I even got some bird pics!

We arrived late Thursday night and spent some time hanging around with Kat's old friend and her husband and baby. After a nice breakfast on Friday morning, we visited Old St. Mary's City and the Maryland Dove, a small ship built to look like similarly used boats from the 1600s (of which there are no photos, specs, etc.):

We also saw some wildlife; I shot this osprey nest about two hundred yards from the boat, just off the shore of the St. Mary's River:I'm guessing that's Mommy on the left, with two nestlings on the right. Daddy was flying around the whole time, but I managed to get a shot of him:
I was hoping to see him dive for some food, but no luck there.

This being Maryland of the 1600s, tobacco was king; this, however, was the king killer:

This guy must've been over three inches long. We were told he was a tobacco hornworm, though his horn is much smaller (invisible, in fact) than the tomato hornworm's. Still, his size impressed me--here's Gretchen's finger for scale:

All around the boat, which was anchored on the St. Mary's River, we saw jellyfish like this one:

We later had to put Gretchen in the stockade:

However, to avoid charges of cruel and unusual punishment, we allowed her to keep her sunglasses in the bright sun.

Speaking of the sun, by this point in the trip we'd each sweated off about five pounds in the heat and humidity of southern Maryland. Boy, was I missing the mountains of PA!

We then toured all these really neat historical buildings, some of which were merely frames constructed on the original sites.

Here, we were in an "ordinary"--a public inn whose rates were set by the local government--checking out some commonly owned weapons of the day. Gretchen got to wear a "lobstertail" helmet and hold a pike:

The girly skirt really completes the ensemble.

I call this one "NRA Mommy" as Kat looks so proud of Em's facility with a muzzleloader:

"Ah wanna make shore that all mah younguns know how to defend us from revenooers!"

My favorite building by far was this woodworking building, where I got to play with a draw knife and sit on a shaving horse, with a couple of accommodating maidens of the day looking on:

The cool part is that, for some time now, I've been looking for the materials to build my own shaving horse. I found some drawings online but they were way more complicated than this one. So now I have a photo and can draw up my own construction plans! (Shhh, don't tell Kat! It's all part of my secret plan to erect an entire woodshop filled with old-fashioned hand tools and benches!)

After a rain-soaked holiday, we spent Saturday helping Kat's friend around her house, painting, etc. However, we were rewarded with some lovely margaritas for our trouble! (no photos were taken, to protect the guilty)

Here's a weird bug we found in the car:

Any ideas on what the heck it is? It was almost an inch long!

On our way home Sunday, we stopped at Calvert Cliffs, a renowned fossil-collecting spot. There's a mile-and-a-half walking trail to the shore, during which I heard some birds--but mostly red-eyed vireos and some others that I just couldn't see, so no pics of them. Still, we stopped at a marshy area and Kat got some nice photos. For all you dragonfly enthusiasts, here are two--one blue and one red (and blurry):

Crazy auto-focus!

Here's a little snail from the trail:

and a little froggy that Gretchen, aka Frog Hunter, caught in a little tire-rut pool in the road:
Here's Em holding him in one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip:
I love how gently she's holding him; he just sat there in her hands, a happy little frog.

We got to the cliffs (finally) but only a short strip of beach was open, as the cliffs themselves are unstable (I wanted to get a pic but was shooed away by a ranger, dangit!). The beach:

Kat says that almost every photo she takes of me when we're on vacation is either me looking up for birds:

or looking down for rocks and stuff. Beginning to fossil-hunt:

I did find a real fossilized shark tooth! But I forgot to get a picture of it. I'll get that, as well as post about my further adventures fossil-hunting, tomorrow.

Day-before-the-holiday restlessness

I am soooooo geeked up right now: it's a three-day holiday weekend, we're going to Maryland to see Kat's best friend and her family, AND we're going to see the Chesapeake Bay!

"Restlessness" hardly covers what I'm feeling now, as my legs bounce up and down on my toes at uncontrollable speeds, I'm mainlining coffee (not a good idea, but what the hell), and I'm trying to get all my work done.

While perusing a little "hot all-bird action" over at Birdchick's blog, I found out about something that all beginning birders should strive for: the Bird Author Pose™, inspired by Pete Dunne, gamely copied by Birdchick herself, and unintentionally (and kinda poorly) done by yours truly in Cape May! Thanks to Laura at SomewhereinNJ for taking this photo of the beginning birder:


Note the wind-blown locks, the dorky ID access tag, and the crappy scope and meh-tripod. Beginning to bird indeed! I didn't even do the profile/over-the-shoulder pose, dangit!

