eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

Hi all,

Hey, we've got another "Gomphus borealis" (aka a Beaverpond Clubtail Dragonfly)!

To see a much larger version of this shot, click here. It's easy to understand how folks become interested in entomology...

Onward!

What follows deserves telling if for no other reason but the humor involved... Yesterday we struck out in an effort to retrieve our "new" 1957 Starcraft SpeedQueen aluminum boat. The trip should have been 2 1/2 hours to get to the boat's location, half an hour to get it hooked up and 2 1/2 hours to bring her home... Yeah, the plan was to leave at 2 PM, and be back around 7:30 - 8 PM. However, there were some mitigating factors...

• I've never really towed a trailer before... (I did once, but that was with a full-size dump truck hauling a bulldozer - obstacles were hardly obstacles at all...)
• The boat and trailer are older than dirt
• Much of our haul was on the Mass Pike and 495 where the average speed is Warp 7
• There were one-hour traffic delays both en route and coming home... (One of the unexpected rewards of those delays is that we got to take a few shots of wild plants like this one of loosestrife(?))
  

But without a doubt, the most interesting part of the whole adventure was right at the beginning when we did battle with a small group of wasps that had claimed the boat for their own. About 1 1/2 hr, and 4 cans of bug spray later (Paula, we owe you for the bug juice and then some), we took possession and were on the road. Let's just say that it was a long trek. Anyway, here's the boat...

We've got three choices of engines for the 14 footer above:

• A trolling motor for virtually any pond of our choosing
• A 3 hp for waters that allow restricted motor use
• A 9.5 hp for serious tooling about

As for backyard birding, obviously not so much. But for birding in general and getting a better sense of backyard bird behavior in the wild - absolutely! The bottom line is that this stuff is fun, educational, and it doesn't have to be terribly expensive.

When all is said and done, I imagine that we'll be using the silent electric trolling motor for bird photographs galore. Stay tuned.

See you by the feeders or on the water,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. If you take nothing else away from this post, please note the following... I measured the gas consumption carefully... On the unencumbered trip out to pick up the boat we drove the usual 60 mph - 65 mph, and that cost us roughly $25 in gasoline. The same exact trip back under the same exact conditions (except that we were carefully towing a 500 lb load) cost us only $15. So why was the same trip with a boat/trailer/motor so much cheaper (by ~40%) than with just the car alone? Very simple... On the way back, we kept the speed down to 45 mph - 50 mph, and we avoided quick stops and starts. In the long run towing cost us very little time, was much easier on the tow vehicle, and saved 40% on gas costs. Wouldn't it be nice if our elected officials would tell us stuff like this?

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