February 15th, the first day of the Great Backyard Bird Count, turned out to be cold and rainy, so we stayed home and did our observation through the windows. Still, Laurie counted over 60 pigeons at dawn, and in the afternoon, a varied thrush, braver than he usually is, foraged in plain view at the edge of the lawn for a good 10 minutes. So we had something to submit. Tomorrow will be better.
The GBBC website has the 2008 Photo Gallery already loaded up with current submissions. One birder caught a Cooper's Hawk in an unusual pose; go look.
And on to bird blog posts:
Hugh, at Rock, Paper, Lizard, writes about The Stately American Coot, including a description and photo of "The ultimate act of coot contempt."
More not-so-polite bird antics: Julie Zickefoose tells us of The Rising of geese, and "a patter of warm goose poop."
Well, since I'm on the subject, I may as well link you to this;
from Sagehen News, a Local Mystery Solved
and this, from Hugh, again; A late winter walk to a beaver pond, with rodent droppings .
Enough? Change the subject? Ok, Snail's Tales has a series of great photos of slugs; Limax maximus mating .
Life is messy, and sometimes ewww-making. But consider the alternative; GrrlScientist reports on the findings of research scientists from OSU studying Oceanic Dead Zones off the Oregon coast.
"Thousands and thousands of dead crab and molts were littering the ocean floor, many sea stars were dead, and the fish have either left the area or have died and been washed away."The killer? Oxygen depletion. And the cause; global warming.
"We seem to have crossed a tipping point," Lubchenco observed. "Low-oxygen zones off the Northwest coast appear to be the new normal."
And one more photo, from Water World.
"Don't let this be our future."
'nuff said.
Wow, thanks for the shout out,
ReplyDeleteSusannah! One of my tags for the post was "rain of poop." Try googling that! It's a weird world out there (and in here, too!)
Terrific post.
ReplyDelete