I just wanna come for the fresh corn….

mikey

If it was an ivory-billed woodpecker I bet you could kill it and sell the ivory for decent money.

I live right next to St Edward State Park on the NE shore of Lake Washington; full of piliated ‘peckers. Plus, one visited our yard a couple weeks ago, caught on camera. I think they as a population are stressed, so it’s nice to see them. No corn in the park, but y’all come for the great mountain biking!

While doing the ‘elitist’ cooking steaks and drinking micro-brew routine at the home of a good friend of mine, we were witness to an all out territorial squabble in her urban backyard between a couple Wrens, six or seven Robins and brilliant Cardinal who was taking no shit from anyone. I can see why people ‘watch’ birds.

Uh, Mencken? Are you in Arkansas? Because if you are, dude, you so have to let me buy you a drink sometime.

I’ve been ridiculed before for saying this, but I actually did see an ivory bill when I was a child of about 7 or 8. It flew into a tree in our backyard in suburban Atlanta, so I understand the reason people sometimes don’t believe it, but I was no more than 100 feet away from it, watching from the sliding glass doors at the back of the house, and that is what it was – it was the biggest bird I had ever seen. It was the size of a big wading bird and every bit as exotic looking. The thing I remember most vividly was how wild its eyes were. My mom and sister were watching it with me. When my dad got home and got out the Audubon book, I pointed it out. Dad says, “it wasn’t one of those, those are extinct! It was one of these pileated woodpeckers.” Except, it wasn’t. It was too big to be a pileated and the markings were slightly different. So it was no big surprise to me when a few years ago it was announced that one had been spotted.

As for the unlikelihood of a bird assumed to be extinct flying into the backyard of a house in suburban Atlanta, suburban Atlanta in 1970 was nothing like suburban Atlanta today…our area was just starting to see a lot of development. Development that ultimately destroyed good ivorybill habitat, unfortunately.

So, html, are you pitching to be the James Lileks of Gooberville?

the one I saw best had a red head with a silly dingly crest

Both the female and male pileated woodpecker have the red crest. The male’s extends down between the eyes; the female’s doesn’t. Also, the male has an additional red stripe just back from its bill. The Cornell Lab has photos that show the difference, plus audio of the pileated’s call, which I think is really cool.

Ornithologists and bird watchers may come to investigate for a small daily fee of $1,000 per person, payable to the HTML Mencken: Intensity at the DNC! fund.

Just make sure you change the name of your farm to Big Woods first.

Um.

How tall’s the corn?

Got a cast iron skillet?

We’re good…

mikey

mikey – if you ever make it to these parts, I’ll go one better by cooking up a mess of delicious pan fried okra.

HTML, you give me a Woody™.

sounded like a retarded bird trying to imitate a squirrel’s bark

I’ve been hearing a similar sound around my backyard (in southern Quebec). Haven’t seen what’s making it so I’m no help with the ID.

We have hoardes of acorn woodpeckers here in southern California.

The first time I ever had Okra was in a pile of black-eyed peas next to a huge slab of catfish in north texas in 1975. None of this food was familiar. But I was road hungry, and surrounded by friends. Nothing looked like the food I was used to, and I was acutely aware of the eyes upon me as I sampled. I admit to a smal fork full of black eyed peas. BAM! And that dood on tv has NO ownership on that. My mouth exploded with a whole set of experiences that were simply not available to people outside of texas. The black-eyed peas, the catfish steaks, the hush puppies with jalapenos built in, all the food was bigger and banger and boomer and just MORE. And ever since, as I’ve met new cuisines, I’ve looked for what they do, what they bring, what they deliver.

And the experience has left me richer, fatter and happier…..

mikey

No, this was some unusual bird chat: shrill, frequent, sounded like a retarded bird trying to imitate a squirrel’s bark.

I think that would be the A. Coulterus, or perhaps the M. Malkinae.

Yep. Looks like a pilleated. We’ve got them in the parks along the river in St Paul, but I can’t attract them to my yard. I’ve got Downy and Hairy and a Red-Bellied woodpecker on a regular basis, a Cardinal nesting in the barberry hedge and a Robin nesting nearby too. Also been seeing Orioles, an Indigo Bunting & lots of Goldfinches. My house is the first house off the Mississippi River and I’ve been feeding year round for 10 years. I;ve got over a dozen feeders in the yard so that everyone has their favorites. It is a hobby that I would recommend to everyone. It’s like discovering that a beautifully visible parallel universe has a portal into your yard.

What’s another common name for Dryocopus pileatus?

Log Cock.

gbear.

Do you have cats? More specifically, do they bother the birds?

Sounds like pileated woodpeckers to me. I’ve seen them before; they are bigger than crows and look like ivory-billed (which obviously I’ve only seen in books), just somewhat smaller and the white stripes are different.

The pileateds are an awesome sight in their own right, even if they aren’t the “Lord God” bird. Still something to see.