I sure hope we get to see some good birds down in Maryland. I'll be sure to take pictures (no, really!).

Baby bird UPDATE!

This afternoon in the courtyard, little robin baby Seymour (Niki named him) was hopping around (didn't see Albert the house sparrow--again, Niki named him too), and I was wondering if he might have been abandoned. Lo and behold, Mama Robin Helen (again, Niki's work) swooped in with a mouthful of earthwormy goodness! How I wish I could've gotten a photo or even video on my phonecam, but it all happened so fast!

Here's another picture of Seymour:

I love that stubby butt!

UPDATE to the UPDATE! For some great photos of baby robins and their speckley breasts, see Birdchick's blog!

See yesterday's adventures with baby birds.

Baby birdies all around!

Niki and I were out in the courtyard at work yesterday afternoon, on break (which of course we stringently and religiously limit to 15 minutes! Really!) (ed. note: well, not really), and we kept hearing this sharp "chip!" sound. It sounded a little high, almost shriek-like, for a cardinal, so I walked around in the direction of the sound.

Here's what I found:
OHMYGODHE'SSOCUTEWILLYOUJUSTLOOKATHIMHE'SPRECIOUS!

Little guy was tiny--probably three inches from tip of the beak to his stubby little bottom. He flew a bit at first, afraid of me, but he landed on one of the tables and sat for me.

SO--as it happens, just this morning I read a post on Julie Zickefoose's blog about what she did when she found a little lonely fledgling, peeping for his mother or father to come find him. I then did what she did, pulling out my Walkman BirdJam and playing a Chipping Sparrow's trilly call. I wasn't sure what kind of bird this was--other than sparrow--so I guess chippy because we had some in the courtyard last year too.

So I played the call--no response. I walked around, blasting the chippy trills at full volume. Nothing.

I was worried. Note that I should've realized at this point that maybe it wasn't a chipping sparrow, but it never occurred to me to question my shaky ID. Go figure.

Suddenly, an adult sparrow appeared on the roof at the edge of the courtyard. I looked up.

HOUSE SPARROW.

DAMMIT!

By now, the cute little baby was chipping away again in his little "mommy help me!" voice.

House sparrow baby? How could you be a house sparrow?!

My loud "Dammit it's a house sparrow!" frightened Daddy HOSP away, but I'm sure he'll come back for Junior. Dammit. I played the house sparrow call for a bit, just in case.

In the meantime, as I walked back to the table where we were snacking (on hummus and fresh carrots and green peppers! And keeping it to fifteen minutes! Really!) (ed. note: yes, the veggies and hummus part is true, but the break has now lasted at least 25 minutes), and there, near the table, is a baby American Robin!

You can't see it in the photo but I love the way their little not-yet-red breasts are colored. Those speckles are so nice; do you suppose they are colored that way so that they mix in with the leaves and the nest better? And will ya look at that stubby little butt?

I love baby birds!

PS--I bet a lot of you recognized that the baby sparrow was a HOSP right off the bat, didn't you?

OMG a new yardbird!

Tonight, Gretchen was over for dinner, and when she went out to her car, she heard an owl! It was dusk, so the blue of the post-sunset sky served as a backdrop to the silhouetted trees and Egg Hill.

I went outside and heard it: "hoo h-hoo, hoo, hoo!" Great Horned Owl! Coming from the willow and oaks at the back of Neighbor Ed's property!

We listened to it for a little bit, and then I called back to it with my BirdJam, and it called back to me! "hoo h-hoo, hoo, hoo!"

I ran upstairs to get Em so she could hear, but when we got back the hooting had stopped. Repeated calls with the BirdJam were of no avail. Still, Gretchen said she didn't see the owl fly out of the trees, though he may have stayed low and flown farther into the marshland behind Neighbor Ed's.

This is not only a new yardbird for me; it's also the first time I've ever heard an owl--any owl!--in real life!

I'm so pumped!

UPDATE: This brings my yardbird total (counting the marsh birds I see and hear from the backyard) to 71!

Mission: Time Wastage

(is wastage a word? waste-age? the age of the waste?)

All you song-savvy birders need to run over to Beckeye's pop culture blog and take her massively cool song lyrics quiz. Four decades, three levels of difficulty per decade, three songs per level of difficulty.

It's a killah!

