Tag: bird

I Scared the Crap Out of a Huge Bird

We were sitting in the living room today when something weird happens. There was a loud bang coming from the side of the house. BOOM. What was that? We all asked at the same time.

It was not a cat. Both cats were in the room with us. I had a suspicion about what it was. Every now and then we’ll have birds come out of the woods behind our house and fly right into a window. That’s sort of what this was like except it was a lot louder.

I went to my wife’s office and opened up the curtain and looked outside. Sure enough there was a bird on the ground right there. Not just any bird. It was a huge bird. It was a freakin’ red tailed hawk! Well, I need a photo of this puppy, sure do!

I ran back into the living room and grabbed my point and shoot which just happened to be on the end table right inside the doorway. With the camera in hand I went back to the office. My gigantic bird friend was still there. Just hanging out. It didn’t look injured. It looked more… bored. 

I pulled the curtain open a little wider, raised the camera, and our new bird friend saw the movement, turned toward me, looked me straight in the eyes, said “oh shit!”* and then bolted into the woods at near the speed of sound.

Chances are, the hawk didn’t just crash into the house. It’s likely that it was hunting and it crashed into the house while slaughtering a small animal. Let’s call it a taking the good with the bad sort of thing.

*You think this is the part of the post where I say the bird didn’t really speak English it was more of a symbolic thing but no… our friend the hawk actually said, “oh shit” before flying away.

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*.

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*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.

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This tree is almost done, but the tree next to it hasn’t even started turning yet.
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This guy has made good progress since the last time I looked, but still has a long way to go.
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I kinda like the reds here, but most of it is just going to be the same old blah yellow. Blah. 41/365
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In summation… bird.

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.

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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.