So I’m a bird geek; I can live with the guilt.

Its a Dwarf Roque. You can tell by the pixillated latissimus plexii.

Damn. All I get is house finches and Mourning Doves.

Oh. And this little lime green motherfucker who can’t figure out the whole glass deal. He wants in my dining room window, but I think it’s mostly bruises for that poor fucker…

mikey

I’ve been having a humungous white owl haunting the place I work nights … unless my ornithology errs, in which case it’s a flying headless zombie-bird, though I think the Audobon Society would take issue with that as a legit sighting.

Corn gives me wicked bad indigestion. Best I can guess is i overdosed on high fructose corn syrup over the years. I’d have to stick to the okra
I know jack about birds, but two years ago we had a loon visit our place on a lake in the Adirondaks while I was there. I thought it was a pterodactyl the first time I saw it. It was fun to talk to. I learned its call well enough to be answered. Big birds are interesting creatures.

Henry, The neighbors have cats wander into my yard. I try to put up cheap wire border-type fencing (less than a foot tall) at places where the cats wait to pounce. I’ve got two indoor cats who just like to watch.
I was having a worse problem with a Coopers Hawk that visited the yard often. Seems like every day I was coming home to a donut shaped pile of Mourning Dove or Junco feathers in the back yard. I think the hawk got scared off by a Bald Eagle pair that spent the winter just across the river from downtown St Paul.

We’ve got them in the parks along the river in St Paul, but I can’t attract them to my yard

Just set up a colony of carpenter ants in your yard. That’ll bring the pileateds out, and with absolutely no potentially negative consequences for your home!

I just got one of these and hung it outside one of the study windows. I fucking love it. Motherfuckers ain’t getting none!

It was fun to talk to.

This is another example of why I need to hang out with ADB before I die.

Brad. Here’s the sad lesson. Many people who might otherwise seem interesting would not be comfortable with your sense that talking to a large bird in his own dialect was a reasonable thing to do.

But I want to spend an afternoon interviewing you AND the bird.

mikey

pfeh.. All I got are the drunks arguing at 2am. That and the sirens are about it.

noen said,

May 25, 2008 at 5:28

pfeh.. All I got are the drunks arguing at 2am. That and the sirens are about it.

I remember living in the student slums at Ohio State, and the type of birds I heard at 2AM were police helicopters.

How do you pileate a woodpecker?

Thanks, gbear.

I’ve got two cats that run the show at the far end of my back yard – was wondering if I should bother with bird feeders.

True story: We have a hedge of 30ft. cedars along one edge of the property. My younger likes to scamper up in there as high as he can. I stuck my head in one day to see what he was up to and their was a bird – looked like a whiskyjack – flitting around and teasing my cat. He seemed to know just how close he could get to him and stay out of danger.

ADB had a very bad accent, but at least he was making the effort.

Carpenter ants + 113 year old house = not cool.

Another way to piss off squirrels is to fill the feeder with safflower seed. House sparrows and squirrels don’t like it. I worked in a birding store for a couple years so I can rattle endlessly about this stuff. I’ll try not to.

type of birds I heard at 2AM were police helicopters.

aka “the ghetto bird”

Whoa. Now I dunno shit about birds

Umm, dude, until this post, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a pileated woodpecker, so you’re way ahead of me.

Those are rare? I’m not trying to snark (for once) but their retarded barking squirrel call can often be heard in the ‘burbs of DC. The first time I remember seeing one however was deep in the wilds of Bloomington, IN.

(OK, that was a little snarky.)

I don’t know what’s going on but the DC area has become bird central in the past 10 years. This neighborhood has at least one family of hawks, I’ve been strafed by the local horned owl, there are night herons somewhere, I’m pretty sure I saw an oriole last year. Any body of water bigger than a bath tub has a resident blue heron. My mom moved to a house a little way out in the country and I counted a half dozen blue birds in the yard.

A couple of months ago we went to a nearby lake and there was an osprey on patrol. A few weeks ago we went out there and saw a pair of cormorants. Cormorants!

And don’t talk to me about [100 expletives deleted] Canada geese. Why do we buy poultry when those fuckers have taken over the place?

Html, here’s a video (number 2 on the list) of a pileated female calling.

Btw, that’s some beautiful tree. Do you get fresh pecans from it? I would kill for that…pecans are my favourite nuts.

their = there [makes blubula-blubula sound with lips and index finger]

I don’t usually do bird calls, either, but any bird calling at night while I’m on the dock smoking hash is a bird worth answering. Plus it’s an awesome call.
The birds down in Florida are big but not nearly so interesting. The armadillos are fairly sociable, tho.

any bird calling at night while I’m on the dock smoking hash is a bird worth answering

so this “bird”, it started calling before or after the hash smoking?

Ah, the beautiful call of the loon. I haven’t heard that since I was a kid summering in northern Ontario.

I don’t know what’s going on but the DC area has become bird central in the past 10 years.