Yes, Susan, I do own a camera!

and I took some pictures to prove it!

First, here's a bug I found flying around on our three-season (enclosed) porch a couple of weeks ago:

What the heck is that? He was a big bug--at least two inches long. He's sitting on this weird rock I found in Wooster, MA. (it's silvery and flaky)

Here's a profile of him, with me kinda pissing him off because I held him by the wings so you could see him better (you know how cruel I can be to bugs):

UPDATE! -click for terrifyingly huge- (I think I fixed the click-for-big thing!)Look at him rearing up and trying to bite me with those terrifying jaws! He flew off shortly after this photo was taken. Go figure.

After I took my power walk last night (I was too sleepy in the morning), I grabbed the binocs and camera and ran back out to photograph this little family of mourning doves:

It was really late, and it was kinda sprinkling, so all we have is a silhouette. That's mommy on the left, with two smaller ones huddled down beside her. Daddy (I guess) was on the power line that you can see crossing the bottom of the screen, only out of frame.

I'm also happy to report that I drove a bunch of Eastern meadowlarks positively bonkers last night by playing my fake BirdJam's meadowlark recording! One of them flew right at me and then circled me a couple of times, trying to figure out just what the heck I was and where the sound was coming from. It was incredibly exciting! I didn't even have to play the whole recording before these guys just started "spring of the year"-ing all over the place! It was awesome.

Next, I know you're all dying to know how my little vegetable garden is doing. I took this picture last night after I came back from photographing the MODO family, so it's pretty dark:
In the front, you can see a bunch of what I first thought were carrots but now I realize is probably just Queen Anne's lace. Oops. Behind that are my raspberry plants to the left and right in front of the fence. That tall thing is a volunteer mammoth sunflower (from last year). There are also some volunteer cilantro plants here and there, making the stepping stones a little harder to navigate.

Here are the lettuces--arugula and green leaf (left to right):

This is my first try at arugula--and boy howdy, it's way spicier than the stuff you buy in the store, even the organic stuff. It's pretty strong, but it does add a nice zip to salads.

The cilantro has already gone to flower--this is all volunteer stuff from last year; I didn't even plant one seed; also pictured to the right of the cilantro are my four brocolli plants, a new veggie for me:

I gave Nibble some lettuce (including arugula, which he ate) and a big leaf from one of the brocolli plants, and he was in bunny heaven! Here's a little Pandering: a shot of the Nibble-tocks, to satisfy Fran's Nibsession:

Back to the garden: Here are three little green pepper plants 'California Wonder', with some crookneck yellow squash behind them, and another volunteer sunflower plant behind that:
Again, it's really getting dark by this point, so it's tough to see. There's also a little volunteer cilantro plant in the lower left corner; the cilantro is kinda out-of-control this year. But then my garden is always a little wild. Remember the lettuce tree and the weedy wonderland? The morning glory that took over the world?

Oh, and I realized that I did actually take one photo while atlassing last week with Roana:
This is a little mountain stream near Poe Paddy State Park. There were about a million butterflies flying around in this area, but I didn't manage to get any pictures of them. Sorry!

To finish off, I have two cloud photos I took with my Sony-Ericsson Walkman 580i camera phone. The first one was taken while driving about 75 mph down Rt 220 toward State College:
I dig the sunbeams. This next one is the weirdest-looking cloud/sun combo I've ever seen; it was taken in April, so it was still really cold which might explain the clouds:

That's a birch tree in the lower left corner, with the sun shining through these weird cotton-batting-like clouds. Creepy, huh?

Atlassing and lifebirds!

What a busy week it's been! I've barely had enough time to read and comment on other blogs, much less post much on this one. However, I had a great time atlassing this past Sunday with my pal Roana and wanted to tell you about it.

Sadly, I have no pictures of my TWO LIFEBIRDS that I got that day. I think some kind of funk comes over me when I'm in the field sometimes, and I just forget that I have a camera. I'm so busy looking at the bird that I forget to take a photo of it. This happened a lot this weekend, which is a real shame because the views I got of both birds were spectacular!

First, I finally got to hear a black-billed cuckoo's soft "coo coo, coo coo" coming from a tree. I didn't see the bird, so I'm not counting it as a lifer. You know what a hard-ass I am. Still, it was so cool to hear a cuckoo saying "cuckoo," you know?

