the party's started, everybody's here...

14 years ago

Except the whip-poor-wills. Every year there have been fewer and fewer, and this year, not a one to be heard. If I want to see/ hear a nightjar I have to be content with the ones circling and beenting above the glaring lights at the local grocery store. It breaks my heart...even as few as ten years ago we had chuck-will's-widow's and the whips here and now nothing.

On a happier note, the spring migration really has my head spinning and my neck acheing. Let's see...in three days there were the following arrivals: pewees, great cresteds, two different vireos, yellowthroats, chats, (pause to breathe)both summer AND scarlet tanagers, the parulas of course showed up first, the hummers , rose-breasted GBs, blue grosbeaks, orioles, an immense herd of yellow-rumped warblers. Also making an appearance are the waterthrushes, blue-grey gnatcatchers (three nests now spotted) and a bonus, the barred-owl chick that recetly left the nest and is now exploring his flooded woodland world. All this water IS good for crawdads though, and the red-shouldered hawk couple is busy running relays back and forth to the chicks as fast as they can snap them up from the puddles. The bobolinks should be along any time.

And I really need a course on sandpipers and shorebirds, and the warblers. My husband called me on the cell in a frenzy, wanting to know what kind of bird he was watching at a low water crossing a few miles from here. I knew that without something definitive, a sqwak or a call or something I could hear on the phone I would be of no use whatsoever. It was terribly unafraid of the truck, but that's all I got. And to further confuse things, he is colorblind so asking what color the legs are or the bill if it isn't black, is a lost casue. When he got home and sat down with all my reference books, he decided it might have been a solitary sandpiper, but I certainly can't say. I have also almost given up on the LBJs (little brown jobs) by sight...if there isn't a noise or a tell-tale behavior readily apparent, I don't know what sparrow that is skulking in the fencerow.

A week or so ago I also had a first...a sandhill crane flew over. This really got me terribly excited as it was the first one I'd spotted locally. The people I was with were non-birders, in fact, with the exception of my husband, most of them were completely uninterested with nature in any form and I would really love nothing more than to smack their heads together. Did I just say that?

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rachel_frome_ky
14 years ago
WOW!! What an incredible variety of birds you have-and you know the locations of their nests, and keeping track of owl and hawk babies! I hope your friends and family pony up and help you purchase one of those high powered scope cameras that are supposed to come out this year. That way you can post amazing photos of intimate birds life without disturbing them.
With my 400mm lens I have to get within a few yards of a bird to get a decent shot.

As for people noticing wildlife, it must be experiential as well as cultural. If people have been exposed to birdwatching through their family, or through having bird feeders they might notice birds.Or not. My kids certainly heard all about it, but could care less.
Since locals do their birding through a rifle scope they mostly notice game birds. In Mexico, people don't even SEE wildlife because animals don't matter there. Three foot iguanas can stroll around and nobody even glances at them. If I ask people the name of a bird, they don't know what I mean. In Haiti, most wild animals, including insects are "bete."
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Hello again. Thank you very sincerely for all of your good wishes. My brother and wife came down a few days ago and stayed with a retired telephone man who worked as their summer farm helper for several years and has had a trailer in Mesa, then moved to a motel when our brother's daughters arrived yesterday. They all gave me cards this morning as we gathered, plus one from nephew in Edmonton, who'd loved to have been here, for he loves family gatherings, and sister-in-law in Edmonton, as well. I worked in a bar 50 miles west of Edmonton for a few years in the early 80s and enjoyed visiting them ... brother had been killed in a vehicle smash a few years before that, when their young ones were teens. We went out to spend several hours at the Desert Botanical Garden, on the eastern edge of Phoenix ... and saw more varieties of cactus than anyone could conceive of being in existence, I think! Then went to a lovely restaurant in Mesa for dinner, to be joined by (step)sister and her companion, (and I brought home I think the biggest box of food that they had - wasn't sure which was the biggest - the box, or the pot above my belt. Then to sis and companion's trailer for birthday cake with 2 candles, an "8" and an "0" ... which I turned around to read "08", but they turned the cake back half way round. Actually, as most of them were on one end of the table, taking pictures, and I at the other, it did read "08" in my eyes, as I worked on the blowing out. Did someone suggest that a taste of second childhood might be blowing in the wind? dAUGHTER STOOD BESIDE ME, TO HELP WITH THE BLOWING, SHOULD i BE SHORT OF HOT AIR. So .. this smart-ass quickly raised his hands, clapped them over the candles ... and blew only one out - so I had to blow the other out by mouth! After some discussion, and calling some family members who were not present (brother's son in Toronto, recently married) ... we all went back to our lodgings for a well-deserved sleep. So - I guess that I'd better work on my beauty sleep, right? See you all tomorrow - we're going to Sedona, possibly Jerome (again). Will see whether I get re-inflated by an energy-vortex in Sedona. As for relaxing... I'll have 4 hours or so on the plane on Monday ... ... God willing ... and the creek don't rise. Oh, I forgot - they don't have many creeks around here ... well, there are some, but they are dry, most of the time. Actually, some of the cactuses can store over half a ton of water, they say - enough to last them for year or so. Even if I had a bath-tub full ... it wouldn't last me nearly that long. And I'm frugal! [Sorry - wrong forum]. ole joyful P.S. Have yourselves a happy, wonderful weekend, everyone. o j
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the party's started, everybody's here...

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rachel_frome_ky

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