BIRD in a BOX

BIRD in a BOX

Saturday afternoon - I took this picture at the end of a day-long Bufferlands Spring Migration birding bash. It was lovely spending the day birding with experts like Chris & Sean, the Bufferlands naturalists who led the tour at the waste water treatment plant and its vast acreage. I have done this spring tour 3 out of the last 4 years and each time I get to see this lovely Barn Owl - the 'BIRD in a BOX'. I wonder if it is the same bird each time? Might be.

Anyway, it was a grand day of birding. The group was supposed to be large but in the end things went wonky - the weather was cold on Friday but Saturday morning it was cold! That and a conflicting Audubon field trip knocked several people from the Bufferlands tour and in the end there were the two guides, one Bufferlands docent (who baked the BEST cookies ever) and only four participants - which included me. Normally there are around 15 birders on the tour. But happily a smaller group meant gas saved with one van instead two vans. I had the entire middle seat row of the van for myself - to think I bothered to shower!

We toured as much of the Bufferlands as we could as much of it was underwater - no surprise considering the incredible rains of the past few months. This go-round we walked far more than usual, and I, being lazy, am proud to say that I did all the walking and did not whine or fuss (until now anyway). The walking paid off in spades as it got us to spots were we saw wonderful birds.

To start off with, we saw a beautiful baby Great Horned Owl chick. It was all fluffy and semi-feathered. My pictures of it really sucked, because I used a 300 mm lens on my camera and I did not hold the camera very still. Here is the least fuzzy of the dreadful shots.

Rather fluffy & kitten-like Great Horned Owl chick

Nearby the baby owl we viewed a grove of cottonwoods that held nesting Great Blue Herons, Double Crested Cormorants and Great Egrets. We used spotting scopes for a nice view of the half grown heron chicks.

We went on to see shorebirds. One strange visitor amid the Western Sandpipers & Killdeer was a pale grey bird, which turned out to be an out of town visitor a Sanderling. I will never forget the bird because I took two shots of it in which the bird came out as pale blots of white against grey - I had inadvertently muddled up the camera's settings. I was deeply humilated that I should screw up such a simple shot. Ugh! [Get over it Claire, get on with your life]

To my mind, the most numerous birds of the day were Swainson's Hawks, and Wilson's Warblers. We only saw one Butter-butt (Yellow-rumped Warbler) and normally you're tripping over the things. The most interesting venue of the day was a host of Burrowing Owls behind a Walgreens, which I suppose ought to remind us that critters often don't want much for habitat, but they have to live somewhere! I wish there had been time to try taking a few pictures of those owls; they look so cute sitting by their little burrows.

My favourites birds for the day were a Black-chinned Hummingbird which did an arial dance for us, a singing Lazuli Bunting and two Blue Grosbeaks! At Freeport I saw a flit of blue and assumed it was a Scrub Jay passing so did not bother to look. Turned out it was this lovely fellow, the second Blue Grosbeak.

Blue Grosbeak

It is amazing how I manage to miss great birds because of carelessness. For example, I would have just assumed the Black-chinned Hummingbird was an Anna's. One other thing I want to improve is my abilty to ID birds by their song and calls. It is so much easier to be able to walk into a forest, hear bird song and to be able to say, 'Is that a Wilson's Warbler announcing itself?' That is the task I bought an iPod for - must get iPod loaded up with bird song and ready to go!

Most Boring Blog

It is official! My blog is the Pulitzer Prize Winner for MOST BORING CRAP.

Thank you. Thank you.

I wish I were taking some trips or something exotic so I could carry on about it but no dice. Just me and the house.

Came home tonight and started painting the dark trim on both doors. I am so freakn' excited about it. Boring? Yes! I did not, not win the Pulitzer Prize for nothing you know.

New In & Outs

New Front Door - ooo! Fancy curvy handle (click on any of photos to see them enlarged)

Late this morning I waved bye-bye to the construction guys. Work all done and doors are complete. Hurrah! I have a new front and back doors. The front door is so very pretty I love it. The beveled & frosted panes lets in loads of light but are opaque; big improvement over the previous doors.

The French doors in living room are marvelous! Way nicer than the old sliding doors with the HUMONGOUS and unsafe dog door. I always say it is (was) a cat flap but it was more like a gorilla flap. Daisy, a huge lab used to go through that flap so you can see it was totally always a robbery waiting to happen (even though a robbery through them never did happen.


Which reminds me I need to hide a key outside because when I get locked out. Can’t wait to see the shocked look on the kitty’s faces when they crawl back home tonight. They must have fled to Canada with all the noise and hubbub.

Old Sliding Glass doors with HUMONGOUS
cat gorilla flap, pre-French Doors

Les Nouvelles Portes (that be fancy talk for new Frenchy doors!)

I think I will take a day off work to paint the new doors. For some reason there is a thing in the Lowes contract that the doors MUST be painted within 48 hours… which adorably enough is how long the contractor told me how long I should wait to paint the doors because the caulking must dry before painting; nice little Catch 22 there. There were two workmen & new door instillations went quicker than predicted; front door maybe an hour, the French door maybe an hour and a half.

Next Project! I am aching to paint the kitchen. The walls are so grimy and the cabinet doors are really in need of paint. The Fridge door has been opening on its own so new fridge is in order. The fridge I have was here when I moved in and the color – gold – is a hint at how old it was then – at least 20. Now it is at least 32. It will be amusing to see if the electric bill drops noticeably with one of the new energy efficient fridge. Also, the stove is 12 years old and was crap from day one, having next to no insulation – when the oven is on the kitchen heats up and the top of the stove is too hot to touch. Will try to find a deal on both stove and fridge.

This afternoon a trip to Lowes is in order. I preferred reuse of the old wooden door frames (waste not, want not) I have loads of wooden trim to return. The trim was in case old trim broke during the work. While I might price kitchen appliances – it never freakn’ ends does it? Am still standing undecided on the color of paint on the last bedroom or for the kitchen; for the kitchen I’m thinking white walls and cabinets with the cabinet doors painted some cheery color.

Got any suggestions? Leave a post for me in comments. Go on; you know you want to.

In other news - dreadful news - on this new Dell, program after program freezes, misfires, crashes. Could ten different programs be wrong? No; new computer is a lemon. That means shipping the worthless $%#&@ back to Dell and doing without a computer for a month or more - AGAIN. Will life ever return to normal?

Give me strength! Want to take a rusty red hot poker and gouge out the eyes of filthy bastards who stole my original Dell (uh... just kidding... if I gouged any eyes I would actually use a cold, sanitary stainless steel poker).

BEFORE - The uggy sliding glass doors removed
for a view straight back to dining room.
You can see the room isn't very large the mat on the right is the fireplace, the big boxon the left
 is the back of my computer amoire

AFTER - not as snazzy looking as from inside but still
an improvement - That's me waving in the glass reflection