Lock the doors! Check the windows!

Mommy, don't let them take me!

Niblet has been reading the newspaper lately but I think I may stop giving it to him because he practically did a backflip when he read this story:

Teen charged with stealing bunny, trying to extort money
By Associated Press
March 12, 2008 9:06 AM

PORTLAND, Maine - A Portland teen has been charged with stealing a pet bunny and trying to extort money from the bunny's owner.

The 17-year old, who's being held at the Long Creek Youth Development Center, is accused of breaking into another teen's apartment and stealing the gray pygmy rabbit. Police say he then telephoned the rabbit's owner demanding repayment of a $100 debt [WTF!] or else the rabbit would be hurt.

Police Lt. Tony Ward says officers recovered the rabbit in good condition.

They charged the 17-year-old with burglary and theft in connection with the break-in.

The juvenile is also charged with robbery, assault and terrorizing following a confrontation last Friday in which he allegedly stole another teen's skateboard, backpack and pocket money.

OHMIGOD--"neither a borrower nor a lender be," indeed! Oh dear. Throw the book at this psycho!

Word clouds

My pal Laura provided a link to a site that will do a "word cloud" for your entire blog! Here's mine. I like some of the word combinations:

furnace good

water winged

like little marsh

I think that says a lot.

Do you like the new banner?

I took this pic from the backyard the other day, as a bunch of Canadas were leaving the marsh area and heading north. Many Canadas stay on the marsh, but I guess these guys were bound for colder pastures.

BIGBY Update

I’ve been keeping my BIGBY list separate from my regular list this year, to make sure I abide by the walking/biking-only rules I agreed to. My list, however, is not very spectacular, as the weather’s been so rotten all year that it’s been hard to walk anyplace. Most of these are just from the backyard and the marsh. There are a few from the woodlot behind my work, where I go walking sometimes.

Dark-eyed Junco
Chipping Sparrow
American Goldfinch
Red-winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird - LIFER
Song Sparrow
House Finch
Mourning Dove
Tufted Titmouse
Downy Woodpecker
Common Grackle
Black-capped Chickadee
American Tree Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
House Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
White-breasted Nuthatch
Canada Goose
Mallard
European Starling
Red-tailed Hawk
American Crow
Northern Cardinal

So far, only one BIGBY lifer: I just saw the rusty blackbird yesterday, while scoping out the marsh for wood ducks. I know we get them back there, so I’m hoping to see some soon, as well as the teals and other ducks and herons.

Has anyone recorded findings on the BIGBY site itself? I still haven’t done it (I haven’t even logged all my Project FeederWatch dates either!). I just don’t get much time to do that stuff, what with working and blogging and other computer things.

A good side effect of flooding

FINALLY Blogger is letting me post photos today!



One of the good aspects of having had so much rain and snow melt lately is that a lot of what was formerly empty pasture and field has been converted to pond area, and the ducks are taking advantage.




Yesterday, I drove along a backroad that runs beside the very swollen Penns Creek behind the marsh, and I was rewarded with several good sights, though these photos are pretty rough:
Excuse me, Mr. Hooded Merganser, sir? Could you please quit being so shy and come closer to me?

Oh fine, then; just swim away. When your pics come out blurry, Mr. Snobby, don't say I didn't warn you. And yes, as a matter of fact that hairdo does make your head look weird-shaped.

I also saw many Eastern bluebirds--can you see them on the tops of the posts?

Shortly before I snapped, there were actually three of them on three consecutive posts! but of course one of them flew off to this tree:

It was quickly getting dark, so apologies for the crappy photos.

A great blue heron, back among the snags and such:

He stood stock-still in this one spot for. an. hour. That water must've been effing FREEZING too.


A little Northern mockingbird, looking cute:

Some ring-billed gulls, which is interesting--what are they doing inland? FINALLY--here's a pic of these guys.

I also saw these two twig nests, high in the tops of two side-by-side dead pine trees:
You can see the shape of some bird near the top (a raptor? almost looks like a crow, but I don't think it is); both nests were visited by birds, but I was looking into the setting sun and just couldn't pick out any field marks. His flight (I saw him fly away from the nests) and his general shape leads me to guess at a Cooper's or maybe even a sharp-shinned hawk, but I'm just guessing. My Peterson's Guide to Bird Nests and Eggs wasn't much help here; all the raptors have nests made of twigs, but they are lined with different materials. (But I did check the pic and info on crow's nests, and they do not (I think) look like this.) As you can see, however, I was nowhere near enough to see that much detail. I will monitor these nests (they're about 200-300 yards from the road, so I can monitor from afar, and next time I'll remember to take my scope so I can get a closer look.





