Baby Hummer

Michael's eagle eyes spotted another hummer tonight. Michael had spotted the guy having a bath in the rain a few days ago. Tonight we were inside watching So You Think You Can Dance, and from our couch he spotted one sitting outside in the bamboo. It looked like the right shape, but when I got up to look it seemed wrong somehow. Too dark. A white spot. Kid of fluffy. We carefully stepped outside to get a closer look and realized it must be a baby! We took some photos, and he flew off briefly followed by one or two adults who buzzed us and took off. The baby hovered in confusion and then resettled on my buddleia. Cute little fella. It's good to know they can happily reproduce around our neighborhood!

Tiny Showers

Yesterday we had a brief shower after weeks of dry weather. A hummingbird had a shower and a bath on some leaves, and a baby chickadee got wet for the first time.

Happy Winter!

Usually the first day of winter in Seattle is just another cold rainy fall-like day. Well not this year! We're in the midst of a series of snow, wind, and ice storms that have paralyzed Seattle. And the weather has been freezing or below, to boot! That's pretty normal for some parts of the U.S., but not here.

Bijou and JoJo have been mostly cooped up inside and are getting antsy. Our usual routine in the mornings (when I don't work) is to go into the backyard for 20 minutes or so to stretch legs and catch up on the smell news by sniffing everything. JoJo also needs to check out her excavated burrow and make sure it's still open. Well this week I've been going out to feed the birds and defrost their bird bath, and JoJo and Bijou come out but don't stay long. They both seem pretty irritated by the snow, although JoJo has dug around in it and eaten some. And JoJo is finally camouflaged!

Here's a short video of JoJo in the snow:


For the rest of the day Bijou sleeps on her bed in front of our heater and JoJo lounges behind the couch or on her pile of blankets in the livingroom. In the two and a half years we've owned JoJo, she's never shown the slightest interest in any of the heaters, but it's been so cold that yesterday evening (while Bijou snoozed in a comforter on the couch) JoJo had a bath and a nap on Bijou's heater bed for 40 minutes! We've never seen her do anything like it before. I guess the house is cold!


The poor birds in the backyard have been cold. I've been pouring hot water in their bath every day, making sure they have food, and defrosting the hummingbird feeder. The Anna's hummingbird overwinters in Seattle, and I have at least two that visit my feeder. I've been very worried about them in this extended cold weather, but today I saw one at my feeder again, and that made me very happy.

The other birds have really been enjoying the warm water in their bird bath:


I've talked to my Mom on the East coast, and they're having snowstorms, too. Well, wherever you are, take a cue from the animals and roast yourself in front of a heater, have a hot bath, and drink sugar water. Merry Squidmas!

Canoeing around the Arboretum

Today my friends Sabina and Maya and I rented a canoe from the UW Aquatics Center, and we canoed around the Arboretum. It was a beautiful day. I keep thinking this is the last one of summer, and we keep having these days! Thank the gods for friends who like to get outside. We saw ducks and geese and turtles and a Great Blue heron.

I took some footage of the heron stalking. I had my second-string camera with me (in case I dropped it in the water), so it's not so clear.

New Growth

We had a fabulous weekend of sunshine and highs in the 80s or lower 90s. Or so I hear. I worked all weekend, and when I finally got outside after work, the days were a little overcast or simply getting dark. Today is overcast but still warm, so maybe Seattle has finally warmed up from its cold spring. All of a sudden the clover flowers are blooming, much to JoJo's joy. I brought a handful home for her today on my way back from the gym, and she gobbled them up.

The Wollemi pine I got almost a year ago has burst out with a nice layer of new growth. I like the way the tender little needles are all stuck together at the ends. The little pine is definitely bigger than last year, but it's looking a little scraggly just now. Maybe I'll wait to do a full photo on its adoption day in June.

This morning Michael and I saw our first begging baby bird. We call these "dumb birds" because at first glance they look adult sized, but they're all scruffy, wobbly, and look around with a dazed expression. Here's a short video of a house sparrow getting fed by his dad from the bird feeder:


This year we haven't had as many baby birds around as usual. Unfortunately, no one moved into my Nest Cam nest box. I'm very bummed. Last year some Bewick's wrens moved in, but this year, nada. Also, we used to have several families of sparrows or finches nesting in the eaves of our house. They had pecked through then screening on the vent holes under the eaves and were actually inside the attic, though just inside the eaves. I used to enjoy their loud begging in the morning, though it woke up Michael. This winter a rat moved into our attic, and we had all the holes plugged. No more rats, but no more baby birds. Oh well, it's better for the house this way.

I have today off, but a bazillion things to do. I hope I can enjoy the outdoors a bit!

