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An unusual bird showed up at the bird feeder last evening. It seemed to have more red than a house finch, which is usually light underneath.
It had a red rump. Maybe it was a purple finch.
It had a thick, heavy beak. I’d say it was a pine grosbeak, but they are further north at this time of year.
Perhaps it was a crossbill–I don’t have a good image of the tip of the beak. The grey bird above it could be a female of the same species.
Any opinions?
An unusual bird showed up in our cherry tree early this morning. I’m not sure what it was.
It might be a pine warbler.
What do you think?
The Scottish government has written a guide to cat care for the clueless. That’s a good idea, because when we are ignorant of something, we don’t know how ignorant we are.
When I was growing up, we “knew” that “cats drink milk,” so we never put out fresh water for our cat—and then were amused when it drank out of the aquarium. There are more books on cat care now, as well as the Internet, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to have an official source telling people the basics.
Today we had a fun ride. LotStreetWiz, AtheticKid, SilentLight, and I all biked down to the Leslie Street Spit, around the outer road (three times for L & A), and back again. We put in about 17 miles plus a few extra for our athletes. We took the Don Trail both ways to find a gentler slope. I generally brought up the rear. At the entrance to the park SilentLight and I hung back to have something to eat. I felt more energetic after that.
The Spit had a community event with nature lookout points and bird boxes for swallows or perhaps bluebirds. Apparently it was part of Doors Open Toronto. At our turnaround point, just before the road turns to gravel, there was a display including some bird skins, so we were able to compare herring gulls, ring-billed gulls (a little smaller), and common terns (a lot smaller). We learned that a pair of great egrets are nesting, or at least hanging around, past our turnaround. That was about our only stop as the emphasis was on letting AthleticKid get in some training time.
still, we saw a lot of birds: cormorants, Canada Geese, gulls, terns, swallows–barn swallows?–and lots of smaller ones. We heard a lot of robins. The red-winged blackbirds are everywhere.
The beaver lodge in the big pond is higher and we saw freshly gnawed and felled trees back by the park entrance. So either there are two beavers with different territories or one wandering animal.
Remember Kliban with his Tomcats and Momcats? Here’s another kind of Mom.
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Be jealous, John B! This fish caught in Australia by a middle-aged cake-maker massed over 30 kg!
Well, global warming promises us more unstable weather, and I guess this is it.
It looks like winter out. We’ve had rain, snow, freezing rain, ice pellets, wind, and thunder.
The cats are all disgusted and restless because they can’t go out.
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This is cute – and colorful!
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Hat tip to Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution is True: “Caturday mustelid.”
Who would have thought that there’s a Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists? I can see something like this gracing the mantelpiece of a dedicated member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (motto: Re-living the Middle Ages—the fun parts).
