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Post by Bix Dugan on Mar 24, 2010 11:26:00 GMT -5
We live in a neighborhood called Heron Harbor here in South Carolina. Since the leaves haven't grown in yet (completely blocking the view of the water) we see herons and ducks and geese all the time. Cardinals fight with squirrels for time at my feeder. I even constructed a birdhouse and I think some finches (?) are occupying it now. Darned squirrels will hang upside-down from the feeders roof and eat and eat and eat without remorse. I saw a feeder with a squirrel-abatement system at the store. A wire hoop that's closest to the ground will start spinning when any weight is put on it. Imagine a squirrel trying to hang on to a spinning ceiling fan. They have a TV in the store, showing a video of squirrels taking a ride.
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Mar 24, 2010 11:41:40 GMT -5
I don't believe that dead bodies can be reanimated into soulless killing machines, but anhingas come pretty close to convincing me.
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Post by spackle on Mar 24, 2010 17:19:36 GMT -5
^ Yeah, they're scary. This is a fairly common sight around here... Actually it's more like this, they have to air dry their wings. They don't have the same oil glands as other water birds... or something.
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Post by solgroupie on Mar 25, 2010 19:43:48 GMT -5
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Post by callipygias on Mar 25, 2010 22:57:44 GMT -5
Spackle and Bix, I love how you both mention Northern Cardinals in passing, like they're so common... which I guess they are, for you. Here's their range: Last year we had a Northern Cardinal show up at someone's feeder in the Portland area, and it made the local news for two days. The neighborhood where it was spotted was covered in birders trying to get a glimpse. The person who managed to attract it was very generous, allowing birders access to his property (which demolished his lawn), and apparently the bird did come back to feed quite a few times. It seems like we always hear what a scourge on nature we are, but all our bird feeders are not only helping a kajillion birds overwinter, they're also helping many extend their range. Maybe when I'm old I'll have families of Cardinals at my feeders.
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Post by spackle on Mar 26, 2010 7:32:41 GMT -5
A Cardinal in the northwest! Very cool. They are such pretty birds, and I enjoy hearing their call; I've been around cardinals most of my life, so it's sort of a nostalgic sound. I take it it was a male that made it up your way. They are striking, but to give the female her due, she's pretty cute too...
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Post by solgroupie on Mar 26, 2010 9:04:08 GMT -5
now THAT'S one cute bird.
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Mar 26, 2010 9:37:33 GMT -5
Hmm, well I learned something new. I'd always kind of assumed cardinals were more or less common over the Lower 48.
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Post by callipygias on Mar 26, 2010 10:12:44 GMT -5
A Cardinal in the northwest! Very cool. They are striking, but to give the female her due, she's pretty cute too... She almost never gets camera time unless she's next to a male. It might be because the Pyrrhuloxia totally kyped her look:
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Post by spackle on Mar 26, 2010 11:33:12 GMT -5
Wow! I'd never even heard of a Pyrrhuloxia before. Nice look. But at least female cardinals can claim to be trendsetters.
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Post by callipygias on Mar 27, 2010 10:57:17 GMT -5
I stopped on a country road near the Clackamas River yesterday and scrambled down the muddy, stickery bank and wandered around a shallow stream for a while. Saw my first ever Brown Creeper He was doing just what the books say they do, flying from the top of one tree to the bottom of another and working his way up the trunk, looking for insects and stuff. Somebody managed to train one to eat from his hand, apparently. Good sense of their size Saw some other cool stuff, but that was the only new bird... at least that I'm sure of. I might have also seen my first Peregrine Falcon; at first it was waaaay up high, then it actually dove then it leveled off, still way up high, then did it again. I got all excited, then I remembered I was near water and Osprey have that falcony looking wing-turn when they dive But Osprey would have no reason to dive hundreds of feet up, would they? Then again, it's spring, and birds do some weird-ass stuff in spring. Along with some nettle stings that woke me up in the middle of the night, here's the price I payed Always wear short-pants when scrambling through blackberry thickets!
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Post by spackle on Mar 27, 2010 14:41:22 GMT -5
Funny seeing your lacerated leg right above your signature. Is it better than killing ourselves? I think it is!
The thing that strikes me in the creeper pic is it looks like he's balanced on the tips of his claws, not actually hanging on. But I guess he doesn't have much weight to support. Very cute little thing.
Stooping bird of prey! Cool whichever it was.
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Post by solgroupie on Mar 27, 2010 20:53:05 GMT -5
i was talking to my dad a couple of nights ago. he and my mom spend about three months in the keys during the winter and he goes out fishing as often as he can. he says he goes about five miles out in the ocean, and if the water is not choppy, he said it is totally and utterly silent. one day he said it was that quiet when all of the sudden something fell into the water next to his boat with such a splash that he thought something had fallen out of an airplane, or something. scared the hell out of him. then all of the sudden, a giant albatross shot back out of the water with a fish - attached to his line! he had to cut the line, of course. but he said the albatross was absolutely huge. a guy at the docks told him he'd heard of a guy who tried to get his fish back from an albatross and nearly lost his finger in the process. they have a wing span of six feet or more and can dive up to thirty feet under water! amazing.
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Post by spackle on Mar 29, 2010 12:48:55 GMT -5
^ I think that would have scared the pee out of me! Albatross is to Anhinga as Saber-toothed Tiger is to lil' smudgey.
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Post by solgroupie on Mar 29, 2010 15:19:55 GMT -5
i don't know. i'd put my money on smudgey. she's fearless. and mean.
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