2006-04-09, 07:14 PM — recording spring
I'm going to start keeping a written record of when and where I see birds/etc. coming back in the spring. I think it's the sort of thing that might be useful, or at least interesting, someday.
For now I'll keep it here, because it's spring and I need to start. But next week I'm going to get a book, I think, dedicated to that only. My grandfather had one and my mother has one, and I figure it's at least time for me to start mine.
Anyway. Fishy and I spent a lovely afternoon birding, after I got back from work and he moved Kam. We went over to Floradale first, where we saw some widgeons and probably the best look at a male green-winged teal I've ever gotten. I don't know what's up with the teals this year, they're everywhere. Except I don't think I've seen a blue-winged teal yet, and I usually see those everywhere. It's odd.
Anyways, we came back to the lookout tower at Laurel Creek and saw many, many things. Mallards and Canadian Geese, of course. Gulls. And: green-winged teals, widgeons, redheads, gadwalls, black ducks, scaups, ring-necked ducks, and one solitary northern shoveler, which I am very pleased about. I like seeing those guys.
All in all, a very productive day...
2006-04-09, 08:20 AM — post your adverts here!
Discovered a not-so-cool little thing called "blog-spamming" last night, while going through some of my old entries. Someone decides to add a series of comments with basically inane phrases like: "Nice job!" "Awesome!" "That's great!" all with different names, and then somewhere down the line puts in "Barcelona Hotels!" Or insert other vacation destination, ad for viagra, etc.
At first I was all "What the hell?" and then fishy told me what was going on. Then, he kindly erased 600 extraneous messages from my comments. 600! And there are still more! People, it's not like I have more than ten others reading my website, much less my comments from a year ago. I need to keep on top of that, I guess. It irritates me. I am not a billboard.
In other news, saw my first phoebe of the year yesterday at the storm water management pond. I was over there doing some recon for a program I am doing Monday. I have a feeling I am going to learn a lot more about pond life very, very quickly. It will be kind of embarrassing if a bunch of grade eight students know more than me.
2006-04-06, 11:53 AM — first spring trailwalk
I have to watch myself. I keep referring to the kingfishers that nest along the creek next to our apartment as "my" kingfishers. In addition to the fact that this is not remotely true, it also leads to a very warm, fuzzy, proprietary feeling for that particular stretch of trail.
If (when) we move away from this apartment, I'm going to miss that trail very much. It led to a surprising pang of sadness this morning as I was walking it for the first time this spring.
In addition to the kingfisher, I saw a muskrat, chickadees, a white-breasted nuthatch, starlings, robins, a song sparrow building his nest, golden-crowned kinglets all over the place, goldfinches, mallards, and squirrels. I think that's it. I'm not including the clouds of gnats which seem to be back in force. Which would be why the kinglets were everywhere, I'm guessing.