Any guesses on these nests? I'll try to update with better/more pics as I explore this new fertile area!

Friday Night Nibble

Niblet believes in laying everything out on the table.

That way, you can pick through for the good stuff.

Oh noes! Dryer woes!

Warning: The following is not exactly a birding post -- but I do have something bird-related to tell you before moving on to the non-birding post: I got a new lifer last night! Yesterday, on my way to school and the calculus quiz I was going to do not-so-good on (ugh--don't ask), I stopped for a few minutes at the duck pond near PSU, and I saw a Canvasback! Whoopee! I also saw a female ring-necked duck, a semi-lifer as I'd only previously seen male ring-necks. (I'll load a picture of both later!)

Thanks to Dr. Zaius’s nimble fingers, I followed a few links about dryer repair, and the outlook is not good. According to Hometips, “if the water was 3 inches deep or more, the unit is finished. It may work now, but motor damage may occur several months down the road.” Oh dear. The water in the laundry room was at least three inches, probably four or five.

Another link provided a helpful diagram of the anatomy of a clothes dryer:

Sheesh. The motor is down there? No wonder it’s dead. However, perhaps I can do what the furnace guy did and pull off and dry the motor! Maybe it will work! I have screwdrivers! I have a blow-dryer! I have flashlights! I have know-how! or --uh--guess-how! And I have this little picture to go by too!

Otherwise, it’s laundromat city for this kid, and I hate laundromats. A long time ago during my previous life as a college English instructor, I used to grade papers while doing my laundry. I saw some pretty scary people in the laundromat, and it seemed like they were always. staring. at. me.

After the flood

Status report:
heater--still working!
washer--still working!
submersible pump--done working!
dryer--still NOT working... I'm hoping there's a reset button someplace...

Here are some photos of the backyard:
This is my backyard, taken through the window of my 2nd story office.


Lake Kimbell next door:


This morning, the water behind my house was frozen white; Lake Kimbell was covered with a skim of ice. No time to take pics, however, as I had to get to work.

Tonight is the big calc quiz. I spent about 2-1/2 hours last night working problems on L'Hospital's Rule, derivatives of inverse trig functions, and definite and indefinite integrals. Between work and class, I'm going to review integration by parts; then I'll be ready. Or as ready as I can be. (Note: This paragraph is dedicated to Matty Boy, Distributorcap, and Mathman--the math geniuses of the blogging world!)

Today, in addition to the red-winged blackbirds, I saw a couple of grackles! Imagine that--being happy to see grackles. No doubt I'll be bitching later when they're eating all my birdseed.

Red-winged blackbirds... I haz dem!

FINALLY! This past weekend, a few red-winged blackbirds finally came home to the marsh! Surely this means that spring is just around the corner! All we need is a few spring peepers and some fireflies, and it's springtime for Delia!

We're certainly having some spring showers here, along with warmer temperatures, that are causing some major flooding all around the area, including my basement:

That's four inches of water in the basement, which means my laundry room and my workshop in addition to a big room where the furnace and oil tank (and a bunch of other crap) are. The flooding shorted out the motor in the furnace, so I woke up to NO HEAT.

This melting snow and tons of rain are really making life difficult. I had to get the furnace guy to come and dry out (literally--with my blowdryer) the motor in the furnace, and we had to call another guy with a big pickup and a chain to pull the car out of the mud at the bottom of the driveway:

I've discovered that the washing machine still works, but the dryer does not. I'm hoping it is just drying itself out and I'll be able to put that freshly washed load into it soon... I hope?

Needless to say, no work for me today. Instead, I spent the day getting the car towed about four feet for $25 (other people wanted over $100!), buying a submersible pump to get the water out of the basement (another $75, but hey--we saved that on the towing!), pumping the water out of the big basement and the small basement (we have two separate basements under two different sections of the house), waiting for the furnace guy to get the heat back on (I'm only now thawing out from not having heat all night and most of the day), making some really yummy potato-leek soup, putting floated-away stuff back in place in the basement, washing clothes but not drying them, and finally settling in for a quick episode or two of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (I'm watching Season 3 right now).