You might want to look into that. Last time I noticed a lot of unusual birds around they told me I was at the zoo.

Chickadees are fun to talk to too. Sometimes they get mad.

Great thunderstorm in St Paul right now. Hope we get a lot of rain…

N mikey, those people would probably also object to my conversations with my cat.
As Berkeley Breathed, or it might have been Gary Larson, once said, I talk to animals because it looks like they’re listening.

I like setting off peacocks.

You might want to look into that. Last time I noticed a lot of unusual birds around they told me I was at the zoo.

Sweetheart, DC is a fucking zoo and we’re up to our eyebrows in strange birds, odd ducks and quacks.

Chickadees are dimwitted little annoyances that make me want a pellet gun. My fav local bird growing up was always the Blue Jay, if you don’t count the crazy lookin wild turkeys.

I like setting off peacocks.
I bet J— uses peacocks to blow up people’s mailboxes, and puts them up the exhaust pipes of cars.

Those are rare? I’m not trying to snark (for once) but their retarded barking squirrel call can often be heard in the ‘burbs of DC.

The first time I ever saw a pileated woodpecker was in the backyard of my parents’ house in D.C. It was sitting on a massive old (oak?) stump that had been there forever.

I see them here more often in West Va., where I am currently typing atchoo through my speedy 37,333 bps landline connection.

at the Tennessee sanctuary, the elephants mimic every sound imagineable and the resident parrot mimics the elephants. it’s jollity farm all the way.

here’s Tarra barking (she has a special fondness for dogs)

late night barn party.

Now hummingbirds, those are some evil bastards. Vicious, blood-thirsty, fiends. Those dead, dead eyes. That eye-piercing beak. Those invisible wings. That haunting shriek. The insatiable lust for glucose.

Eye-pecking Hell Beast, I tell you.

I like setting off peacocks.

Now that’s a bird that gets righteously pissed off…

The showier birds around us are herons, hawks, and the odd bald eagle… In addition to the requisite songbirds, our neighborhood proper has crows out the wazoo, some kind of sack-of-hammers-stupid ground woodpecker, and a year-round colony of hummingbirds. I never realized hummingbirds ate gnats until I saw one hovering and darting about in a cloud of no-see-ums last autumn.

stryx – you’re not kidding. Those guys are little bastards. They fight each other worse than any other type of bird I’ve ever seen.

Peacock droppings can be quite corrosive, so that would be another way to rip through someone’s mailbox.

There’s that scene in Life of Birds where David Attenborough is attacked by an enraged capercaillie. I can’t be arsed looking for it on YouTube.

our neighborhood proper has crows out the wazoo

Is it like this?

our neighborhood proper has crows out the wazoo

Is it like this?

Some times of the year, it feels that way, but no – not that many… The worst season is early May – when the hatchlings fledge.

Canada geese = evil, mean, nasty, vicious shit machines.

Those guys are little bastards. They fight each other worse than any other type of bird I’ve ever seen.

Watching a hummingbird chase off a crow is pretty damn funny. The crow’s all like “Fuck, dude… dude… wait…”

I was having a worse problem with a Coopers Hawk that visited the yard often.

Hah. I’m in a more downtown area, so when I saw one of the morning doves get snacked on by a hawk, I was all wOOt! Helpin to sustain carnivorous predators!11!

Likewise, I just mix in enough sunflower seeds to make the squirrels happy, on the theory that they in turn feed the barred owls.

I can live with the guilt.

This is a nice place to visit but I couldn’t live with the gilt.

I’m in Virginia now — we get those pileated woodpeckers, with the strange cry. The first time we heard it, I said, “What is that, a _monkey_?”

I used to work for this company that has fairly large corporate campus off I-44 in East Bumfuck, MO. While it isn’t too far outside St. Louis, it’s still pretty rural (at least it was five years ago).The main corporate tower (all seven stories of it) sits atop some wooded bluffs overlooking the Meramec River; the Department of Conservation thought it’d make a great peregrine nest site.

Were they ever right… Come late spring, taking a smoke break could mean ringside seats for bloodsport, watching the falcons whomp the hell out of unsuspecting pigeons.

several times a week i get scolded by hummingbirds in my garden. they still can’t figure out why i don’t get off their property. but they sure do like the flowers i grow for them.

Heh heh, he said woodpecker. [/Beavis]

On the subject of imitation and birds: we have a vigorous mockingbird population in the Vegas metro, but there are next to no other songbirds here, so they mock the sound of local traffic.

It’s beautiful, in a horrible way.

In the wild, the New Zealand tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) tend to imitate the call of the bell-bird. In urban settings they’re known to imitate cell-phones. As far as the tui are concerned, one kind of mating-call is as good as another.

Digby’s has a chilling post up. Even more chilling are some of the commenters…heebie jeebies! I thought that Jose Chung troll was a joke but apparently he’s real.

