Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

because I want to keep track of this.

Today the red-winged blackbirds showed up. There were none yesterday, and this morning there are a couple dozen in the yard. Hrm. that may not be quite true -- when we got home from church yesterday there were a flock of black birds in the front yard, but I assumed they were starlings. The birds today are definitely red-winged blackbirds.

Snerk. I heard the cranes whirring this morning, and looked out to see that they were poking around in the garden (they really like gleaning the corn), and Ji was over by the pond, slinking about and appearing to be trying to decide whether he wanted to get closer to them. Then the big crane saw him, and whirred at him. Ji started slinking toward the house. Then I tapped on the door, and he came trotting toward the door. And pranced in as though coming back inside was his idea, and had nothing to do with the trio of cranes.

In the morning, we often have three or four dozen "mixed small birds"* at or under the the feeders or in the rose, plus either a dozen doves or three blue jays. And the occasional squirrel. This afternoon, I looked out and there were only two critters that I could see. The hawk who hunts our backyard was nestled into the (otherwise vacant) rosebush, looking at the birdfeeder. Which was occupied by the big squirrel, who is *big* (body is about 12"). The squirrel was apparently unconcerned, feeling that he was too large for the hawk to try for. The hawk agreed, and eventually flew off to the brush pile.


(* mixed small birds = some combination of gold- and house- finches, four or five species of sparrows, tufted titmice, chickadees, and juncos.)

We're back! Between the game running long (TWO! overtimes), and the wait for the cheerleaders and athletic department staff to clear security (band? football team? coaching staff? done and through. cheerleaders? staff? not so much.) and deicing (yes, in Mobile), they didn't take off until nearly 3ayem est, and landed at 0515. (got a text from SR while I was on the road.) I got to campus about 0530, parked in the lot where they were going to debark, curled up under a blankie and went back to sleep. :) 90 minutes later, I get a call from an obviously just-woken up SR "we're here. my bus is in front of the building, getting band luggage that had been on the football bus, will be around the side shortly." So I went and held the door for the unloading crew, snagging her bag as it went by, and waited for her to show up.

We got home about 0930. She ate a bowl of cereal and went to bed. She's still sleeping.

I fed the birds and the fish, then took a nap myself -- I'm getting old and creaky, and 3.5 hours of sleep, 90 minutes of it in the car, just isn't enough anymore. I'm glad the snow held off until we got home -- a couple of patches of freezing mist, but not much effect on the roads. It's now snowing fairly hard, but there's no wind, and the birds are settling in close to the food-- the rose bush is full of sparrows and finches and juncos, blackbirds and doves in the boxelder, and jays and cardinals out in the woods' edge. And there's a pair of Northern Flickers around here somewhere -- they just flew off from the suet cake.