After I'm done posting, I have to study for yet another calculus quiz tomorrow night. Oy vey. But let's not talk about that. Let's focus on the spring songs of the song sparrows and the oka-lee of the red-winged blackbirds! Welcome home, birdies! (Sorry no picture but it's still raining outside.)

Eagerly awaiting spring migration

Niblet disapproves of waiting

I just realized something that threw me for a loop: last year’s birding festival at Oil Creek State Park in western PA, where I met Julie Zickefoose, happened in May. May. Let me stress that the month was May.

Why the stressing? Because here I’ve been thinking the festival happened in late March or early April, which made me ever so excited because it’s now March, which meant that the migration—in my mind, at least—should be starting in two to three weeks. But now I’ve realized, given that last year’s migration was at its peak in May, not March, that I have even LONGER to wait than I thought!

How will I survive? I’ve been so looking forward to the end of March, and now I’m incredibly disappointed that migration won’t really be going here for another two MONTHS, not three weeks!

*heavy heavy sigh*

"the true voice of spring"

Photo credit

As I mentioned a while back, I've been reading RTP's Wild America, written with James Fisher, and I promised to give you some excerpts. Here's one that's been percolating in my mind since I first read it a few weeks ago.

After dinner that evening we had walked across the damp fields toward the clear plaintive birdlike peeping until the myriad voices almost shouted at us from the dark pool and then fell silent. To easterners this nostalgic sound more than than any other--more than that of any bird--is the true voice of spring. It is a voice of resurrection: "Spring is come!" Everyone knows the voice and is glad, but few have ever seen the tiny inch-long singer. Tonight, with the peepers, there were multitudes of cricket frogs rasping out their strident notes, and here and there a green frog gave its single croak, like the plucking of a loose string on some instrument....

These sounds that pipe and trill from a hundred throats on evenings in spring are love songs of the swamp. They are ancient music, for the frogs sang their songs ages before the birds did; they were here first.... This orchestration of frogs and toads is one of the outstanding things about spring nights in eastern North America.

I read that passage again last night as I snuggled under my six layers of covers in bed, and I could almost hear the peepers and the toads and the green frogs playing their symphony; I could almost feel the warm breeze and smell the damp earth of the marsh. We leave our windows open in the summer, and each night we fall asleep to the sweet sounds of the peepers.

Once last summer, a friend came over and we went out on the marsh at dusk with flashlights to look for peepers. We saw a beautiful brown one, his throat blown up with each peep, his tiny body dwarfed by both his huge bubble of a throat and the loudness of his call.

Photo credit

Some people in PA are already hearing peepers, even though the ground is still covered in snow. I haven't heard any calls yet, nor have I seen any red-winged blackbirds, the other harbinger of spring on the marsh--though others in Central PA have seen some. I guess Penns Valley is a little behind the rest of the area, under its thin blanket of snow. But this passage, and the thought of the coming warmth and beauty and new life, makes me happy.

The stork has arrived!

and he's dropped off the newest addition to the beginningtobird family, Alan Rickman!

Here he is in one of my favorite performances, Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. "Page three-hundred-and-ninety-FOUR...."

I loves him.

...but clouds got in my way

Another in my clouds-that-look-like-other-things series.

These are a favorite: low-tide sandflats clouds:

For comparison to real low-tide sandflats, see this picture from Lillian and Don Stokes' blog.

Pet sounds

I took some pics of Nibble and Kisses and wanted to share with you.

I call this one "EveryNibble is Illuminated" in honor of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel and movie:

He's happily eating his "crack" or this special bunny mix I get him for treats--it has smashed nuts, dried fruit, sunflower seeds, etc. mixed in with pellets. Someday I'll try to video him doing his crazy dance when he knows he's getting his crack. Boy, can that bunny move!

Kisses has the cutest little paws, and I lucked out and got her asleep for these shots:

Sweet Kitty Kisses!

More Cooper's pics!

Here are a couple more photos from yesterday's raptor excitement at work. He first landed at my pal Niki's window; the light wasn't good on that side of the building, but I managed to get a decent shot of him through the window:

Look at how far around he can turn his head! I kept hoping he would turn his body around so I could see his front, but he didn't. Right after I took this pic, I pulled my camera down from my face (I always look through the little image thingie rather than the big LCD screen, because my old eyes can't focus on that tiny screen). Just at that moment, he lifted his tail and pooped! I missed it! I was so bummed.