Practical bird, the tui. Beautiful plumage!

You want to talk about evil? Given 5 million places to build (and defend) a nest, mockingbirds pick sites where there is a lot of foot traffic. When those bastards come in at eye level before the morning cup of coffee it is not good for a growing boy.

Sometimes I wonder if they even have a nest. For all I know they’re like “Let’s spend a month pecking people on the heads. They’ll assume we’re protecting our young.”

Plus, anything that spends the entire night imitating various car alarms must be best friends with Satan.

Arky H8r of VürdPress said,

May 25, 2008 at 5:37

And don’t talk to me about [100 expletives deleted] Canada geese. Why do we buy poultry when those fuckers have taken over the place?

They used to be hunted so much during the 19th century, that people thought they were extinct by 1950’s. Given that, it’s been illegal to hunt them for at least 60-70 years. However, since they’ve come back (with a vengeance), I’m all for lifting that hunting restriction.

Lesley said,

May 25, 2008 at 13:25

Digby’s has a chilling post up. Even more chilling are some of the commenters…heebie jeebies! I thought that Jose Chung troll was a joke but apparently he’s real.

I saw that Auschwitz photo album a couple of months ago. And while it’s creepy seeing top Nazi officers hanging out and having a jolly good time, like they’re on a summer retreat, I think the photos from Abu Gharaib are much worse. At least the Nazis weren’t posing with corpses or emaciated prisoners and flashing smiles.

We had a hummingbird blunder into our office/den in the house one morning two weeks ago. I was lying in bed and kept hearing a little chirp and thought, “That’s nice.” Then I wandered out and there it was, perched on a track light fixture.

We opened the door wide to the back but it kept refusing to go through. Finally my wife netted it in a grocery bag and ushered it out. Not a word of thanks, either. Bastards.

An owl appeared on the little porch next door, sitting and turning its head in that Exorcist way. And not leaving. Someone called Animal Control, who said it was a youngster who hadn’t quite learned to fly yet. I don’t know how it got there in the first place.

Fun Fact: I’m told owls eat mice, and keep the skin and bones in their gorge or gullet or whatever it is. And then regurgitate it all onto whatever expensive German car happens to be under their tree. The BMW owners across the street were not amused.

Chickadees are dimwitted little annoyances that make me want a pellet gun.

Isn’t that kind of equivalent to saying that puppies are a total pain in the ass and should not be tolerated?

To me, the zoomed in photo seems to show a bald dude spying on you. But that’s with the first coffee just getting started.

Why do we buy poultry when those fuckers have taken over the place?

True story – while working with the music department at University of Washington, we brought in an elderly and quite accomplished musician from the Gambia in West Africa as visiting artist. He was quite surprised at all the ducks and geese on campus, and thought it very strange the students and faculty didn’t hunt and eat them.

You want to talk about evil? Given 5 million places to build (and defend) a nest, mockingbirds pick sites where there is a lot of foot traffic.

I used to live in an apartment where the mockingbirds in a nearby tree would start screaming at THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING. Fuckers are LOUD, too.

A few weeks ago we went out there and saw a pair of cormorants. Cormorants!

We saw a bunch of those in the Charles River the other day. Fun birds–from a distance, only their head pokes out of the water (the body is almost completely submerged), and they look like sticks or snakes. Then, splup! they dive below the surface to go nab some fish (or whatever actually survives in the Charles). Wicked-ass beaks on those guys, too.

And don’t talk to me about [100 expletives deleted] Canada geese. Why do we buy poultry when those fuckers have taken over the place?

They’re like deer. Any sensible environmentalist regards them as pests in dire need of a predator*, but a lot of people think they’re cute. My wife, who falls into the former category, once gave a talk where she advocated shooting the bastards (both the geese and the deer). Her audience practically threw her out the door.

I don’t usually do bird calls, either, but any bird calling at night while I’m on the dock smoking hash is a bird worth answering. Plus it’s an awesome call.

I wish I could imitate the loon calls. I love hearing them. By the way, if you ever get a chance, you have to watch them take off. They’re big and heavy enough that they can’t just fling themselves into the air the way a seagull can; they have to get a running(?) start. It looks something like this.

g said,

May 25, 2008 at 16:50

True story – while working with the music department at University of Washington, we brought in an elderly and quite accomplished musician from the Gambia in West Africa as visiting artist. He was quite surprised at all the ducks and geese on campus, and thought it very strange the students and faculty didn’t hunt and eat them.

Supposedly, Harvard still has a rule where they allow professors to graze a cattle in Harvard Yard and associate professors a sheep. No one has taken them up on the offer since the mid-19th century.

When I was an associate professor at Bob Jones University, I was entitled to graze a heifer on the commons. I took advantage of her…er, it…er advantage of the policy. whew.

Chickadees are dimwitted little annoyances that make me want a pellet gun.

Isn’t that kind of equivalent to saying that puppies are a total pain in the ass and should not be tolerated?

