Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Radio Towers Conspire To Dance Again

Anna's Hummingbird.
Good Wednesday to you all. I finally finished my Winging It article that I've been working on since June (how embarrassing!), so hopefully that will mean a mild increase in BB&B posts. I certainly have no shortage of photos to sicken the world with. It will also hopefully be one less excuse for staying indoors and not birding. Living in a city with a million wonderful distractions can have that effect, from time to time. I'll head over to Heron Head Park this afternoon though.

My year list has grown to a corupulent 496, which I'm positive is the most species I've ever seen in one year...a small achievement in the the eyes of mice and men, but a good thing nonetheless.

Anna's Hummingbird. This one is a young male (he was singing).
It's really difficult to concentrate on writing at the the moment. I have made the grave mistake of rubbing an eyeball with a finger apparently covered in jalapeno juices, and even blinking is extremely painful. It brings me back to the time I got pepper sprayed during a Marbled Murrelet survey (to my credit, that was an accident). If you are the masochistic type go ahead and give yourself a good spray, it will bring a kind of pain that you could not have possibly imagined before....

Do birders have a tendency towards masochism? Perhaps a study by the Human Birdwatcher Project is in order.

Right. Before I got back to The City, I made a brief stop in Ventura, CA and did some half-assed birding and photography, which you see here today. Next time...one more round of Yellowstone!

Allen's Hummingbird. Female? Young male?
Same bird.
Heermann's Gulls.
Willet noms.
Willet socks.

6 comments:

  1. well hot damn, these are some pretty pics. Willet socks!
    When I was 11 (or so) i found mace and didn't know what it was. I ended up spraying it directly into my eye from 2 inches away. Let's not discuss that pain.

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  2. The first photo almost stopped my heart Steve. 'Tis beautiful indeed. As for burning your eyes with jalpeno juice, it hurts, I've done it. I always wear gloves now when slicing and dicing the buggers.

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  3. That first Allen's shot is... something I can't quite put my finger on. For some reason it makes me think of Mr. Rogers. Can't explain it. 496? Christ. That's only 220 more than my life list :(

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  4. @Jill I look forward to discussing this pain

    @Anne Thanks! I like it a lot. The jalapenos I have now are hotter than any Ive handled before...going to the bathroom right after jalapeno dicing is a bad idea.

    @Jen You have so many birds to see still! Its a pretty exciting boat to be in. I have to go to all these fucked up places (ie NorDak) to see new birds now.

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  5. Wow.

    1. Anyone who does things to see what you see at the very least is NOT a masochist in terms of feeding your eyeballs and soul. But re: your mortal coil/actual physical body? Not so much. One can get into pretty uncomfortable/dicey circumstances @ times during nature worship/paparazzi assignments.

    2. Recently chopped peppers from my garden for some soup thing and forgot gloves. Didn't get in eye (OW!) but 4 places on my fingers were on fire for next 3 hours. Yet I still resist gloves. Must be some kinda "I a FIELD BIOLOGIST!" silly bravado thing. =)

    3. So, re:JOHNNY NUTCASE squirting mace (aside from OH LORDY!!), along those lines, I apparently saw a measured out Dixie cup of something up on top of the clothes washer when I was about 3yo and thought "Oh, I AM thirsty..." and subsequently drank a Dixie cup full of bleach. Yes, my tummy lining is still blonde.

    4. AWESOME SHOTS!!! Heaven. =) PSYCHED for more YELL goodies.

    5. HAY, re: ND freaky places. Am there RIGHT now. =) Not in the wilds, though. But, tiny town. Hoping to escape to prairie between family social things.

    Blatantly ogled GORGEOUS waxwings yesterday on the golf course. They were everywhere. HEAVEN. Then RAN to catch up to the actual golfers. Then saw turtle. Then ran to catch up. Repeat.

    All in all, nice nature hit and basically ran 14 of 18 holes. =)

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  6. BB, you are in ND????!!! Where are you? There is much good birding to be had...and not much else. Thanks for photo compliments, as always. Compared to you and J. Nutcase I have no interesting childhood self-injury stories aside from almost drowning a couple times, which I blame for my complete disinterest in swimming...

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