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Penury is for the Birds
16 years ago
General
Kyoo no tema wa kore desu....
<edit:more stuff, since library kicked me out>
The happy part starts with a singing hummingbird. Feel free to skip the first few paragraphs.
A little background, short version: I'm supposed to stay away from home during the daylight hours.
A promised check, which I thought had arrived in the mail, turned out to just be a card. I have a gas-tank dangerously close to empty, maybe $1.50 to my name, and I'm sicksicksick of hanging out in the library.
So I decided to hang out in a park that I've never frequented before, find myself a shady spot, read a little, sweat a lot, & feel sorry for myself.
Shade: check.
Reading material: check.
Sweat: check.
Singing hummingbird: ....Buh?!
That's right, a singing hummingbird. I knew they squeaked & rattled at each other, but I never knew they sang! But there the little bugger was, not 5 feet from me, singing his little heart out. Most of it was just too high-frequency for me to make out, but his throat & beak were quite active, and what I could hear was definite singing.
I scuttled to my car to fetch my camera. The hummingbird let me get ridiculously close to it, and just as I was about to snap what would have been a very nice close-up (something that's very difficult to do with my camera), something blurred into frame & crashed into the hummingbird's twig.
It was none other than a hawk--either a sharp-shinned or a cooper's-- and a rather clumsy one at that. I quickly forgave him ruining my hummingbird shot, because now I had the opportunity to get a picture of him.
So of course he flew to another tree. 9_9 And I followed. So he flapped over to another tree. And I followed, and got in a shot or two, but nothing close. This must have distressed him because he started whistling. It honestly sounded like a cheap plastic whistle you get out of a cereal box, sans the ball-bearing.
The awkward attack on the hummingbird & his clumsy flying was soon explained: Mom & Dad showed up!
I was very excited by this time & returned to my shaded picnic table, not wanting to either chase the family away or incur Ma & Pa's wrath. I was kicking myself for not bringing my binoculars with me! But I resolved to make the best of it & just enjoy watching from a distance.
Turns out that was the best thing to do, because Junior decided to return to the tree just next to my spot. For the past 3 hours I've been watching Ma & Pa hawk bringing lizards to Junior.
I was surprised at how many small birds remained in the area, with 2 hunting adults hanging about. The pigeons & doves cleared out right away, but the small songbirds remained. There were vermilion flycatchers, lesser finches, hummingbirds, house finches, and I actually spotted 2 new birds to add to my list--and even got a picture of one of them (some kind of flycatcher or pheobe, & a ladder-backed woodpecker--until I look 'em up, I can't be sure)! Every now & then Junior would flop out of the tree after a flock, get nowhere near catching any of them, and sit on the ground with a surprised look on his face ("But Ma & Pa make it look so easy!").
Okay library is closing. But I just HAD to jump into a library & share this exceptional afternoon with someone. I'm heading right back to the same spot, and hope to see a hawk actually nab something.
::hugs!::
<EDIT>
Well, good thing I returned. Junior was joined by a sibling, making it 4 hawks total! The young'uns are very vocal. "Mom, gimme food! I want food, Dad! This branch keeps breaking! I'm flying over to this tree, Mom. This is a better tree, Dad. Why aren't you flying over here? Hey! Hey! C'mon, fly over here! ...Oh all right, I'll fly back over to your tree. You got food yet? Gimme food!"
I've been looking up both Cooper's & Sharp-shinned hawks, and the jury's still out (they are definitely small hawks & not falcons). All the experts say it's hard to tell them apart. Great. -_- Both hawks have similar sizes & markings, and this part of Arizona is in both their ranges. To make matters more interesting, *all* of my hawks had streaked chests, and all the pics of Cooper's & Sharp-shinned shows them BOTH with barred AND streaked chest markings.
It *was* a ladder-backed woodpecker that I saw; I'm still looking up the other new bird. All I know is it wasn't a female vermilion flycatcher.
I also got to spy on some rock-squirrels, plus the usual round-tailed ground squirrels that are so prevalent around here (everyone around here takes great delight in irking me by calling them prairie dogs).
As the sun started to go, a child's party got underway at a nearby ramada. And even though there was a serviceable fountain right by them, the kids decided the drinking fountain
right next to where I was sketching was *the* spot to fill up their water balloons. They didn't so much as fill them up as splash & squirt each other--and me, and my paper. I literally hollered at them not once, but 3 times.
And to round off the evening, Wolf the First picked up the usual mendicants (Pedro & Ahk) & they joined me in all my sweaty glory at the park. Pedro downloaded his copies of the Ouran High School Host Club anime for me, which I'm a gibbering fangirl over. Good friends, good times.
The happy part starts with a singing hummingbird. Feel free to skip the first few paragraphs.
A little background, short version: I'm supposed to stay away from home during the daylight hours.