Uh yeah. Are you sure you mean chickadees? Those are the little grey and white guys with the black caps. There were a couple somersaulting around in the neighbor’s pine tree yesterday and I realized I don’t see as many now as I used to, possibly because there are a lot more raptors of all sizes around these days.

Now if you said starlings, I’d understand.

He was quite surprised at all the ducks and geese on campus, and thought it very strange the students and faculty didn’t hunt and eat them.

Good thing he didn’t know about the method they use for controlling their numbers out here: Coat the eggs in oil so the embryo stops developing. And the egg goes rotten. And some trouble maker comes along and thinks “Gee, that would stink if I threw it at someone.”

Hee.

Instead they could poach those suckers and serve them with bacon and toast.

But I confess, I’m an unrepentant carnivore. Since I don’t know how to use a gun, if there’s a disruption in our food supply I’ll be making a serious dent in our goose population. Unless someone knows how to bring down a deer without shooting it.

No? Well then Canada goose it is. And I’ll have an excuse to trap and brain some fucking ground hogs.

The fact is, the economy is doing great. All the indicators are up. Why are you liberals whining? Did you get left out somehow? Maybe you should have worked harder and invested wiser.

How’s your stock portfolio, Gary?

The fact is, it has never been better.

The fact is, my portfolio is primarily invested in American citizen misery. So, when this goes up, so does my bottom line. The fact is, this is precisely the reason I support Republican policies.

Urban Ducks, Geese and Rabbits (cottontails, NOT jacks): WristRocket™ with .38 steel balls. Silent and plenty of knockdown power out to 20 or 30 meters. Just be careful with your background, and as soon as he’s down run over and take off his head – chances are your shot only wounded him.

Urban deer, wild turkeys and larger game. You want to use a REAL crossbow, not a toy, with an aluminum razor – broadhead bolt for the deer and a heavy blunt bolt for the turkey. You have to hit the deer just behind the shoulder, preferably from an angle from behind to get the lungs so he doesn’t run (far). Open up his throat right away, and get him gutted and hung as soon as you can.

The california coastal deer only yield about 30-40 pounds of meat, but it is damn good. The wild turkeys eat oak acorns almost exclusively so they have a very rich flavor that is hard to describe. The ducks don’t live on fish, but rather seeds and grains, so they are not oily and don’t have a strong gameyness about them.

Umm, all this is just stuff I’ve heard. From other folks. Crazy fuckers. Probably all bogs…

mikey

Um. Probably all bogus.

I’ll just get another cuppa coffee now…

mikey

A few years back, there was an attempt to get peregrine falcons to nest atop the sky scrapers (yes, we have tall buildings) in downtown Denver.

They built nesting boxes and brought some young breeding pairs in and even had closed circuit camera’s so people could watch them. I looked forward to seeing the peregrine’s snatch flying rats out of the sky in an jaw-dropping display of speed and diving skill.

Alas, the falcons never returned to nest after the first year.

Mikey, I had a wrist sling shot that I used for scaring the neighbor’s cats out of my yard. My aim was so bad that the animals never had to fear injury, but windows were in danger for blocks. Those things really do pack a punch.
My house was robbed last summer (twice) and that slingshot was one of the things they grabbed, along with some cameras and leather jackets. I can imagine how it’s being used now…

Gary invests exclusively in War Profiteers, so why wouldn’t it?

I talk to crows. They actually seem to listen.

Slingshot, camera, and leather?

I don’t want to imagine that.

Those trees are awesome, BTW HTML.

When I lived in Spokane I had a friend that had very old Rainier Cherry trees in his yard that were never pruned. It is always a trip to look 40-50 feet up and see cherries hangin’ there…

mikey, Michael Pollan wrote in Omnivore’s Dilemma about a guy from Berkley who makes his own Prosciutto or whatever from feral hogs he’s shot in California. The fact that they live on acorns supposedly makes the hogs delicious.

mikey — Not all of ’em are crazy. Some of them are just writers.

It was a slingshot, not a sling. Nothing but vanilla at chez gbear these days, sigh.

I did get one of the cameras back (along with the 200 CDs that they conveniently took to the nearest used record store). I was hoping they’d taken some pictures of each other but sadly no. Even the cops had checked for that.

mikey — Not all of them are crazy – some are just writers.

mikey — not all of ’em are crazy – some are just writers.

(It’s a link to Seattle’s alt weekly, The Stranger; for whatever reason, I couldn’t post a comment with the real URL in it…)

Back in the eighties we used to regularly go up to the hills northeast of lake pillsbury and take a couple pigs. There’s like, MILLIONS of ’em up there. Way fattier and leaner than the pork you get in the grocery, tangy and rich the way pork is supposed to be. My friend Linda’s ex-husband (still husband back in those day’s) made the BEST sausage from ’em.

