It seems that things can be too good to be true, and such was the case for our rental for the week. I mentioned yesterday that it was a bit small, and while that was not such a huge deal, some other … characteristics were a bit more off-putting. Continue reading
After a long year and lots of hard work, Shari needed a vacation and I loved the idea of a week at the beach. She did the research, since it can be tough to find a dog-friendly place at the shore, and secured a small bungalow down in Cape May for a week. Continue reading
On Monday, one of Shari and my Flickr friends, PhotoPatty, was in town with her husband Al, and we decided to get together so that I could show them around the birding hot spots in NJ. Or rather, some of the coastal hot spots (such as they are in the middle of summer). Continue reading
I was guiding PhotoPatty and Al around Forsythe NWR when she suddenly points down into the water and says, "I think that’s a shark!". If I hadn’t seen it, I would never have thought I would see a shark (let alone 2, maybe 3) in the east pool of Forsythe NWR.
I can not seem to catch up with my writing (or pretty much anything else) lately. And there has been some good stuff happening. Continue reading
Our last day in the Cave Creek area we wanted to hit some of those places we had missed earlier and look for a couple of species that we really wanted to see: Juniper Titmice, Scaled and Montezuma Quail and Zone-tailed Hawks. We also wanted to make a trip up to the Chiricahua National Monument to see the amazing rock formations there. Continue reading
I’ve always been a sketcher during meetings, but unlike many other people where doodling is a sign of boredom or inattention, with my ADD, it actually keeps me focused. By keeping my hands and my right brain focused on the paper, it keeps my ears and mind on Wednesday is being said. Strange but true.
My doodles have cycles: a week or two of realism, a couple weeks of abstract line art, a period of typography, etc. Lately, I’ve been doing bird sketches from memory in the margins. I’m not sure if it’s because I still have birds in the brain from Arizona (probably), if I just have birds in my head right now (definitely) or if I am just enjoying doing some realistic drawings of something that I have a fairly decent picture of in my mind’s eye. Regardless, it’s been fun to try to draw a reasonable likeness of some birds from memory in my notebook. Some samples are below. I just wish I had a better scanner for them (the details didn’t come out very well).
I decided to spend the morning doing something I haven’t been able to do all spring – hike/bird locally. It’s hard to believe that I missed almost all of migration this year, but somehow between the weather and doing stuff around the house, I did. So, I decided to see what might be left around the area. Continue reading
For our fourth day, we decided to reverse our previous days’ path, except we still wanted to start the morning at the South Fork. We had heard that many people were hearing the Elegant Trogon* right near the bridge, so we started there. Initially, things were a little slow as the sun was just starting to peek into the canyon, but they quickly picked up as all of the birds started to wake up, producing a magical post-dawn chorus. Numerous Empidonax flycatchers were joined by warblers and orioles in song, while other, quieter birds like the Painted Redstart and several hummingbirds flew about in frantic activity. Vireos and a few warblers (including a few Townsend’s and Wilson’s) were flitting about in the tall sycamores by the creek, while Acorn Woodpeckers competed with Canyon Wrens for top song of the morning. Soon, it was almost impossible to keep up with all of the movement and chittering on the trees. Continue reading
Well, we finally did it – we won a game. For some reason, our team has really struggled all season – and for what seems like different reasons each game. One game we can’t hit to save our lives; another game we are scoring runs but giving up twice as many on bad fielding and poor throwing mistakes. But on Wednesday, everything came together – hitting, fielding, base-running were all excellent, and we beat Avenue A-Razorfish 23-2. Now, I can’t say that some of it didn’t have to do with the fact that we were playing the only other winless team in the league, but it seemed like we were just more together – everyone wasn’t swinging at the first pitch, we were running the bases well, making good throws, etc. If we had played that way in other games, I think we might have won 1 or 2 of them. But you know what they say about ‘could have’…
Still, I’m playing better overall, although it seems like I am only getting one at bat per game, regardless of how long I’m in. Wednesday, I went in for the last 4 innings of the 7-inning game … except it got called after 5 innings, right as I was coming up for my second at-bat. Oh well. But I’m getting the ball out of the infield this year, so that’s nice – last year I would pound the ball in batting practice, and then shank it when it mattered. I was a one-bagger through and through. This year, I’ve got a couple of doubles already and even two of my outs have been sacrifice flies.
Now I just have to get my first home run…
