Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Just What Species of Bird Was That Perched on Bernie's Podium...National Audubon Comes Through!

is a female House Finch. Learn more about this bird:
 
 
 TA DA!  Thank you National Audubon!

 
Happy Birding!
Donegal Browne








Monday, March 28, 2016

ATTENTION ARIZONA ---BECAUSE OF THE FIRST I'VE BEEN ASKED TO PUBLISH THE SECOND


 

 

HAPPY EASTER! Yes, Quicksilver, the African Grey Parrot, Nabs The Crisco Again

 
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/03/27/editorial-cartoon-happy-easter-2.html

                     HAPPY EASTER!!!

I couldn't  resist an Easter  pleasantry which celebrates world peace with an Easter Egg that is actually hatching.

Yes, dear Readers, Silver has once again, using his Super Powered Parrot Stealth, gotten into the Crisco can.

  Sigh.

 The UPS Man had knocked on the front door while I was making a cake.  And in the few minutes when I had gone to the front door and the Crisco was unattended,  Silver had gotten onto the floor of the laundry room, walked through the second parlor, (I'd have heard him if he'd flown),  and walked behind me to the door, that leads past the first stairway, through the dining room, past the second stairway, where the cat chow is guarded on the third step by a baby gate to prevent access by Tig the Diabetic Dog, with has tendency toward pancreatitis upon glutting out on kitty chow...only then do we come to the kitchen. 

But back to the door behind my back which Silver is making a break for.   

This is a vintage wooden door with a glass window in the top half, so reasonably heavy.  It tends to be open an inch or so in order for Pyewacket and Squirrel the black cats to  have access to their food and to avoid constant caterwauling.  

Nothing makes a cat more hysterical than limited access to the cat chow.   

Nor the dog"s inconvenience in checking for any stray fragment of the aforementioned cat chow that may have fallen down the three steps, under the child gate, and onto the floor, just waiting for Tig to eat it.

Sigh.

Mammal egress in regards to the unlatched door and hence the kitchen-  The dog uses his nose to push the door open and the cats use a paw, just how the parrot does it is unknown. 

 Nobody has ever SEEN Silver do it but he does start out on one side of the house and ends up on the other whenever he feels like it. 

Just walking up and somehow squeezing through wouldn't work for both in and out.  So tis a mystery.

But back to our saga, I finish up with the UPS man and head back to the kitchen, where I find the parrot.

 Eating Crisco as fast as he possibly can.  At least he hasn't started on the chocolate cake batter.  Go for the fat first  is an African Grey motto after all.  Ask any of them.

                      QUICKSILVER!!!
                                      He says... "WHAT?"
                                    
              I say, "BAD BIRD! Get OUT of the shortening!"
                                    
                                     He says, "Good Bird".


                                  And goes down for another bite.
                                               "BAD BIRD!"

                         AND HIS HEAD DISAPPEARS.

 Donegal Browne... sigh....

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Birds from Here to There- Bernie Sanders to Birdie Sanders Plus Wild Turkeys and Snow White WHAT??? I Know. I Know.


            
 It all started with this.  Not long ago during a speech by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a Portland Rally, a "dicky bird", as my late great biology mentor Dr. Gross would have categorized it,  landed on Bernie's podium.

It brought down the house.

Not only that but memes of "Birdie Sanders" sprouted overnight. 

 I particularly like this one posted on...

http://brainsandeggs.blogspot.com/2016/03/birdie-sanders.html


And there is this one...

And another favorite.

What reminded me of all this you ask?

I went to crop some photographs of Wild Turkeys this evening and once again realized that Turkeys, particularly in Spring, remind me of the Disney color palette.  They just do not look real but they are.


See?
It gets worse.  Dusk light doesn't help.
 Just when you thought it would be better...
It gets worse because now there are three of them.
And then four.  Why do they become even more strangely tinted as night comes on?
Because gloaming light makes the coloration even more seemingly imreal.


    See?

And we haven't even gotten into how they move.

Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne