Bird. Watching.
I was sitting near the window typing, writing a bit on the Israelites in front of the Red Sea. A large form moving fast right outside caught my eye. I immediately thought raven. Quickly became clear it wasn’t a raven sitting on the nearest branch of the cedar tree. No frivolity in its eyes or mischievousness in its demeanor. It was a dead serious bird, with piercing eyes–and a piercing beak. It flew in and landed right above the bird feeder. Watching for a tasty morsel. I watched it for a moment, got up and walked upstairs to get my camera. The hawk turned and stared at me the whole way, watching me. I sat back down near the window. It looked at me with eyes of a predator–a look that is quite apparent even even if one is not the prey. It scanned the whole area with eyes much sharper than my own for a bird or a rodent. All the wee beasties had found cracks and crevices, hiding amidst the forest clutter. It flew off down the hill, due west.
A red-tailed hawk.
Watching.
Things that Fly
Beneath the Surface
Beneath the surface lurks tunnels and trails
Unseen by most, untraveled except by the adept
On occasion, we can see what lies beneath
When the dirt is pushed out and the hidden becomes exposed
Sometimes slow, barely revealed; sometimes fast, fully unveiled
What is beneath the surface usually only pokes its head out quickly and briefly, giving us only a glimpse
Occasionally it pauses still above, looks around, allows itself to be watched
What lies beneath the surface, in hidden tunnels and trails, might even, for a moment, look you straight in the eyes.
a california chipmunk
Spring has arrived, and that means the wee birds and beasts are quite active. Some days more than others. Last week while sitting outside there were 4 chipmunks gamboling about the yard, and the deck, and all about, chasing each other, constantly moving. They came pretty close to me without too much concern, up the stairs, behind the kayak, out on the other side.
distracted
I got back into posting and then fell off. Well, there are a few reasons for that. One is because of that Amazon Vine program I talk about occasionally, where I get a few free items each month in exchange for a review posted on their website. A few days ago I got Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 and between the weather being extraordinary and having to unload programs, do a fresh install of a new operating system, and reload programs on my desktop I’ve not been thinking about the usual posts. Vista works quite wonderfully, by the way. Very beautiful. I’m quite impressed.
Now I feel better about avoiding the ostentation of the white middle class bourgeoisie that is Macintosh. 
The other reason is because I’ve a post brewing in my head on my conference experiences that relates to the session on peace. I very much enjoyed the session, but have some questions and thoughts which are, well, political. I’ve a political side to me that I don’t often express any more, not least because most of those who I know and who I resonate with on so many other issues tend to have sharply different political opinions. And being that my publisher is associated with the Quakers, it’s not entirely fitting that I spend time talking about my various thoughts on war and peace.
I’m somewhat in a murky middle on that issue, and might be offensive to different sides. So, that post is still brewing. And the brewing process tends to get in the way of other thoughts.
But I do have a few pictures of a chipmunk that I’ll be posting today.
The weather is quite cold and overcast this morning. Though, yesterday I did get some more software in the mail: CorelDraw Suite x4. It seems quite, quite user friendly and robust (without having the dreaded Adobe bloat) so I might get caught up in that instead.
In the path of the painted ladies
The painted lady butterflies are migrating. And it might be the biggest migration ever seen.
Millions of painted lady butterflies that fluttered into California’s Central Valley in the last week of March could be just the advance guard of one of the largest migrations of the species on record, said Arthur Shapiro, a professor and expert on butterflies at UC Davis.
“This may be the biggest migration of modern times,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said he is getting reports of “billions” of butterflies around Trona, near Death Valley, and in the San Fernando Valley. More waves of butterflies are likely to appear in central California over the next few weeks as the insects take wing.
Painted lady butterflies, known by the scientific name Vanessa cardui, spend the winter in the desert. As caterpillars turn into adults in the spring, they migrate north in search of fresh food and breeding grounds, powered by a supply of yellow fat they have built up over the winter.
Painted ladies migrate every year, but usually less conspicuously and in far fewer numbers. This year, however, exceptionally high winter rainfall in southern California has created a bumper crop of plants for the caterpillars to eat, fuelling a population boom, Shapiro said.
