Stabbing westward

because a quarter-pound isn't enough? taken in Lincoln, NE

It's Day 3 of the trip, and we're in Laramie, Wyoming. We've seen so much that it's hard to put it all into a post; I'll just use photos. Other than the one above, I didn't start taking any until we got to Iowa.

Iowa's sexy curves



what the heck is this bird? Note that the back of his head is red--deep flaming red--down to his wings, unlike a purple finch or a house finch or any other bird I can find. Saw him in Iowa; sorry I didn't get a better pic -- help me ID him! Is it just a house finch????
Cornhusk House Restaurant or something like that -- it was two days ago. In Iowa, I think. Or Wyoming?

Wyoming's Sherman Mountains "point of interest" stuff

the sign about the Sherman Mts. and why they're pink (granite)

some actual Sherman Mts.

a freakishly large Wyoming grasshopper

a beautifully colored (and normal-sized) Wyoming grasshopper


Storms ahead in Colorado's Pawnee National Grasslands, which were STUNNING

these weathered faces near the north exit of Pawnee Ntl Grasslands reminded me of Egyptian temples

huge buttes in the distance at Pawnee Ntl Grasslands

Lifer! Lark bunting
Life mammal pronghorn antelopes! (both lifers still at Pawnee)

the bar where Matthew Shepard met his killers, Laramie, WY (a new bar has opened in the same space as the old Fireside Bar)

beginning to moth!

It's been impossible to see any good birds lately, or even go out during the day other than rushing to and from my car. It's been a fury of packing, paring down the crap, throwing away tons of papers and trash, and cleaning -- for me, for Matty, and for AB! It's been crazy. Still, I'm staying out at a nice house with AB while she dog-sits for someone, so it's been like having a hotel away from home. (Besides, my bed and the rest of my belongings left for California yesterday on the moving truck.)

I sometimes walk the dog, and I've noticed all these moths everywhere, especially at night. The ones in previous posts were seen in the late afternoon, but last night (after a hard night of cleaning out my apartment and carrying down ELEVEN bags of trash to the curb) I turned on the lights, took the dog for a walk, and came back to find a beautiful assortment of moths!

The night photography is a challenge; I just had the outside lights on, and those moths never want to land in a nice place that's well lighted. And they fly around crazy and sometimes hit me (ALWAYS in the face, those jerks!), and I have to wait for them to land so I can get a decent pic. Still, it's really neat to see the different ones in all their splendor. Just like birds, some are plain and nondescript while others are like the Blackburnians of the moth world, flashing their crazy colors. There are tiny ones and huge ones, all of them with their distinct shapes and anatomy. It's cool stuff, and it's satisfying my urge to "Document and Identify!" which is what started me birding too.

Just making sense out of a crazy natural world, I guess. It's making me a little insane that the autumn migration is starting already and I'm missing it, but I figure I'll bird myself into a delirium when I get to California, so for now I'll play with some other stuff.

And now... it's time for... moths on parade!

Sorry for the blurry on this one, but it's hard to get my silly camera to focus sometimes. Isn't he pretty? I thought it was a Crambidae (this guess was updated in 2012 when I got a clue) species, but someone found something similar and calls it a Gelechioidea species. Help? I wish I could've gotten a better photo but he flew right after I snapped this. What, moths don't like flashbulbs? Sheesh.

This guy made me draw my breath in and giggle with glee; is that a beautiful moth or what? He's definitely a Showy McShowoff, otherwise known as a harnessed tiger moth or Apantesis phalerata.


This one is scary. No idea what it is. Maybe a kind of Pyralid? I don't know.

This is a type of plume moth, which is a very cool kind of moth. I think this is an Emmelina monodactyla, but I'm not sure.

I THINK this is a dingy cutworm moth or Feltia jaculifera. The markings are right but he's darker than the example on Bug Guide. Perhaps it's a male/female thing?

No clue.

Another Crambidae?, no idea what kind.

Um, yes.... No idea. But his wings are funny-shaped like some kinds of Geometrids. But here he is again, comin' atcha!Look at those crazy psycho eyes! Run for your lives!

Do you know how many gray moths there are? SQUILLIONS, that's how many. I looked at moth pics until I was cross-eyed. I think this next one might be the same kind, only he's patterned. No idea.Someone help me.


