A show of feathers
Category Archives: Snapshots
Untold stories
There are a lot of stories I never got around to telling last year… these are just a couple to share…
 |
| Waiting for birds to appear on the CBC in January… |
 |
| A very cold visit to the NJ Meadowlands in February… |
 |
| Shadows of the March sun at the carousel in AP… |
 |
| Walking the High Line with a childhood friend in April… |
 |
| Lunch in Asheville on the way home from W. Va. in May… |
 |
| Playing with reflections and a new lens on the boardwalk in June… |
 |
| A couple hours on the beach in July with one of my favorite little people… |
 |
| Playing tour guide for a flock-mate in August… |
 |
| A September visit to California… |
 |
| An October visit to Savannah… |
 |
| My first (and last!) raw oyster in Apalachicola in November… |
 |
| Exploring back country roads in December looking for birds… |
I hope to be a better blogger in 2012…
Mid-week cat fix
Everyone else is doing cat-blogging, so why can’t I join in the silliness?
; )
This is Belle. She’s a pretty cat. She runs to sit in my lap at every opportunity. She kneads my soft belly with her claws. She looks at my bunnies like they’re dangerous and might infect her with some terrible cuteness. Her breath smells like fish, usually.
How do cat people stand that?
I’m such a dog person by nature and by choice. I had cats as a kid and as an adult had taken to saying that cats were okay so long as they were other people’s cats.
; )
There’s a dog park down the street and I’m sort of haunting it in my pining for Luka and some doggy-love. I steal kisses from strange dogs I meet when out hiking. I’m developing a friendship with a lady who has four, hoping she’ll let me borrow one from time to time. I carry biscuits in my pockets and am considering a career change to professional dog-walker.
Honestly, don’t you think dog and cat people are wired differently, somehow?
Is there some book I can consult to help me understand the strange mincing about on tippy-toes they like to do first thing in the morning? Why the black one chooses to sleep curled up on the dark steps where I can easily trip on her? Why they invite me to pet their furry bellies and then attack my hand with teeth and claws? Why Belle stops mid-step and glares at me from across the room? Why they prowl around in the dark, yowling?
Parting glances
Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park is ~the~ place to see confusing fall warblers… the trees are young and small so, in theory, you can see the birds easily, down low.
I’ve had parts of 14 species of warblers there in the last couple weeks:
Most all of this young Common Yellowthroat…
The water-tossed mantle of the Black-Throated Green in last week’s post…
The pale supercilliums of many Tennessee Warblers…
The briefest of looks at the yellowish wing bars of a Chestnut-Sided Warbler…
The white “handkerchiefs” on a handsome Black-Throated Blue…
The indistinct dull olive of a young Blackpoll…
(You get the idea!)
Are warblers still passing thru where you are or is it winter already?
Up close with a Black and White
I spent a couple hours one morning last week at the Jekyll Island Banding Station; it’s Georgia’s oldest continually operated station. There’s always a nice variety of birds and the folks who run the station, for a couple weeks each fall, are happy for visitors.
This particular warbler, a Black and White, was quite feisty!
And handsome, of course…
Note the “target” penned on the bander’s finger… he says it gives the birds somewhere to aim their bites!
; )
Weekend bunny fix
Peeper has a cat.
(Two, actually.)
Both are mostly afraid of her.
(But they are not above drinking the water in her cage!)
Where the sea lends large
St. Simons Island is one of the coolest places to spend the low tide hours… the sea retreats almost a half mile and leaves in its place endless tidepools and sandbars for exploring…
There are joys in every moment. Some, like the Black Skimmers that fly past, hold a little tease and leave a wake of longing…
When I’m finished looking for seashells, there’s always birds to entertain me…
like these Boat-tailed Grackles playing King of the (sand)Castle
: )
(I forget how noisy they are when I’m away from the coast for too long!)
Royal Terns are grown, but still begging from their parents.
(endlessly entertaining!)
A walk among the birds at low tide teaches me to measure happiness by nothing I can hold… nothing I can catch.
; )
I sneak close on my belly, camera in hand, for a better look at the spot of mustard on a Sandwich Tern’s bill…
and squat low over the water with a Willet.
The beach is stretched out as far as it can go as I pause to consider a young Piping Plover feeding at the far end of a tidepool…
Can my imagination make this bird a familiar?
(Could be… though its banded companion was hatched in the Great Lakes area this past summer.)
I keep walking and exploring the quiet changes the outgoing tide has left; entire oceans are moved one inch at a time…
Olema
It is not drawn on any map; true places never are. ~Herman Melville
We’re off to the coast for a couple days; mostly for the required beach fix…
I wonder if this can work out to be a monthly thing, maybe?
: )
I’m sharing a pic from where we stayed on the outskirts of Point Reyes National Seashore last month… a quirky sort of place with hummingbirds and chickens and even a view of horses out the bedroom window…
: )
I’ll be back with more from California.
6000 miles*
There were two days following behind a rental truck that had all my worldly belongings inside. Then a quick trip to the left coast (finally!) to dip my toes in that other (very cold!) ocean.
Baseball games, garden tours, marching band competitions…
(who’da guessed it?)
: )
I’m not settled quite yet; still there are boxes left to unpack.
We’re figuring this out… this necessary blending together of disparate lives.
I’m loving the light that pours in the windows here in the afternoons; it lulls me into a nap with a cat beside me.
(A cat?)
(Two, actually.)
Right. Exactly.
; )
I have everywhere still to go.
*give or take a few detours for coffee.
: )
Sorry to have been away for so long…
Bad bird photo of the week
Swallow song
Swallows are starting to gang up on the wires here in the mornings… I love to listen to their conversations while I wake up with coffee.
I haven’t heard a Katydid yet, but I can feel the natural world turning towards Fall.
What about you in your part of the world? Can you see Fall despite the summer heat?
Tell me how you know it’s coming…