So after about ten minutes, he flew to a spot a hundred or so yards away--right near the parking lot. I missed this, as there were about a million cubicles in the way, but he stayed low to the ground, maybe three or four feet high.

Here's the wide view of his landing spot:

He's there in the center. Cars were driving by every few minutes, and people were walking on that sidewalk, but he stayed in this spot for at least twenty minutes. This is where I got the bulk of my photos. Look, he blinked!

And here, I think he blinked his nictating membrane thingie:

Cool!

I waited and waited, hoping he would stretch his wings and take flight so I could get pictures of that, but he just kinda hung out there. Finally, I had to get back to work, so I left. I went back about five minutes later, though, and OF COURSE he had gone and I had missed it.

Raptors invade my work!

Well, a single raptor, and he was sitting outside the window right next to the building!

Here are some pics I got (way to go Delia, for remembering her camera!):

My ID is an adult Cooper's Hawk. Susan Gets Native -- what say you? And is that some recent blood/flesh on the beak? He sat out there for a while--maybe digesting?

It's an outrage!

Okay, The Onion has officially gone too far! What did owls ever do to them!?

Wonder how much it costs... just kidding! It's an outrage!

Friday Night Nibble on Wednesday afternoon

Oh, how I've missed you all! My opportunities to blog have been severely limited by work, school, and dial-up slowness, so here's a little Nibble to get you through the rest of the week:

Isn't he a handsome little devil? Apologies for the blurriness on the carrot photo.

So much for birding, building

UPDATED--with pics. BTW we're having a big snowstorm today, and I'm hoping my calculus class gets CANCELLED. Keep your fingers crossed!
UPDATED AGAIN!--Class was cancelled! And I took a personal day today! I'll go out in a while and get some snow pix!

This weekend, I was supposed to go birding with my pal Roana, her parents, and some other bird clubbers, but we had a little problem with the weather:
Okay, okay, that's just a stock photo of a New York blizzard. Here's how it really looked:

All right, you caught me again--that's another photo taken in New York in 1888. Truth: I was so freaked out by the horizontal-blowing snow that I just didn't even think to take a picture.

Back to the point, however, I did not get to go birding. We were supposed to make a trip over to see a Bullock's Oriole that's been wintering near here, and then we were going to go OWLING! I really wanted to go, because the Bullock's and the anticipated Short-Eared Owl would've been lifers, and I haven't had a lifer in a while. But the snow was pretty heavy on Saturday, and on Sunday we had downright blizzard-like conditions. It was snow like I'd never seen before, and I basically stood at the kitchen window for about two hours watching it and hoping we didn't lose our electricity.

The other thing I didn't get to do was go to Lowe's during said blizzard to buy some drywall. See, we're re-doing the kitchen, and I had to tear down a section of the drywall after we ripped out a cabinet that was held in place by about three thousand nails:

That's six nails (each two inches long) in a space of about nine inches.

This -er- construction technique is typical of the Marsh House; whoever built this place believed in nails--lots of nails--as the solution to any and all carpentry projects. They also loved staples, those u-shaped brads that hold cords and stuff, and did I mention staples and nails? When we first moved in, we ripped out the carpets only to find that
1. the tacking strip was nailed down not just by the little nails that come already in the tacking strip but by 2-inch nails spaced every three inches as well. Lest that carpet be blown away, I guess.
2. the pad under the carpet was both glued and stapled to the floor; the staples occurred at a rate of about 15 per square foot. Not. Effing. Funny. But I digress.

So we ripped down the cabinet and pretty much put all kinds of holes into the drywall. That's when we discovered this:

While our house was built with plenty of wood and metal fasteners, it was built so long ago that no one thought to put in any sort of insulation. Not hundred-dollar bills, or an original draft of the Constitution. Not old magazines. Not newspapers. Not nuthin! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, our walls consist of barn boards covered by drywall! To be completely honest, there is another layer: ancient asbestos siding on the outside. Nice.

So--here's my hand, poking through a space in between the barn boards:

The kitchen is a pretty cold place right now, what with the wind blowing through the wall and everything.

But that snow was amazing.

Tennessee Tornadoes

If you'd like to help, please follow the links. UPDATE: You can also donate to your local Red Cross and earmark the funds for the tornado-torn areas.

What do birds do during a tornado?