Well, if you've read this far, my hat is off to you. I don't have much to offer... Just a little hummingbird and a couple of blurry crows...

And even at that, you'll have to squint to see the hummingbird hovering over the right-hand side of the red dish feeder. This is hardly chest-pumping action. But then again, there is the Zen of the thing... Peace.

You know, it's a strange world that we live in. Tune in to the SyFy channel any Saturday at 2PM (prime time for our young people) and you won't have to wait long to see a character decapitated, dismembered, disemboweled, skewered, or otherwise gruesomely killed. And the weirdness doesn't stop there. Our politicians are wildly corrupt and inept... Our long-term national economy looks cataclysmic... We've dumped over a trillion dollars into the "stimulus" and still the jobless rate hovers just under 10%. And the madness just goes on and on...

Truth be told, most people who read this are not avid birders. Could it be that momentary bits of sanity like the hummingbird above are the only things that keep us sane? In 1861 Emily Dickinson wrote the following...

"Hope" is the thing with feathers--
That perches in the soul--
And sings the tune without the words--
And never stops--at all--

And sweetest--in the Gale--is heard--
And sore must be the storm--
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm--

I've heard it in the chillest land--
And on the strangest Sea--
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb--Of Me.

See you by those Prozac-free feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Don't forget our video contest!

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

First the osprey... Here is a shot of the bird coming in with a fish to the nest perched atop a 50' cell phone tower. (They don't call them "fish hawks" for nothing.)

And a better look...

As best I can tell, that's a very unlucky catfish in the claws. Ouch.

Anyway, lunchtime...

Now on to the contest... Here's the deal... Do you remember back when we had our eBirdseed.com photo contest?

Here's the idea... We use your homemade "YouTube" videos as contest content... We're talking backyard bird videos. (Though if your backyard is a field, we'll take that into consideration...) Features such as subject, lighting, focus, video quality, audio, etc. will weigh heavily on the final decision.

Here are the rules:

• Each entry must be your own original material. Piracy is strictly forbidden! If you didn't create the video from scratch in its entirety, you're disqualified!!!
• Each entry must be one minute or less in length.
• Submissions will be YouTube links.
• Capturing, holding, or harassing of birds is not allowed.
• eBirdseed.com employees and their relatives cannot enter.
• eBirdseed.com reserves the right to embed the winning video code in our Web site.
• Only entries from the continental U.S. will be valid. eBirdseed.com will pay for prize shipping.
• All decisions by the eBirdseed.com judges will be final.

For all this "Cecil B. originality", what do you get??? How about a $60 "Squirrel Buster Plus" feeder?

Not bad... Not bad... Can't wait to see the entries...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I swear, I've been trying to get a good look at this bird for five years now--ever since I first heard that distinctive "Peeeeehp! Peeeeehp! Peeeeehp!" coming from the treeline. I was pretty sure it was a flycatcher, as I'd had an occasional glimpse of that yellow tummy. It was maddening to know he was there, be able to see the movement among the trees, and yet still not be able to see the darned bird!

All that changed today, as the whole family of flycatchers was out and around, and I was fortunate enough to grab the camera, slap it on the tripod, point it in the general direction of the trees, and sit quietly and wait. Sure enough, there they were, flitting amongst the branches of the hemlocks. Slowly I pointed the camera, focused, and started snapping.

Seriously, how could you not love a face like that? After half a decade of trying, I can finally add the Great Crested Flycatcher to my life list. And I've got the photos to prove it!

See you by those rewarding feeders,

Mrs. CCA

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

I shot this on a whim with little more than a few minutes to spare. Frankly, it was one of those times when I was doing four other things, and thought that I'd just toss out the tripod and camera and see what happened. I waited just a bit, and took the photo. (Didn't even see the yellow jacket.)

I keep stressing the informality and simplicity of backyard birding for a very good reason - these are not easy times, and most of us don't have beaucoup minutes to spare. In the case of the picture above, I had a max of a quarter of an hour, and I was done in just two-thirds of that. Will the image have "The National Geographic" kicking in my door? No. But it was a subtle pause in a rat race where the rats all too often seem to be winning. (For what it's worth, I'll remember that moment with the hummingbird and the yellow jacket. Maybe I'm just hokey... At least I'm not a green frog...)

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry to gross you out, but...

Uhhh... Yeah. That is the microscopic shot I took of Lord Only Knows what Toby (our Ragdoll cat) managed to find... My hunch is that this is something I tromped in after working out in the yard. It's probably 3/16" long and quite frankly indistinct save a wary eye.

I bring this to your attention because this is the summer, and we all like to be out playing Frisbee and frolicking in the grass and whatnot. Without proper attention to wee beasties (like ticks, etc.), the good times could stop rolling pronto. And nowhere is that more true than when it comes to cooking. (Imagine if that little hairy speck above got into your sala... Nevermind.)

Anywho, you get the idea, and I'd just as soon log off right now... But with one final thought... I've done quite a bit of landscaping, and no doubt disturbed much more than my fair share of monster arachnids... Last night I stumbled upon one in the narrow staircase that leads into the shop basement. If it wasn't a brown recluse, it was the big brother of its bodyguard. By the time I found the bug spray, it was gone. So now we have a potentially poisonous spider the size of a '55 Buick Roadmaster roaming the shadows of my workspace and beyond. Oh goody. One thing is for sure, he and his ilk are toast. (I have a friend here on the Cape who was bitten on the arm by a brown recluse, and has the divot to prove it.) As I said, he and his ilk are toast.

Sooo... My heartfelt advice is this - get out there and enjoy the season. Enjoy the birds and the feeders, and the BBQ, and all the rest... But just be careful out there...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fortunately for CapeCodAlan and me, we have all three of those items, in abundance, so we've been surviving pretty well what has been one of the hottest summers in my memory.

As the day progresses, our trees shield the house and catch the cooler air as it comes off the ocean; so we are able to enjoy our outdoor areas (yard, deck, garden) especially in the afternoon and evening.

In fact, we were doing that this evening! Having grilled some beautiful lean steaks and put together a light salad, Alan and I were about to enjoy a summer supper out on the deck. Dinner was on the plates, the plates were on the table outside, and we both ran back into the house to grab some condiments. Imagine our horror when we looked out the kitchen window to see one very LARGE seagull on the deck railing, eyeing our steaks with gluttonous desire. Ack!

Out we rushed, to save our supper. Off flew the rapacious gull, only to land on the roof of the house and monitor our every move as we ate our admittedly tasty supper. It was, however, a bit disconcerting to be under the eye of a creature who made it very clear that he wanted what we were eating. And he REALLY wanted it.

He even attempted to conceal himself behind the ventilation pipe.

All in all, the meal was delicious, but the company was a bit, er, aggressive for our tastes. At least the crows have the common courtesy to stick by their feeders as they demand food.

See you by those ill-mannered feeders,

Mrs. CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember when our freezer turned turtle? Gee, that was just a few days ago... Well, we fixed the freezer, but now the top half is belly up...

If that wasn't entertainment enough, my bandsaw has decided to go down in flames. (Not really, but it might as well have...)

I'll simply skip over the former for the moment, and focus on the latter... Here's a microscopic shot of the part that failed on the saw.

Micro-cracks... That's not good news, because there's a hutch demanding to completed...

But back to that fridge... Ten years and we're looking at a new unit... As for the bandsaw - that struggled to last 15 years under powder-puff conditions. Whatever happened to 25-year refrigerators and 50-year power tools?

And people wonder why we feed the birds... We put the seed out, the birds show up, and everybody's happy. No planned obsolescence... No junk metals... Just birds...

Just another day in Paradise...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)