Second, for my first lifer, I saw an entire family of Louisiana Waterthrushes! They were up the hill from a creek, and I got to see one of the adults do quite the little tail maneuver. They move their tails up and up in what is quite honestly a silly and cute little dance--but hey, the chicks must dig it! I was no more than ten feet from this bird, and I STILL didn't think to get a picture. Can you believe it?

I also FINALLY got to see a Hairy Woodpecker, and the size difference from a downy was so freakin' obvious that I realized that I'd never seen one before that day. I thought I had, but I hadn't -- so this one doesn't really count, because I'd already counted it!

Finally, for my second lifer, I got a great look at a Veery. Might've been a female, because it wasn't singing at all, but it was still great to see this beautiful singer.

Overall, we got 51 species in two different blocks in Mifflin County. One of the blocks is mostly Amish farmland with some great woodsy areas, while the other is in Poe Paddy State Park. Both yielded various habitats and some great looks at birds--not to mention one spot where we found cicadas covering EVERYTHING.

Cicadas were all over the weeds and plants, the trees and powerlines, the signs and the fences. I believe most were part of the 17-year cyclical group, which was really neat. When I was a kid, we used to get cicadas every year, from little green ones to big old black and red ones. We would catch them and then tie some thread around their thorax area and fly 'em around like they were on a leash! (sorry!) These guys on Sunday must've just hatched because they were just sitting around, dark with glowing-orange-red eyes and wings. They didn't even try to evade capture. Still, I had no thread with me....

Here's my list, then, of what we found:
Canada Goose
Mallard (a female on her nest!)
Turkey Vulture
Killdeer
Rock Pigeon (including an entire flock of snow-white ones)
Mourning Dove
Black-billed Cuckoo
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Eastern Wood Pewee (they were everywhere! yay! I love them.)
Acadian Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo (these guys were everywhere too)
Blue Jay
American Crow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
Veery
Hermit Thrush (got a great look at one of these, as he was pecking around in the leaf litter)
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Euro Starling
Northern Parula (so beautiful)
Yellow Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler (one of my faves)
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler (my favorite warbler)
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
Louisiana Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler
Canada Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco (I thought all of these had gone north, but they breed here in the higher elevations)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (love 'em!)
Indigo Bunting (sigh)
Red-winged Blackbird
Common (oh so common) Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird (not too many, which was good)
Baltimore Oriole

We had a great time, and then we had the world-famous French toast at the Honeycreek Inn in Reedsville. If you're ever on Hwy 322 between Lewistown and State College, go there. Get the French toast. Prepare for heaven in your mouth!

Lolz Cat/Bird

Dguzman: Squirrel murderer

It happened this morning, the thing I've always dreaded since I started driving: I accidentally ran over and killed an animal this morning on my way to work. It was a squirrel.

The little guy was sitting in the middle of the road, and I'd just come around a curve--and I couldn't stop in time. I tried to kinda veer over to the side, but I guess he ran under my driver's-side tires. I felt two little bumps under the tires and I knew it was over. I glanced back in my rear-view mirror and there he was, no longer a live little creature.

Dangit. May he go to a place where he can run and scamper without fear of death.

Morning Walk Birds

I mentioned the other day that I take a two-mile brisk walk (without binocs or camera) each day, preferably in the early morning from 6ish to a little before 7. When I've had enough sleep, this walk really energizes me for the day; last night, though, I couldn't get to sleep until about 1:30am so when the alarm sounded today, I was not happy. But I said my little motivational phrase ("It is NOT an option"--my friend Matty taught it to me) and got out of bed.

It is a warm humid day in Central PA; the morning was damp and foggy, but I saw a few good birds. Here's a list of the ones I've been able to see or hear as I (ahem) speed by:

Blackbird, Red-winged
Bluebird, Eastern
Cardinal, Northern
Catbird, Gray
Chickadee, Black-capped
Crow, American
Dove, Mourning
Finch, House
Gnatcatcher, Blue-gray
Goldfinch, American
Heron, Great Blue (more on this later)
Heron, Green
Mallard (I see a drake, two hens, and their (?) eight ducklings every morning. It's a "new" kind of family, I guess....)
Mockingbird, Northern
Robin, American
Sparrow, Chipping
Sparrow, Field
Sparrow, House (I always give them dirty looks)
Sparrow, Song
Starling, European
Swallow, Barn
Swallow, Tree
Swift, Chimney
Thrush, Wood (at least one has taken up residence on the wooded hillside across the street--yay!)
Vireo, Warbling
Warbler, Yellow
Waxwing, Cedar
Woodpecker, Red-bellied
Wren, Carolina
Yellowthroat, Common

