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coming up this weekend!

This has been the best birding day in the yard since we have moved here. The temp is dropping steadily – about 32 right now and we have seen birds this morning that we have never had in the yard before. Here is the list as of 12:30p.
1) Golden Fronted Woodpecker – black oil sunflower seed from blue feeder, hanging seed cake
2) Northern Cardinals – sunflower and special mix
3) Chipping Sparrow – sunflower,special mix, millet feeder, and hanging seed cake
4) House Sparrow – sunflower
5) Female House Finch – male must be somewhere close – special mix
6) Tufted Titmice – sunflower and special mix
7) Black-capped chickadee – sunflower and hanging seedcake
8) American Goldfinch – flock of 10, had one mature male w/black cap, and one that had a white cap, but otherwise was marked as a male. One also had a very white tail. Have not had these prior to today.
9) White-Winged Dove – sunflower on ground
10) Mourning Dove – sunflower on ground – don’t normally see them as much as the White-Winged
11) American Robin – 2 male, 2 female out the side yard in the grass
12) Carolina Wren – all over – enjoying everything
13) Northen Mockingbird – out the side yard in the grass
14) Ruby-Crowned Kinglet – male – saw his red head crest clearly
15) Dark-Eyed Junco – Dean spotted them in the leaf litter beneath the Live Oak out back – two or more
16) Bewicks Wren – on the side of the house – flitting
17) Greater Roadrunner – Spotted him all poofed out sitting on a paver in front of the privet. He was so poofed out that I could barely recognize him. Spotted several times after hunting the privet.

Trust no one who attempts to influence by using fear.

This was awesome! Definitely have to go back next year

Launch Quilt Slidehow

I watched this past week, probably one of the most encouraging pieces I have seen in a long time – Moyers on America – “Is God Green?” When I saw that title, I thought maybe, finally, this is what I have been waiting for. Some support from the religious right for the environment. I have never quite understood how Christians could vote for a party that believes the planet is here for our consumption (to make money) when according to Christian belief, the planet is God’s creation, and perhaps even an embodiment of God himself. I do understand however, that in our dysfunctional political system, in order for Christians to vote for other issues that they believe in such as Pro-Life, they have to vote republican.

This leads to the grayness that is in every issue, every belief, every idea, that political parties and the media try to force into being black or white. I have never registered to vote. The reason for this, is that I do not believe that my vote will truly count for exactly what I believe in. Only if we are given the ability to vote on each specific issue, rather than for a party that represents a basket of issues (some we may like, some we may not like), will I let my vote be counted. I have never been one to ascribe to the notion of the “lesser of two evils”. If those are my choices – I choose none and I choose not to participate. I love it when people say that if you do not vote, you therefore should not voice your opinion on politics. Bullshit. I think it is the people that can step out of the paradigm and take a truly objective view, that have the most valuable things to say.

Watch this piece – http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/green/index.html it is pretty amazing to see these people have a revelation about the environment and it is encouraging. It does also scare me in that it is only when their pastor starts preaching pro-environment sermons on the pulpit, that they come to see what the “tree-huggers” have been seeing all along. Why can’t people think for themselves?

Dean is off to Houston for his sister Melony’s 40th B-day – so I figured Eija and I would spend some quality time prowling the yard counting as many different kinds of birds as we can.

Sat Morning:
1) Ruby-crowned Kinglet
2) Northern Cardinal
3) Northen Mockingbird
4) Tufted Tit-mouse – black-capped
5) Mourning Dove
6) House Wren
7) American Crow
8) Black-capped Chickadee
9) Black Vulture
10) White-winged Dove
11) House Sparrow
12) Warblers – these guys are migratory and really hard to tell what kind – I saw about 5 of them in the front oaks, maybe Nashville or Yellow warblers

I spotted my first fall migratory bird this morning – a Least Flycatcher. Dean had already spotted him about two weeks ago, but did not know what he was, just that he looked like a small Mockingbird. This guy mainly hangs out up North – Canada, MN, MT but migrates to the tropics via Texas. I am going to try and log as many migrants as they come through this fall. They say the fall migration happens here as early as June, it is a slow gradual process unlike the much quicker spring migration.

Dean and I are getting my needlepoint site up and running. check it out – modernneedlepoint.com

I guess birds have always been an easy way to commune with nature. They are an utterly foreign creature from ourselves, which makes them intreresting, with their unlikely concoction of feathers, beaks and claws, and the innate ability to fly. We can very quickly lure them into our surroundings by offering food and water – they almost always accept. We often though are disappointed at the overall lack of variety that we attract to our little oases, just sparrows, or just dove. We crave the more showy, colorful bird characters, the painted bunting, the vast variety of warbler, oriole, yet almost every other action that we as humans engage in, effectively limits our ability to ever see these standouts among birds. Here in Texas, we have launched a full-scale attack on the native cedar (juniper) trees because we need to put houses there instead, the cedar are scrubby, and we don’t appreciate the havoc the pollen wreaks on our sinuses. The Golden-Cheeked Warbler, which nests exlusively in the central part of Texas, depends on these cedar trees. They make their nests out of long strips of cedar bark held fast with spider web glue. Should we expect or suggest that to survive in this overly fast-paced, changing world, the Golden-Cheek better adapt to a new kind of tree to use for its nest? Change its behavior that has been fine-tuned for ages, just so that we as humans can make this world entirely and selfishly our own?

I am reminded over and over of all of the science fiction that I have read – scenes of terra-forming planets to suit our purposes, the need to search out new planetary resources because we have depleted our own in our recklessness and our shortsightedness. Is it even possible, with our human population as immense as it has become – to turn back now? Or is it all just a matter of waiting for the inevitable planet-recycling event that will wipe humanity off of the face of the earth in order for nature to start the process all over?

I also can’t help but stop and think about how our vast race of humans, will someday be the fossil-fuels for future beings. All of our bodies will lay in the ground for eons, pressure, heat and time, slowly being converted into just the precious resource that we crave so badly and use with such wild abandon.

“Extra-human, extra-natural terms divide us from compassion. We have a death-dealing capacity that is without parallel; and, having to a large extent disorganized the gradual, assimilated experience which bound man to place, we have thrown events not only into the hands of unpredictable change but into the unknown capacity of mankind to keep control without appalling tyranny. We are governed by our obsession with means. We have been treating the earth with a recklessness which is no tribute to human genius. The almost total poisoning of the natural environment is only being postponed by fragmentary efforts.

The great danger in a revolutionary world that takes us with it in spreading mobility, forced communication and unprecedented speed, uncertain of the outcome, is that we will take our own risks and live out our own violence as we can. In other words, we may risk the habitable earth for the sake of mere impetus. Perhaps the awareness of disaster will prevent us from bringing on our artificial ice age which could postpone spring for ten thousand years. Perhaps we can, by conscious, continual effort, keep turning the bow aside to save the ship. We will have to try, in this one world. We have come now to the point where we meet the living earth either in terms of fundamental conflict or fundamental cooperation. All our pillaging and presumption have brought us face to face with ultimate limits. We have pushed ourselves and the rest of life on earth to a point where one step more could mean survival or extinction.”