The butterflies take about three days to reach the Central Valley, and the current generation will fly as far as southern Oregon. Their offspring will fly on to reach British Columbia by summer, before heading south again in the fall.
I’m sitting in the middle of a thoroughfare. A constant stream, hundreds going by, a dozen at a time, coming from the south east and heading north west. Off to the Central Valley of California apparently. They don’t stop. They are flying with purpose.
My camera batteries died when I tried to take pics. But for now, a portrait from elsewhere.
Winter Gallery
Gallery is working again. Thanks Siteground!
We’ve had quite a winter here in Lake Arrowhead so far. Just about a storm a week, with a fair amount of snow. I haven’t shoveled this much snow… well, ever. It’s a great workout. And not too bad in 35 degrees as opposed to 0 degrees.
I finally posted a Gallery of selected Winter pictures, mostly from January. Enjoy.
a new toy
I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas. I’m very much pressed for money these days and have expenses and opportunities and possibilities that seem to be asking me for more money. Somehow I’ve not yet worked out how to get paid, rather than pay, for doing a lot of work.
Anyhow, those concerns tapped a lot of my materialistic interest. I didn’t really want anything, and couldn’t come up with any ideas. So I got a gift card. For whenever I had an idea.
This past week I guess I got bit by something. And I used my gift card.
I got a webcam (and I’m noticing that it’s gone up in price since I bought it). I don’t know what it is, maybe part of my slow exit from my extended retreat, but I just thought it would be fun to have.
So, now as I wonder what it was specifically that bit me I’m trying to come up with things to do with this webcam. One of the ideas I have was to do some readings. I’m trying to see how it might work as the occasional live cam posted on my website on another page. I had it going a bit yesterday near my bird feeders, and had quite a nice closeup view of the juncos and the chickadees and such.
There was a merlin too out back, the second time she’s been around in as many days, but I don’t think she got close enough to see well.
random book goodness
Here’s the game:
- Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
- Find Page 123.
- Find the first 5 sentences.
- Post the next 3 sentences.
- Tag 5 people.
Now this is going to be a bit of a surprise. Sure, someone might think Patrick will have some theology musing or spirituality suggestion or at least a tale of derring-do upon the high seas. Nope. If I was on my bed, I would lean over and open my book of Complete Works of O. Henry. But since I’m at my desk, and not near my bed, my nearest book is utterly a bit random. It’s one of my Amazon Vine books for the month. I get a couple free items each month from Amazon.com. All I have to do to keep getting items each month is post a review of what I’ve received. Some months I get electronics. One month I got power bars. This month it was books. One was the first volume of a biography of Napoleon. But that’s not the one closest to me. No, closest to me is even more outside my usual. It’s The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria by Randall M. Packard.
While not exactly the most heartwarming reading, it’s actually quite interesting, especially for folks concerned about global welfare and politics. But, for a longer review, I’ll wait till I finish the book and post my dues on the Amazon site.
For now, it’s just the sentences. Page 123, sentences 6-8:
“It contributed to a major reduction in malaria mortality in Italy, which declined from 490 per million in 1900 to 57 per million in 1914. Yet morbidity rates over the course of this period, while fluctuating from year to year, remained essentially constant. Despite the hopes of Grassi and Celli that the massive distribution of quinine could lead to the eradication of malaria in Italy, the quinine campaign had little impact on transmission.”
I’ll let you know how the book ends. I think the butler did it.
I guess I’m supposed to tag people.
Some names then. Amy, Jim, Peter, Christina, Erik, Debby and well, anyone else who reads this. I loooove knowing what people are reading. So if you decide to follow up, post a link in the comments and let me know.
Oh, and just because I’m curious if I was typing this while sitting on my bed. Here’s the bit from O. Henry, near the end of his story “The Ransom of Mack”.
“He will,” says I.
“There was lots of women at the wedding,” says Mack, smoking up. “But I didn’t seem to get any ides from ‘em. I wish I was informed in the structure of their attainments like you said you was.”
Indeed.