The gnatcatcher and the green heron were newbies for me today, but the others are pretty much right there with me each and every morning. (or evening, if I can't make myself get up early)

Do you remember those two stick nests I found near my house, built high in a couple of dead pines?

the photo I took in March

Turns out they are great blue heron nests! I've seen two GBHEs flying and landing on the nests and the trees, either brooding on the eggs or just hanging out on a nearby branch. I still haven't seen one land in the marsh, but maybe these are my herons from the past few years? These nests are now well-hidden by leaf cover, but if I look up through a clearing just around the bend of the creek from the nests, I can see the herons and the nests from a slightly different angle and from much farther away than I could in March. I hope we get babies soon!

Not taking my binocs and camera guarantees that I'll focus on walking fast, instead of dawdling at a leisurely pace and looking for birds. Still, it's a nice route, running by sections of Penns Creek so I get to see ducks and geese and their babies sometimes. That, along with running with the cows, is pretty much the highlight of the morning walk. Oh, and all the melting-off of the extra pounds! That too.

Running with the Cows and stuff

a neighborhood cow, pre-teen model

Every morning I take a two-mile walk along a country road near my house. Because it's for exercise, I don't take my camera or my binoculars. I do a mile in about 20 minutes, which I'm hoping to whittle down to 15 minutes within a couple of months. (I have short legs, so I'm moving as fast as I can right now!)

I pass a cow pasture on Kline Road, and if I'm lucky, I get to see the cows in the pasture run toward their barn. I don't get it every morning, because sometimes I'm too late or too early. When I do see it, I've noticed that first one cow begins to run, then another, and then they all get the hint and start tearing toward the barn for their breakfast.

On the mornings when I'm there to see them run, I run with them. They stare at me, but I think they're getting used to me. It's only about fifty yards, but they work those big bodies of theirs as fast as they can. There's always one pokey one, a brown cow with a very light brown face (as opposed to a white face) whom I call Chloe. Chloe is always last to the barn.

I wish I had pictures of this spectacle for you, but as I said--I don't take the camera. Otherwise, I'd be doodling around out there for hours, stopping and snapping and looking through the binocs and stuff. This is one of the cows Gretchen and I photographed a few weeks ago.

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I don't have a new pic of the phone for this section, so I'll pander and put Niblet here!

I'VE FINISHED THE FAKE BIRDJAM! I was a little stymied by the whole mp3 / AAC file thing, but Jay remembered that you can change the options in iTunes to make it convert files to mp3s! So this morning I tried it, and it worked! I now have the edited files on my phone, complete with a transcription of the bird sound (tzip-tzip-zee), and the Latin names for the birds! I didn't load the photos of the birds onto the phone because I don't think my phone displays the art for the tracks. Still--no more Lang Elliot saying "Savannah Sparrow" and no more double tracks! Best of all, thanks to Jay's generosity, it was FREE.

In return for the Birdjam Maker software, I have to write detailed instructions for Jay on how I made my fake Birdjam. I've been keeping notes, so that won't be hard.

I'm just glad this project worked out successfully. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that my little do-it-yourself projects don't always work out well; in fact, sometimes they result in disaster. (I won't bother to think back, as I can simply remind you of the homemade scope and the broken Nikon camera... sigh.) (Actually, the homemade scope works okay, but it's certainly not high enough quality to use for photography or anything. I have used it to look at the stars and the moon, though.)

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Clawsie, sleeping on the bed--as usual

My final little tidbit is to tell you that Clawsie's been a little under the weather. She got some sort of infection at the base of her tail -- she might have gotten a mosquito bite or something, and she kept messing with it, and then it got infected because her immune system is not as strong as a normal kitty's (remember that all my kitties are FIV+). We had to take her to the vet, which was the usual traumatic experience (she pukes, she drools, she has explosive diarrhea--it's a real circus act). But she's on antibiotics now, and she's doing much better. She was sleeping all the time before, and she kinda smelled. Now she's able to clean herself and she's running around with the other kitties like usual.

The pilling isn't a picnic, as she got wise to the Pill Pockets after only two times. Now we use one of those plastic syringe-like tubes to blast the pills down her throat. She hates it!

So she's doing a bit better now, but the sore on her tail is healing slowly. Send some good wishes her way; I'm sure she'll hiss at you for your trouble.