Caw Caw Caw

I see crows a lot. They really are everywhere you go. Anywhere you look there's a crow, and usually when there is one crow there is a second crow. I'd think a crow would be a big enough bird to survive on its own, but I guess they are social. I wonder if they always stay with the same crow, like they have one best crow buddy, or if they have several different crow pals they pal around with.

What about when they fly together with a huge number of other crows. Do you think they often lose sight of a cherished best crow friend, or fall out of touch with a trusted crow colleague? It's kind of a sad thought. Or maybe they simply don't care, and will party up with any crow of similar level. Perhaps they have some way of measuring their own rank compared to that of another crow, and that's how they decide who to join forces with.

I wonder if the crow duos are often mated pairs. Or always mated pairs. If so I think its cute that they go out together so often. They go everywhere together I bet.

Hmmm... Crows.

Pink Friday

An old friend of mine, Allison Borngesser came into town for Thanks Giving Day. She got in touch with me on ye olde internet, and said that we should hang out. The day of the hang out, was today. Black Friday. She sent me a text message saying her arrival would be within the next ten minutes. So I prepare, and am standing on my porch waiting for her for a few.

I went back inside, and got a text from her saying that she had arrived, and so I walked back outside. I looked over the edge of the balcony to see if that was her car below me, and suddenly right in front of my face, a green humming bird with a pink head appears. It just floats there, in the air, looking right at me. Now I dyed my hair red for the first time ever about a week ago, and its already starting to fade and it looks more pink than red. (at least it does to me)

So this little pink headed dude flaps right up to me, maybe 3 feet away and just checks me out, then flits away at sub-sonic speeds. I don't think I've ever been that close to a humming bird, let alone one that had the same hair colour as me. It was awesome.

Cute little dudes.

That Pond

The next day, I went back to that pond, completely forgetting my binoculars. I'm good at that. And I took a peak at the ducks which have taken up residence. After my bit of research from the day before, I had no problem at all Identifying them as the Hooded Merganser.

Today, I walked by the pond again and stopped to take a peak at them. There are 4, two male and two female. There is one who looks bigger than the other, and he swam in the front of the other three who followed behind him closely. Perhaps he is the best at finding food? Perhaps he is just their leader and there is safety in numbers. I for one do not know.

I like their narrow beaks, and their cool mohawk head shapes. It seems this may be the winter of taking what I can get in regards to birding activity.

Ducks, and so much more.

My summer is over, but my birding must continue. I no longer work at the golf-course, and so my exposure to the bird life in the area is drastically diminished. I'm now a full time college student. Between classes I walk by a pond, and there are white faced ducks in it. I haven't taken the time as of yet to look them up, I seem to be bored by ducks; but I'll take that time right now to pick up my wonderful Stokes Field Guide to Birds $17.99 well spent at your local bookstore and learn about the white faced ducks which live in the pond at my college.

After about fifteen minutes of looking at info in my field manuals I can safely say the d-d-ducks i'm d-d-dealing with are either Buffleheads, or Hooded Mergansers. I don't have class today otherwise I'd find out today, but tomorrow I'll take my binoculars with me when I go to math so that I can look. Perhaps having access to only ducks will give me an appreciation of them that I currently lack. To me they've always been, "Just ducks." or "Just geese" but they're pretty interesting if I stop to think about them. Each bird is a meal, and they fly en masse and land on frozen ponds, eventually finding warmer climate. I'd say that's a pretty flimsy description of ducks and geese at best, but I'll work with it.

One thing I miss most other than the Red-Tailed hawks, is the King-Fishers. On a doorway in the hall where my math class resides, is a poster of a king fisher, and an owl. I look at it every day and it makes me think back to the days when I observed the king fishers at the golf course.

They were always the hardest to see, because of their dark colors and my poor eyesight. Even if I could see one through my binoculars, they would still be hard to see clearly. And I could never get very close because they're skittish. Any time I'd get within 100 meters of one it would just fly away, beat wing like mad and am-scray.

I'm sad that I never got to see one of them dive for food. Never once. I did get to see one of the great blue herons on many occasion scooping eating fish, or bugs, or frogs. Every day toward the end of my summer the heron was everywhere. He was at every water trap before we could get there, and he'd be at the next one the next thing you knew.

One thing I realize I never got to exerience was 'the Beaver'. According to Jeff, the Beaver was the size of a bear, and it looked like 'a huge walking mole mound'. I never once got to see it, and I know little about beavers so I don't know when they're usually most active. Perhaps if I work there again next year I'll get to see the mammoth beaver.