These two images are of a banded tussock moth, or Halysidota tessellaris.

I called this one "dayglo moth" because of that bright salmon pink on him. He is a Hypoprepia fucosa, or painted lichen moth.

Right. It's a moth. With whiskers.

Yet another white Crambidae-looking moth.

Is this a mosquito hawk? Did you know mosquito hawks bite? I tried to save one, to take him outside instead of letting him stay trapped on my three-season porch at the Marsh House, and the little *(!$%*^ bit me! And it hurt for several days!

Is this a katydid? I would see his little wings move ever so quickly and slightly, and at the same time I heard a sharp little "chirp!"

I'm exhausted! And I still haven't finished IDing all these moths. Give me a hand, mothy people!

Sources consulted:
--a Bing! search of "common moths photos"
--Bug Guide's moth search
--W.J. Holland's The Moth Book, which I downloaded for free from the web thanks to a tip from Patrick

Yet more cool moths!

So I haven't seen any birds of note, but I've seen some very cool moths!

Unknown moth -- anyone?

Rosy Maple Moth, Dryocampa rubicunda

Once again, I apologize for the poor quality -- that phone camera sucks. I have my stuff scattered between three places right now, but I'm gonna try to get my camera from my apartment soon. (I'm not staying there, as all my packed stuff and furniture are at Matty's, awaiting the moving truck tomorrow.)

Still here

Niblet, hangin' loose

Well, I haven't had much time for birding lately, as I've been packing and seeing friends and stuff in preparation for my move west. This morning, I managed to get some good pics, however, and thought I'd share them with you. They're not birds, but they're still kinda interesting.
Here's Niblet hanging out with AB's kitty Maya (aka Maya Papaya). She's suffering from some sort of allergy on her face, so she has to wear the lampshade so she won't scratch. Poor kid.

I saw this little moth (maybe an inch or so) in the grass this morning while walking up to work. I checked my moth book but couldn't find it. Any guesses? It's beautiful. Yellow with black, very triangular in shape. Sorry for the blurry, but I guess I got too close with the cellphone camera.

We spent this weekend moving all my boxes and what little furniture I have left over to Matty's so the movers can pick everything up on Wednesday. I will clean my apt tonight and tomorrow night, and then I have dinners and stuff scheduled with all my friends. Then we leave as early as we can manage on Saturday.

It's getting pretty crazy now, having to change phone numbers, cut off electric, etc. I hate those kinds of details, but someone has to do it.

I've been applying for as many jobs as I can find, so I'm hoping I'll get lucky. Keep your fingers crossed.

I will try to blog from the road, especially if we see some cool stuff -- and we'll arrive in California on Aug 5. Until then, probably pretty light blogging and commenting.

Another camping trip

Blue Knob State Park was beautiful, though the weather was a little crazy -- rain and cold one minute, then sunny and clear the next, then back to rain and wind, etc. But we took lots of blankets, we hiked some, and we just had a great time.

It was really nice up there and we made some great fires and had good camp food (eggs w/ cheese and veggies, mountain pies with sauteed portobellos and onion and green pepper, s'mores).

Sadly, I didn't actually see any good birds, but I heard lots of them -- Eastern Towhees, Red-eyed Vireos, Blue-headed Vireos, Chipping Sparrows, maybe a Black-throated Green Warbler (zee zee su-zie) and a Hooded Warbler (wheeta-wheeta-wheeteo), and some other sounds I didn't recognize and couldn't find on my birdJam. So no cool bird pics, but I did see this bird:

Indeed, "if they fly you die." *shudder* We were at Wegman's shopping for last-minute camping food when we found this baby in the $5 DVD bin. I resisted the temptation to buy it, however.

I have some camping pics of the site and the park, but they're on my camera in the car. I'll add those later.

For now, I'll add some pics of Niblet from my phone camera:

chillaxin'

checking out a bowl of strawberries

getting some morning snuggle time

nuzzling my pillow and hoping for more petting

See how his fur has all grown back on the side of his head? He's all healthy and abcess-free now. I'm so glad I took a chance and switched vets; Ellen saved Niblet's life.

Summer is such hard birding, at least for boreal birds. Too many leaves! Maybe now's the time to focus on waterfowl. Speaking of which, I was doodling around on the Project Gutenberg website and found this great book on duck ID. You can download it for free, including the drawings and stuff. Pretty cool. If you've never looked around on Project Gutenberg, you should -- you can find a lot of great older books, including many of the old classics, all for free. Makes for good reading, if you don't mind reading on the computer. I usually pull up a book then do a "select all" and copy and paste it all into a Word document so I don't have to stay online to read. I highly recommend the site.

Anyway--more bird adventures whenever I have some. In the meantime, hope you're all having a great summer and seeing some good birds. I can hardly believe it's finally July; I'll be leaving in about three and a half weeks. THEN I'll have some adventures for you!

I know, I know--where are the updates on Niblet? Seen any new birds lately? What are you doing?

Truth is, I've been kinda busy. I had to finish and put to bed the little newspaper I work for last week--and that took a lot of work. Then we went camping, and while I did call in a Scarlet Tanager to within 20 feet of our campsite, I didn't have my camera! (I loaned it to Matty so he could photograph the furniture he's selling on craigslist. BTW, I'm selling stuff on craigslist too! If you're interested in an authentic Cavalier Coca-Cola cooler, a really comfy couch, a beautiful art-deco gateleg table, some nice old oak chairs, or a beautiful Jacobean-style oak secretary, let me know!)

So I didn't get pics of the tanager, and I haven't taken pics of Nibble lately. I will say that he's doing absolutely great. No return of the abcess, and his fur's pretty much grown back (or at least over the shavey part--he does still have a tiny bald spot, but I guess it's just gonna stay that way). This morning, he hopped into bed with me and wouldn't let me stop petting him for about ten minutes. Then he was done; he hopped off to chillax under the couch.

We're going camping again this weekend, just me and the girlfriend. We're going to Blue Knob State Park, which should be really nice. Lots of easy to moderate hiking trails, some interesting geology, and probably some nice high-altitude birds.

This will be the first time AB and I have camped alone -- other times we've gone with her friends from Maryland or with Gretchen and her girlfriend. So this will be really neat -- I'm very excited about the thought of the long weekend and some birding in a new spot.

I promise I'll update with photos and excitement on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Meanwhile, have a safe and happy Fourth of July! Pop some fireworks (if you're allowed) for me, and try not to catch anything on fire.

Third blogiversary!

My photo of a Screaming Piha which will be used in Spiny Software's newest birding application for iPhone -- and for which I was paid twenty whole dollars!

Am I now a professional photographer?

So today is the third blogiversary for this little bird bloggy, which started as a way to document my fledgling efforts (heh heh) at learning about birds. It seems like a million years ago now, as my life was dramatically different then: I was living in the Marsh House with Kat, working with a Peterson's guide published in the 1930s (which I got for a quarter at a book sale!), trying to build my own spotting scope, and trying to figure out what the heck a "meme" was. Ah, the memories!
Back then, my first lifelist had 44 species on it -- including a few mistakes -- calling a house finch a purple finch, etc. Silly me. I also counted the great horned owl my dad brought home -- the owl that chased me around the backyard. I don't count that one now, as he was captive.

I also named what I thought were the top ten most beautiful US birds -- it was, looking back at it now, kind of a silly list! Here it is:
1. Cardinal
2. Indigo bunting
3. Dark-eyed junco (incredibly cute)
4. Red-tailed hawk
5. Mallard (male--sorry, female)
6. Snowy egret
7. Barn owl (love that face)
8. Bluebird
9. Rose-breasted grosbeak
10. Ruby-throated hummingbird

I gotta say that my choices today would be quite different. Here they are, in no particular order (except for the Blackburnian--it's my favorite):
Blackburnian Warbler
Painted Bunting
Eastern Bluebird
Hooded Warbler
Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Varied Thrush
Tree Swallow
Indigo Bunting

I know that's only eight birds -- but I wanted to just list the ones that came into my mind without looking at a list.

So -- three years into it, and I have over 200 (barely) birds on my lifelist. I have a decent spotting scope and my Leupold binocs that I bought at a flea market for $30 bucks (but which are worth quite a bit more, it turns out). I have a decent point-and-shoot digital camera, and I've taken some photos that I'm pretty proud of. I've made a lot of great friends, both online and in person. All in all, this whole birding thing has been one of the best things in my life, even when the rest of my life sucked.