Y’know, fifteen pounds of sausage can go a REAL long way…

mikey

…fattier and leaner…

Ok. Maybe I should just go buy a pair of shoes or something. I’m making a mockery our of my limited literacy this morning.

Go with fattier and richer and remember – it’s not polite to make fun of the handicapped…

mikey

Mikey, I had a wrist sling shot that I used for scaring the neighbor’s cats out of my yard

How big’s your yard, gbear? If it isn’t too big, I’ve got two words for you: Super Soaker. Not the ‘fires with every pump’ kind, but the ‘pump to pressurize and pull a trigger to fire’ kind, like the Secret Strike. We use one to keep our dogs from digging in the back yard.

It’s… satisfying. And window-safe.

Alas, the falcons never returned to nest after the first year.

A large hawk lives in top of the Custom House in downtown Boston. She used to come and sit outside my window in the Norh End and watch me from the fire escape. I decided to take that as a good omen. Raptors do a nice job controlling the rat and pigeon populations, but I guess they do get messy.

Does anyone else remember that family of hawks that got kicked out of Mary Tyler Moore’s building because they kept throwing dead animals at rich people?

My front and back yard are each about 25’x40′ – perfect super-soaker size.

Some enterprising assholes around here have taken to grafittiing buildings with a super-soaker full of paint. I hate those guys.

Man, if those doods can make their tag with a super soaker, that’s pretty goddam impressive.

On the other hand, if they’re just spraying paint they’re vandals, not taggers and should be considered similar to arsonists and bombers…

mikey

Does anyone else remember that family of hawks that got kicked out of Mary Tyler Moore’s building because they kept throwing dead animals at rich people?

A friend of mine swears he was adopted by a hawk living in downtown Mpls. It dropped dead pigeons at his feet more than once. It always seemed to me that, even with super-hawk-vision, all humans would look the same to a bird.

Mikey, it isn’t art. They can spell their tag name but it’s a freakin’ ugly mess. I really really hate these guys.

Where I used to live in los gatos, we had these black predatory birds (I have no idea if they were crows or hawks or what) that were the keystone kops of raptors. I mean real bumblers. I suspect many of them starved to death. I used to sit on the back deck and watch them fuck up over and over again.

The place was LOUSY with squirrels, I mean a veritable bird smorgasbord, if the bird was capable of simply picking up dinner. They’d plunge off the telephone wires, grab a squirrel and make it the better part of halfway to a perch before dropping their squirrel-to-go in an elegant ballistic arc into the dense junipers below. Angry, hungry and not just a little stupid, the bird would return to the telephone line, staring bullets into the bushes and screaming in frustration.

Sometimes this would happen three or four times in a half an hour. I don’t know if the birds were clumsy, retarded or both, but they always reminded me of the crocs in Pearls Before Swine. Maybe they shoulda been vegetarians, y’know?

mikey

What a gorgeous post. Thanks!

We have a pileated woodpecker on our property–he’s been working away at the top of one of the pines (some of which we, too, have lost to lightening strikes, but we’re in the Tampa Bay area, considered the lightening capital of the country, I believe.)

They are noisy little beasts, aren’t they?! So industrious and interesting to watch, though.

Out on our lake, there’s a mother duck whose ducklings recently hatched; they follow her around like fluffy little beads on a string, trailing her everywhere she goes. She’s smart, though–she only heads out for short stints (there are predator birds and even the odd visiting alligator.) I’m not a birdwatcher per se, but it’s so relaxing and perspective-enhancing to unplug, head outside, and remind oneself that we’re all animals, all in this together.

Damn, I offer to buy HTML a drink and I get….nuthin’.

Great. Now I’m being rejected by people I don’t even know.

No Drinking Sadly for me.

Jennifer, you can buy me a drink.

HTML is notoriously elusive.

t4toby – I would be happy to buy you a drink if ever you are in the area (Little Rock). I had offered HTML because apparently he’s a homie and therefore close enough geographically that it would be possible to buy him a drink sometime.

Sadly, No!

Slingshot? I gots a slingshot. Thanks mikey.

I don’t like to think about what I’d do with a bow and arrow but it would either involve pinning my foot to the ground or having to chase some poor animal for miles until it died of blood loss.

Also, I’m guessing those were juvenile crows. Here’s how that trick is supposed to work:

1. Nab a small rodent, like a chipmunk.
2. Quickly gain altitude over a hard surface. This is why you’ve grabbed a small rodent. You can lift it and the sooner you get up high enough, the less likely it is to bite you.
3. Release rodent on to hard surface.
4. Pause for a moment to snigger at the sounds of those pesky homo sapiens losing their minds, getting sick, running away.
5. Swoop down and enjoy your gravity-minced rodent .
6. Repeat.

Let us all pause to express our gratitude that no bird is large enough to do that shit with us.

Let us all pause to express our gratitude that no bird is large enough to do that shit with us.