A promised check, which I thought had arrived in the mail, turned out to just be a card. I have a gas-tank dangerously close to empty, maybe $1.50 to my name, and I'm sicksicksick of hanging out in the library.
So I decided to hang out in a park that I've never frequented before, find myself a shady spot, read a little, sweat a lot, & feel sorry for myself.
Shade: check.
Reading material: check.
Sweat: check.
Singing hummingbird: ....Buh?!
That's right, a singing hummingbird. I knew they squeaked & rattled at each other, but I never knew they sang! But there the little bugger was, not 5 feet from me, singing his little heart out. Most of it was just too high-frequency for me to make out, but his throat & beak were quite active, and what I could hear was definite singing.
I scuttled to my car to fetch my camera. The hummingbird let me get ridiculously close to it, and just as I was about to snap what would have been a very nice close-up (something that's very difficult to do with my camera), something blurred into frame & crashed into the hummingbird's twig.
It was none other than a hawk--either a sharp-shinned or a cooper's-- and a rather clumsy one at that. I quickly forgave him ruining my hummingbird shot, because now I had the opportunity to get a picture of him.
So of course he flew to another tree. 9_9 And I followed. So he flapped over to another tree. And I followed, and got in a shot or two, but nothing close. This must have distressed him because he started whistling. It honestly sounded like a cheap plastic whistle you get out of a cereal box, sans the ball-bearing.
The awkward attack on the hummingbird & his clumsy flying was soon explained: Mom & Dad showed up!
I was very excited by this time & returned to my shaded picnic table, not wanting to either chase the family away or incur Ma & Pa's wrath. I was kicking myself for not bringing my binoculars with me! But I resolved to make the best of it & just enjoy watching from a distance.
Turns out that was the best thing to do, because Junior decided to return to the tree just next to my spot. For the past 3 hours I've been watching Ma & Pa hawk bringing lizards to Junior.
I was surprised at how many small birds remained in the area, with 2 hunting adults hanging about. The pigeons & doves cleared out right away, but the small songbirds remained. There were vermilion flycatchers, lesser finches, hummingbirds, house finches, and I actually spotted 2 new birds to add to my list--and even got a picture of one of them (some kind of flycatcher or pheobe, & a ladder-backed woodpecker--until I look 'em up, I can't be sure)! Every now & then Junior would flop out of the tree after a flock, get nowhere near catching any of them, and sit on the ground with a surprised look on his face ("But Ma & Pa make it look so easy!").
Okay library is closing. But I just HAD to jump into a library & share this exceptional afternoon with someone. I'm heading right back to the same spot, and hope to see a hawk actually nab something.
::hugs!::
<EDIT>
Well, good thing I returned. Junior was joined by a sibling, making it 4 hawks total! The young'uns are very vocal. "Mom, gimme food! I want food, Dad! This branch keeps breaking! I'm flying over to this tree, Mom. This is a better tree, Dad. Why aren't you flying over here? Hey! Hey! C'mon, fly over here! ...Oh all right, I'll fly back over to your tree. You got food yet? Gimme food!"
I've been looking up both Cooper's & Sharp-shinned hawks, and the jury's still out (they are definitely small hawks & not falcons). All the experts say it's hard to tell them apart. Great. -_- Both hawks have similar sizes & markings, and this part of Arizona is in both their ranges. To make matters more interesting, *all* of my hawks had streaked chests, and all the pics of Cooper's & Sharp-shinned shows them BOTH with barred AND streaked chest markings.
It *was* a ladder-backed woodpecker that I saw; I'm still looking up the other new bird. All I know is it wasn't a female vermilion flycatcher.
I also got to spy on some rock-squirrels, plus the usual round-tailed ground squirrels that are so prevalent around here (everyone around here takes great delight in irking me by calling them prairie dogs).
As the sun started to go, a child's party got underway at a nearby ramada. And even though there was a serviceable fountain right by them, the kids decided the drinking fountain
right next to where I was sketching was *the* spot to fill up their water balloons. They didn't so much as fill them up as splash & squirt each other--and me, and my paper. I literally hollered at them not once, but 3 times.
And to round off the evening, Wolf the First picked up the usual mendicants (Pedro & Ahk) & they joined me in all my sweaty glory at the park. Pedro downloaded his copies of the Ouran High School Host Club anime for me, which I'm a gibbering fangirl over. Good friends, good times.
I also spotted a local species of the Great White Conservative, known as a Fuzzy Greymuzzle, Canid variety.
While they are easily baited & drawn by such calls as "Gun control! Gun Control! Socialized medicine!", it's not a recommended method, as they are known to cache various explosive & incendiary devices, as well as carry a formidable aresenal (including biological weapons, as those who are downwind will attest). A much better way to attract them is to designate a feeding station with plenty of youthful spazzes to point at & mock.