Soon I'll be beginning to bird all over again -- a new place, a new field guide, and a new life. It's gonna take me at least another three years to document that process. I hope you'll stick around for it.

Thanks for the memories!

Future birding -- a cross-post

I posted about Illinois' Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, and its potential for yielding some grassland lifebirds for me, on my California Dreamin' blog. I don't post too much on that blog, but I should probably start. I was hoping to bank some of my research and plans for my California move.

If you've ever driven I-80 across the country, please feel free to visit that blog (or this one) and leave your travel tips in the comments. I'm hoping to see a Prairie Chicken (greater or lesser) somewhere along the trip west, so if you know where I can see one within an hour's drive of I-80, please let me know!

Out standing in their field

Sorry this is so blurry -- it's on super-zoom on a cloudy day. I often see this turkey (or many like him) on my way to and from work.

This guy looks like a cow version of that shepherd dog Sam from the Wile E./Ralph Coyote cartoons.

Apparently, this goat often sits or stands on these cows. I think he's standing on this cow or one right behind him. He's definitely not on the ground, though. The other day, the cow was standing and the goat was curled up on the cow's back. Sadly, we just got laying-down cows today, which must mean more rain.

Programming note: If you'd like to read about my latest bird-related dream, I sent it to Kyron's Dream Birding blog, which is a fascinating cache of bird-related dreams by different people. If you ever have a bird dream, maybe you could send it to him. And yes, my dreams are often that crazy.

Some cool pix from Baby G

My best friend Gretchen takes a lot of pictures with her camera phone and sends them to me. I thought I'd share a few of them with you because they're always pretty great.

Yesterday, a request came over the birding listserv asking for help with an injured Ruddy Turnstone. I gave the guy the name and info for our local wildlife rehabber, for whom Gretchen volunteers. This morning, she sent me this photo of the very Ruddy Turnstone in question!

She's helping to take care of him!

Gretchen lives out on some property owned by a local greyhound rescue organization, and she gets to hang out outside for a lot of the day, working with the greyhounds--she works there. She sees some pretty cool stuff out there:

This is "Albert" (her name for him), a toad she found and described as the biggest toad she'd ever seen. Not ten minutes later, I got the following photo with the text "toady tricks:"

I replied, "That Anthony, always fooling around!" She was pleased with my name for the smaller guy. How she got these guys to pose like this, I have no idea. Maybe she's a toad whisperer.

She's also seen some great birds out there, like this Ruffed Grouse:

Here's a photo of her mom's HUGE dog Remus, who was too big for Gretchen to kidnap:
This dog makes Domino, a normal-sized dalmation mix, look like a puppy. It's a BIG dog.

She also sends me funny things she sees, like this, with the text "hee hee:"
That Gretchen, always fooling around.

Still and always, however, my favorite Baby G photo will be this one of Domino:That's one sweet old gal.

Work ducks!

The courtyard ducks are growing more bold each day as they get used to being around humans. Everyone's been very respectful of the ducks as Mama leads them to the pond for their water time. Here are some pics I took during break:

FINALLY! A Scarlet Tanager!

Friday afternoon as I was waiting for AB (my girlfriend) to get home, I wandered across the street from her apartment into the fringes of the Toftrees state gamelands. I took my binocs because I knew I'd heard a Wood Thrush from that direction on several mornings, and I was just hearing the crescendo of an amazingly loud Ovenbird.

I looked up, trying to locate the Ovenbird in my binocs, scanning the treetops for movement, when I spotted it: a dark red bird with jet-black wings. 'OHMYGOD it's a scarlet tanager!' I just kept whispering that sentence over and over as I watched this beautiful male SCTA preen and sun himself. Of course I didn't have my camera! That would've been too perfect! But I did get to watch him for about ten seconds when he decided he'd had enough of that branch and flew away.

Wow. So worth waiting for! I never saw the Ovenbird--I was too excited to even remember the Ovenbird (I've had great looks at them before).

Coming in at 201 on the lifelist: Scarlet Tanager!

I'm going back there tonight, and you can bet I'll have my camera.

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On a depressing note, read this. Of all the disappointments we've suffered since Obama took office, this one really hits hard.