Some friends of my parents moved to a McMansion development by Salisbury, MD. Some predatory birds that lived along the coastal plain would swoop in, pick up a yappy dog, and smash it on the rocks. The land was completely flat and treeless so the entire neighborhood could see when this happened. It would be wrong to say that I enjoyed it…

Some predatory birds that lived along the coastal plain would swoop in, pick up a yappy dog, and smash it on the rocks.

I’ve heard from a couple of different sources that occasionally, juvenile bald eagles will try to take small dogs from the off-leash dog park that’s next to Seattle’s Lake Washington… They don’t generally succeed, but it still winds up being double-plus ungood for the dogs involved.

close enough geographically that it would be possible to buy him a drink sometime.

You could do like my family and just send each other drink gift certificates. Last Christmas I suggested that we replace the tree with a decorated mailbox for all the envelopes. That didn’t go over well….

Down at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha MN one of the volunteer told me that juvenile bald eagles sometimes misjudge the size and weight of a fish they are trying to catch. Their talons lock once they’ve grabbed on to something, so if they lock on to a fish that’s bigger than they can carry, they’re trapped. When the fish dives, the eagle goes under and drowns.

When the fish dives, the eagle goes under and drowns.

And I thought I had it bad with the albatross.

My sister lives in Anchorage. When she visits, she is always amazed at seeing cats playing out in yards and just strolling around.

Geez, what’s with all the chickadee love?
They’re only mindless, repetitive drones who used to camp out outside my window every summer and yell at me to wake up and stop enjoying my sleep at 6:30 in the morning.
Screw ’em.

different brad, I think you’ve got them mixed up with House Sparrows, which have a tuneless chirp, form noisy groups in shubs, and are dumber than rocks. Chicadees are like a miniature swat team in comparison. Very organized and precise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/content/images/2006/01/20/house_sparrow_nigel_blake_470x365.jpg

http://www.sialis.org/chickadee.htm

If it’s house sparrows you hate, you can celebrate that they are an invasive species that are not protected. You can kill all you want. I’ll admit that I have. They’re really bad for other birds.

It’s hard to mistake a chickadee call, what with it being an example of onomonotopeia.

Chickadees are awesome. I’m familiar with the Carolina species. Great song, and as gbear says, great group activity. I don’t hear them early in the morning, though. They usually show up in the afternoon.

Let us all pause to express our gratitude that no bird is large enough to do that shit with us.

My giant eagle. Let me show it to you.
JurassicQuaternary Aviary, anyone?

You can kill all you want. I’ll admit that I have.

How did you do that? Poisoned birdfood? Birdbath piranhas? Large rolled up newspaper?

I kinda like sparrows too. They crack me up with their little dust baths.

A noted explorer, Charles Douglas, claims in his journals that he had an encounter with two raptors of immense size in Landsborough River valley (probably in the 1870s), and shot and ate them.[5] These birds might have been a last remnant of the species

Well of course.

1. Nab a small rodent, like a chipmunk….
3. Release rodent on to hard surface. …
5. Swoop down and enjoy your gravity-minced rodent .

Sadly, no! Terminal velocity of a small rodent is not enough to stun, let alone mince. More likely those small rodents are adrenaline junkies and their version of sky-diving is to taunt a raptor into catching them and dropping them. Maybe they think it will impress the females.
H. G. Wells sez:

A mouse can be dropped down a mine-shaft, however deep, and arrive at the bottom dazed but unhurt. A cat or a dog will be killed, however. A man will be not only killed but smashed; and if a pit pony happens to fall over, the speed at the bottom is so terrific that nothing is left but a few of the hardest bits of its bones and a splash on the walls.

I can imagine those Edwardian biologists in their waistcoats and pinch-nez, hanging around a mine-shaft, testing various animals.

Chickadees are dimwitted little annoyances that make me want a pellet gun.

The chickadees and I make rude gestures in your general direction. It’s the godsdamned robins and their never-ending rusty-gate territorial cries that I loathe as the Destroyer of Sleep. Effin robins. (For the non-North-American Sadlynauts, I should note these are not the adorable European birds who properly own the name, but a larger coarser uglier dumber thrush relative with a thoroughly unpleasant bourgeois personality.) Only the catbirds beat the robins for persistence, but while the catbirds literally call all night long during the breeding season their cries just aren’t as annoying.

Being as we’re located between highways and old-style industrial parks (asphalt, not grass) we mostly get the very small and common birds. The ones that fascinate me are the nuthatches, which around here (Boston) are winter tourists from Canada. Something about the way they fly, spiraling up from the undercover — the very definition of “as sparks fly upward”…

Speaking of weird bird lore, is anyone else here old enough to remember being told that bluejays yell thief! thief! thief! because that’s what they are?

I remember reading a story about cats that fall out of windows in NYC. It was discovered that cats that fell out of windows below the 7th floor almost always died, but cats above the 7th were able to get themselves oriented upright and by spreading their legs out would create air resistance and so survive the falls more often. Let me google… ahh:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_190.html

Probably works better for Fluffy.

