One of the cats was sitting in the window next to my desk, just watching the goings on in the backyard. All of a sudden she FREAKED OUT and ran away. A few minutes later I noticed this:
Coincidence?
Bird
Tag: bird
Dinner Time
I filled the bird feeders this morning before I started work. Look at me just ringing that dinner bell for all of the birds. Also for the squirrels. I’ve seen one little bastard get around my anti-squirrel baffle. I don’t know how the little shit managed it but now I need to invest in a gun*.
*I am kidding. I am not planning on shooting any squirrels. If there is a zombie apocalypse and I need to eat squirrels to survive then I reserve the right to change my stance. Until then, however, I will just hate those little rodent fuckers from afar.
Watching Me Like a…
The weather held long enough for me to cook dinner on the grill. Jen marinated some chicken and I cooked it. I consulted The Google to know how long to cook it and the suggestion I went with was much too short a time, but I rolled with it and it looks good now.
The whole time I was outside, I had this cat up at the top of a tree eyeing me.
He or she was sitting in that spot when I first went out to turn on the grill, and he or she was still there when I packed up and went back inside about half an hour later.
You could say that he or she was watching me… watching me like a hawk.
Dumb Bird
Want to hear a story about a bird with a low IQ?
Here we go.
I got up early today and did my morning exercise in the basement. When I was done I went upstairs and started packing up my lunch bag as today is a work in the office day. I was standing in the little space between the living room and the dining room, digging through the pantry closet where my protein bar stash lives and I heard a weird nose. It was a low, metallic rumbling sound. It only lasted for a second and then it stopped. A minute or so later I heard it again.
What the hell was it? My first thought was maybe there was a problem with our central air system? No, it’s not that. It happened again and it sounded like it was coming from the living room. I don’t get it. I asked Jen if she knew what it was but she hadn’t heard it. When it happened again I found it was coming from the fireplace. That eased my mind a little. It was probably something outside and we were just hearing it through the chimney. It happened again and it seemed really loud, but it was definitely in the chimney.
I went outside, where it was a crisp 36 degrees out, and took a look. From the front of the house I couldn’t see anything. I walked around to the back, with a sneaking suspicion of what I was going to find, and sure enough my suspicion was accurate.
There is a metal cap on the top of our chimney. It sits on top of a metal, mesh thing so that the smoke can escape, but it’s literally a cap on top of the opening. Standing next to this cap was a freakin’ woodpecker. Every minute or so this moron was bashing away at the chimney cap (or whatever you call it) trying to… eat something? I don’t know. This bird was an idiot. I laughed at its stupidity and it heard me, got spooked, and flew away.
Dumb bird.
For the Birds
Lily is sitting on the back of the comfy chair in the living room and she’s chirping at birds out in the yard. She spent the last few hours hiding under a bed somewhere as Jen’s folks were here for a visit. Why were you such a jerk, Lily? She came out of hiding within about a minute of Nana and Papa leaving. What a jerk, right?
We were talking about bird houses. That does it. I am getting a bird house for the yard this year. Hell, I might get two. One for the front yard and one for the back yard.
I’m off to amazon to do some bird house shopping right now. Updates to follow.
Back Yard Foliage Update
We’re still barely underway here in the Merrimack Valley, but there is some color. Not good color, really, but it’s something.
Bulb
Today’s lunch time photography experiment involved using my DSLR in bulb mode. I went outside, put on the ND filter, pointed the camera at some clouds, plugged in the wired remote shutter, put the shutter into bulb mode, Clicked the remote and walked away for five minutes, then walked back and released the shutter.
Technically everything worked just as planned except that I ended up with a solid white image. So… Yeah. I want to try that at night and see if I can get some star trails. Hopefully the problem was the sunshine and not anything mechanical or code or anything. The next clear night I am going to try it. If it works digital I will try it with film too.
The good news though, there were birds.
I Needed This Today
Bird!
We politely asked this bird to please exit the premises and it politely said no. Well, if that’s how you want it Mr Bird then I guess we’ll just leave your insanely gigantic birdness to it then. Would you like us to bring you some water? Maybe some cigarettes?
That is a big sucker. I don’t think it’s a hawk, but I really can’t say. It looks like a hawk but the colors seem wrong. Either way, he lives here now and we are going to pay him rent so that we can stay.
That was Interesting
One of the contractors just came up to me and asked me if we had a bird.
A what?
A bird. There’s one in the kitchen.
What?
Sure enough, there is one seriously freaked out little bird clinging to the screen in front of the kitchen window. Every few seconds it would jump up and try to get out, but the screen never cooperated.
Now what the hell do I do?
My first thought was to get passed it and open the window, and then pop off the screen. Out he goes, right? No. The little sucker freaked each time I approached. Next I went for a towel. I’ll trap the bugger under the towel and then let him outside. Nope. I threw the towel a split second after he took one of his jumps at the screen and the winged wonder took off. If it had gone to my right it would have found the open door. Nope. The dumb ass went to his left and flew into the living room. It first perched on the back of a chair, and then hopped over to the arm of the treadmill.
Did I mention that when the contractors left for lunch Patches came out of the bedroom, and that ever since they returned she had been hiding under the couch? So now my murderous hell beast of a kitty is alone in the living room with a live bird. Possibly one of the many birds she has stalked through the windows a thousand times.
I opened the front door, then went back to the kitchen for the towel. I went around through the hallway on my way back to the living room. The bird was still there and upon seeing me coming he dashed back across the room and found the front door.
He made it out without hurting himself, and without becoming a play thing for the furry little huntress, death on four legs, known as Lady Patches.
Its a new animal story for me, though still not as awesome as the bat at the duplex story. It’s so cool living in Wild Kingdom.
Inside the Red Head's Head 