On The Beach

March 19th -- March 22nd, 2008. We spent our final days in Ecuador in a muggy haze at the beach. The Hosteria Mandala was an absolutely lovely place. A multi-storied wooden building with open verandas all around served as the common area and restaurant. The surrounding cabins were all hidden from each other by lush gardens filled with birds. A walk of about 30 seconds from the common building got you to a beautiful sand beach with cabanas.

My Mom and I both had great expectations for ourselves. While in Puerto Lopez, we planned to traipse through Machalilla National Park seeing exotic flora, fauna, and archaeological ruins. We planned to go to Isla de la Plata, the poor man's Galapagos, and see some blue-footed boobies and other wildlife. Maybe we would also go to Los Frailes beach!

But it was really hot. And I was really sick with a bad cold. And the surf was so sooooooothing ... We spent the entire three days swinging in hammocks under our cabana, body surfing with the kids in the excellent waves, playing in the sand, playing games and drinking beer in the common building, and kicking back with three meals a day in the restaurant. It was tough. Really tough. Actually, I was pretty miserably sick and exhausted. My nose dripped constantly yet couldn't be emptied with a good blow. My nose started to peel from the tissues. The only time I really perked up was in the water. The Pacific Ocean was like a giant neti pot, and the crashing waves were exhilarating.


After the first day of total sloth, I did manage to explore a little bit around the beach. I was really excited to see frigatebirds wheeling overhead, as I've often read about them, especially in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. Watching them congregate around the fishing boats, though, I realized they were about as common as seagulls. Oh well -- they were still exotic to me! Vultures were also pretty common, but fun for me to see. Further on down the beach and away from most people, I managed to encounter a pair of Yellow-Crowned Night-Herons. Cool name, huh? Seeing them made me feel right at home, since Michael and I often go to Golden Gardens Park in our neighborhood and see Great Blue Herons on the beach. There were many pelicans, too. They would do this very cool thing of flying very low in a V formation over the breaking waves. I imagine they were scooping up yummy treats.


Ghost crabs scuttled around on the beach, disappearing the minute I tried to get close. I was walking while trying to video these guys. Sorry for the shaking.

Far down the beach were some really nice peaceful views of the surf, the clouds, the birds, and a weird starfish stuffed into a crevice. I actually thought the little guy was an octopus for a minute!

At the end of the days the sun would set in a blaze of glory. One of our hosts, Maja, said she'd seen the elusive green flash before, but we didn't get so lucky.

Camera Incura Adora

I have an incurable crush on -- my new camera! I got a Sony Cybershot DSC-H9. I'm having lots of fun playing with it and learning all of its tricks. I wanted to be really familiar with it before I go to Ecuador in March. I'll be going for 2 weeks to see my Mom; my sister-in-law Colleen and my nephews Ian and Julian will also be there visiting. I can't wait!

Meanwhile, I've been testing it out on Bijou, JoJo, and the birds in the backyard. Here's a straightforward one of Bijou, and a nice close-up of some bun-tocks:



















The camera has a very nice movie function. My old camera would only do 30 seconds a pop, so if the action didn't happen in 30 seconds, I didn't get it. Now I can let "tape" roll until I get what I want! I've been wanting to capture a nice bun-flop, and the other night I got two that I would rate about a 5 on a 10 point Olympic scale. Not JoJo's best work, but still cute. The second one has an appropriate voice over from the PBS show I was watching, Pioneers of Television: Late Night.


Today was the first really beautiful Spring-ish day, and all three of us girls enjoyed hanging out in the back yard while I waited for photo ops. JoJo does a great job with the screen pet-door, and then after much grass munching she did a very small binky and a sprint.


I was able to use my absolutely amazing new 15x macro on my camera to capture a really nice close-up of one of "my" Anna's hummingbirds. I love this photo! My new camera has a repeater setting, where you can hold down the button and take a rapid succession of photos. I tried that with the hummer and got about 30 so-so pictures, but this one on the right was taken as a regular one-off shot. I wonder if the repeater shakes the camera a little, or if I just got really lucky with the clarity on this one.

I also took a brief video of the hummer. The videos lose clarity getting them on the web. They're really amazing my own computer!


We occasionally have a hawk visit us in the back yard. We keep an eye out for hawks, since they may find JoJo to be a tasty tidbit. This one looked a little small, and we think he may be a sharp-shinned hawk. I got a photo of his back, and then some video of him just looking around. Today I saw a mob of crows chasing him out of the neighborhood.

NestCam

I finally got my NestCam up and running! Several days ago I installed the teeny tiny camera into the nest box. Today I finished tacking up and trying to hide the cable around the yard and house. It's not too ugly, but I could definitely work on hiding it better later in the year when it's nicer to be outside. The worst of it was fighting my way through a pretty thick jasmine vine. I went to BuyMore and bought a nifty little adapter which takes the ordinary A/V input from the camera and immediately digitizes it. If I want, I can let the capture go on for 16 hours! I figure once I start seeing activity around the nest, I'll turn it on in the days, and then trim out the good parts at night. I can't wait!

