Clouds, Asphalt, and Northern Mockingbirds

Clouds

This afternoon was one of those days with heavy air trying to rain, but doesn't get around to it. The clouds on days like this are spectacular, high-rising thunderheads that along with the heavy, still air give everything else a subdued mood. When looking west towards sunset on days like this, there can be a golden tinge to the edges of the puffy white-colored water suspended in sky. Other than a few large drops of rain that fell while I was walking out to my car after work, there were no other results from Beltsville to Annapolis during the commute home. But when I was walking away from my office building, a friendly Northern Mockingbird tempted me to bring out my pocket camera - dropping down from a tree to the grass, luring me after it, jumping into a shrub, and then to a window ledge on the building before flying off when I got too close. The mockingbird is a regular to the grounds at the Carver Center, often singing other bird songs from high up in the trees that are no older than the grounds around the building, or from the tops of the parking

Northern Mockingbird

lot light post that are white-washed white from the droppings left behind by these birds perched there where singing their serenades. It is funny how I never see a Northern Mockingbird in our backyard, or on our street, but just around the block at the intersection of Bay Ridge Road and Bay Ridge Avenue, regular sightings can be made. It isn't more than 880 yards as the crow flies from our back yard to the intersection, but it is a world away for these birds. They seem to like an asphalt habitat, like that found in parking lots and at busy intersections.

Three Is Better Than Two

The final word came out in the news today - Peter Jackson's interpretation of the J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit will be presented in three installments, beginning in December 2012. Earlier hints were that there would be three movies, now it is for sure. I bought a paperback copy of the book way back in undergraduate days, and hadn't read it until I was doing my Ph.D. I enjoyed it, and followed it up with the Lord of the Rings trilogy - reading through the series a second time in the year or so after graduate school. I remember when reading The Hobbit having a nightmare after a grand battle scene with Smaug the dragon. Here us the official movie trailer - it is good to see familiar film faces.

Oregon Birding - Day Twelve, Exit

Western Scrub Jay

Really no time the past five days to get in any birding - nothing more than casual glimpses. We have helped our oldest son paint this house, and yesterday painted the nursery at our daughter's house. We are getting ready to head to the Portland Airport, and while watching the London Olympics, happened to notice a Western Scrub Jay in the back yard. I have learned to notice Spotted Towhees fly by while driving - had not noticed them in the past. The towhee, Bewick's Wren, Bushtit, and Cedar Waxwing were the best new finds on this trip.

Getting Down To The Wire

Tailhook down, T-45 Goshawk

Our son is approaching the end of his Intermediate Flight School training. The crechendo - landing his T-45 Goshawk on an aircraft carrier. From what we understand, it is four touch-and-goes, and then down goes the tailhook, followed by 10 cable-arrested landings. In preparation for the real-deal, the training involves practices landings on land. Here is a video showing what he will be doing soon. The drawing of the T-45 shows the tailhook down - you can see it momentarily being tested before takeoff in the video.

Oregon Birding - Day Seven

American Crow

Today was a by-opportunity kind of birding day. When we had finished helping our son and daughter-in-law, along with our grand kids, paint the front of their house, it was time to grab the camera and walk down the street to get some closer shots of a couple of American Crows resting at the top of some sort of spruce tree. After greeting some of their neighbors a few houses down, and clicking off a few shots of the crows, I noticed a flock of small birds chattering in some shrubs across the street. I started taking some shots of them, and then the dozen or so of them together flew back across the street into a small tree. I took more shots until they went back back to where they came from - more shots. All the

Bushtit

time I was checking them out, they kept up a constant stream of chatter among themselves, and all the time the crows were keeping up their watch far above us - silent, not a peep. I took my camera up to Salem today, hoping to get a shot of the crows that are residents of the neighborhood. Occasionally while painting,  I looked up and noticed the trek of crows carrying various objects in their beaks: an orange peal, small twig, other things; along their path over the spruce tree and beyond to the stand of oak trees next to Wendy Kroger City Park at the end of 2nd Street. Given that the Bushtits came out in a chorus line - swarming as they sang in a choir, bringing the camera was timely for a little birding fit in at the end of the day, taking in a couple of big birds in the tree tops, and lots little ones in the bush.

Oregon Birding - Day Six, No Birding

Beaver-felled tree

No opportunity for birding in the Beaver State today - maybe there will be a chance to do so tomorrow. Beavers are interesting engineers. I remember seeing one of the PBS Nova weekly science programs titled: Still Waters in 1978 that showed a year in the life of a beaver pond. The program also introduced me to Aaron Copland's Our Town suite that was the background music to the narrative. Even though the beaver pond on television was in New England, beavers do the same in Oregon.

Oregon Birding - Day Five, Evening

A friend of mine and I drove over to Talking Waters Garden park this evening after dinner, where walked the perimeter of the facility. His firm had done the engineering for the various ponds and connecting pipelines used to treat the water from the industrial park before going into the Willamette River. We just about had the place to ourselves, except for the birds. The Red Wing Blackbird were roosting in the some old barren trees, the Mallard Ducks were still feeding, but some were already tucking their heads in for a night's sleep, the light was subdued as the sun was getting ready to set somewhere behind the ceiling of clouds that had muted light all day - a different way to look at the birds and their environs than earlier in the day.

Silhouettes at roost

Cedar Waxwing

Barn Swallow

Song Sparrow

Ducks down for the night

Teasil near the tracks

Tracks near the Teasil