Speaking of weird bird lore, is anyone else here old enough to remember being told that bluejays yell thief! thief! thief! because that’s what the

My mom told me that one day while we were watching Steller’s jays stealing the cat food. She may have heard it from her mom.

I remember reading a story about cats that fall out of windows in NYC. It was discovered that cats that fell out of windows below the 7th floor almost always died, but cats above the 7th were able to get themselves oriented upright and by spreading their legs out would create air resistance and so survive the falls more often. Let me google… ahh:

This is exactly the type of comment that elicits month-long foreskin wars. Let’s just cross our fingers and hope no one puts up the bat signal to those anti-high-rise-cat-tosser activists out there.

Jennifer’s dismissive remark is almost genocidal in its offensiveness, and —
— Look, a starling!

Speaking of weird bird lore, is anyone else here old enough to remember being told that bluejays yell thief! thief! thief! because that’s what they are?

I think that may have actually been in one of my earlier biology textbooks. (My biology texbooks also said that the Earth is 10,000 years old and that the distincion between animal and plant life is that only animals and humans have souls.)

Happy landings, Mehitabel.

Cool! We used to have one of those birds outside. People would over to our yard to take a look.

I meant to do that.

More likely those small rodents are adrenaline junkies and their version of sky-diving is to taunt a raptor into catching them and dropping them. Maybe they think it will impress the females.

As much as I hate to admit it, males are known for getting themselves killed on the off chance they’ll get laid. However, I didn’t see any chipmunks rush over shouting “Take me now you big stud!” when one of their friends when “Thup!” on the ground.

Man, I’d rather let Johan Loededhosen ride me up Brokeback Mountain than see that shit again.

More likely those small rodents are adrenaline junkies and their version of sky-diving is to taunt a raptor into catching them and dropping them.

Partially-filled sandwich bags also have this death-wish. WHY GOD WHY?

Ancient Mariner said,
And I thought I had it bad with the albatross.

You think you’ve got problems? I shot down a DeHavilland Flying Boat.

@BlueBuddha:

They used to be hunted so much during the 19th century, that people thought they were extinct by 1950’s. Given that, it’s been illegal to hunt them for at least 60-70 years. However, since they’ve come back (with a vengeance), I’m all for lifting that hunting restriction.

WTF? Canada geese are perfectly legal to hunt, and have been for many years. I hunted them as a kid in Wisconsin during the 70’s (admittedly, they were fewer in number and the hunting was tightly controlled then). In VA, there’s a resident goose season every September where you can shoot five a day, and a migratory goose season where you can shoot 1-2 per day during selected parts of the waterfowl season (varies west of I-95). Most states have similar bag limits and seasons.

My sister lives in Anchorage. When she visits, she is always amazed at seeing cats playing out in yards and just strolling around.

We used to live in the mountains just to the west of Anchorage, and my mom’s cat would hang out on the back porch and hunt small birds. A juvenile bald eagle–about the same size as the 15-pound cat–once tried to get her.

I think the result was technically illegal, what with the Endangered Species Act and all. We gave it a decent and rapid burial.

We moved to a house on the very edge of Denver, and within 2 nights heard Coyotes, which meant that the cat was now an indoor cat, period. Since that time I’ve watched a mated pair of Great Horned Owls perch on the neighbor’s roof at dusk and have an animated owl conversation, red fox trot through the back yard, and numerous raccoon’s including the one who shuffled on by the deck while we barbequed, not even looking at us when we talked to it. Skunks too, just thankfully not too close. Between these potential predators and the rattlesnakes, the cat’s just going to have to get over it.

A biologist told me something that got my attention though: if you have deer and/or elk (we’ve got plenty of both), then you have mountain lions; there have been plenty of positive id’s in recent years and I like to mountain bike in the foothills here. He told me to try painting eyes on the back of my bike helmet, and if that doesn’t work then fight like hell.

stringonastick–

Yesterday I saw a red fox cross Downing two blocks from Wash Park. There are coyotes roaming around the City Park neighborhood. Pets in the city aren’t safe these days either.

No ghetto dwelling pumas yet though.

Jennifer:

Sorry, no snobbery or snubbery intended. I have simply been distracted. And …well, drunk.

Yes, I’m in Arkansas.

Hi HTML, I took a picture of the sign my parents put on the door of the house in West Va. on Sunday.

And today, there was a bird hopping around in the leaves under the trees in the front forest.

I’ll send ’em to you (not the bird, a pic!).

I iz President!

As Southern states declared their secession in the lead-up to the American Civil War, I held that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal. Taking my own advice, I did nothing.

Luckily for me, 140 years later an even bigger doofus will be elected appointed Preznit and get me off the hook for being the Worst President Ever.

P.S. In case anyone was wondering, in the wake of yesterday’s Rule Committee, these folks are even more insane.