I did a little test run of the camera. For some reason the audio isn't working yet on my NestCam, but I have some ideas to try. Meanwhile, here's my first bird. I used SloMo because the birdie moved too fast.

For those of you interested in maybe doing this yourself, here's the equipment so far:

• Bird house
• Night Owl Spy Cam, available from many sites. The cam comes with 100 feet of cable, and you can buy 100 ft extensions. You can also buy a cam already installed in a birdhouse. The house looks pretty big, and the hole looks big enough for you to get sparrows and the like in the house. You might want to put a smaller hole covering on the front (and no perch!), if you want small birds like chickadees or wrens.
• Dazzle DVD recorder. This has a regular video input and an S-Video input. It also has L and R Audio inputs. I'm thinking this may be why I have no sound, since the bird cam only has one audio jack. I tried each input, but no sound. Maybe they don't work at all if there isn't something plugged into both. I'm going to buy a splitter and see. You need USB 2.0 inputs for this to work on your computer. [update: the sound is just fine! It turns out I was having issues with my computer's sound settings. The video above still doesn't have sounds, but my real birdie videos will. I'll get a splitter anyway so that the sound comes out of both speakers.]
  
• I've already got video editing software on my computer, and I think any kind will do. You can get a more expensive Dazzle thingy that comes with editing software, if you need to.
  

You need to consider how you are going to get the cable in your house, too.

Now hopefully some birds will move in! It would be very sad if they didn't. :<

Signs of Spring

Not much has been happening in life lately, so I really haven't had anything to post about. But SPRING is coming, and that's got me excited. One of the reasons I love living in Seattle is that the signs of Spring start so early.

My blue stars and some protected daffodils have been blooming for weeks. Snowdrops are just showing themselves, and many bulbs have been poking themselves through the soil.

This morning the resident flicker started hammering on our metal chimney like he does every year. For the next month or so we'll be awakened by his jack hammering every morning.

The Bewick's wrens have been inspecting their old nest box. Last year there was a bit of contention between the chickadees and the wrens for the nest box, so this year I added an extra one. It's in a very sheltered spot and kind of hidden, so I've hung some suet there to attract birds to the area.

I ordered a small video camera to put in the original nest box. I'm pretty excited! It's not wireless, though, so I've got to figure out how to get the input all the way into my computer. I might need a wireless transmitter/receiver adapter, if it's not too expensive. The camera was a deal at $60 from Cooper Seeds.

We've had a long cold winter of pretty consistent gray days and temps staying in the upper 30s and lower 40s. Nothing terrible, but I'm looking forward to some warm sunshine.

Haiku

Hail on black bamboo
Hummingbird flits through the leaves
Flash of ruby throat

Snowtasia!

I really prefer to visit Maine in the summah, but if I have to go in the winter, it might as well snow! While we were there, we had two beautiful snow falls, both nicely scheduled to not interfere with our travel plans.

The first snow started on the evening of the 30th while we were snugged up in Harpswell with my Dad, my stepmom Becky, my brother Brady, and the cat Scout. It was still a snowy winter wonderland when we woke up. I shoveled and snowshoed, and then the sun came out for even more beauty.

To cap it all off, when were set to leave for Camden, I saw an owl fly onto a branch in the yard. He was very big! He stayed for about 10 minutes while the Henderson-Gibson-Williams paparazzi snapped many photos. This owl was pretty big -- maybe the size of a raccoon. I'm thinking he might be a Barred Owl. A recent blog post here says, "The widespread reports of Barred Owls being seen in the daylight hours in Maine this winter has some people thinking these birds are having a tough winter already and they are stressed and hungry enough to come out in daylight." I hope he wasn't too stressed. Very magnificent.
On New Year's Day in Camden, we had another pretty snow storm which started at about 2pm. We went for a nice long walk around Chestnut and Bayview Streets in Camden. It was absolutely beautiful, and I'm really glad I didn't have to drive anywhere. This ivied lamp post is at my brother's house, where we were staying.

Manly Bush Tit

Well if that title doesn't get me some web traffic from keyword searches, I don't know what will! Actually, though, this post is about this guy:I've had these small decorative mirrors in my garden for years but never noticed any bird attacking them. This little guy was going at it with gusto. For hours. Michael finally removed the mirror, but he just flew to the next one and began again. That mirror came down, too. I didn't want to be responsible for any tiny headaches.

Here he is clacking away at the mirror. After about 15 seconds I get a shot of one of the Bewick's wrens entering their house. The chirrrr-ing you hear in the backgroung is the wrens.