You know, this whole time change thing is getting ridiculous.  Do you realize that so-called "Standard" Time now only covers a third of the year (November through February)?  Not much of a standard!  I don't see why they don't just shift the clock ahead an hour and leave it that way permanently.  I doubt it'd make much of a difference in the winter ( Read more... )

This time it wasn't Twisted Bill (though I spotted him today also), or the female Yellow-Shafted Flicker I saw a while back.  This one was a male Red-Shafted... almost.  He had the red mustache mark, and when he flew, his wing-linings were the usual salmon color, but he also had some traces of red on his nape, though not a crisp, clear crescent as ( Read more... )

While it was a bit colder this morning than it has been for the last few days, and while I know that other parts of the country are still getting snow and ice (and we could very well yet get more in Santa Fe, come to that), the birds are definitely getting ready for spring.  More of them are starting to sing -- or drum, in the case of the flickers ( Read more... )

I've actually had this game in mind for a while, but today's score was so awesome that I decided to make it official.

The game is pretty simple:  when you go out birding, keep track of how many different species you see before you spot a House Finch.  Or, if House Finches aren't as common in your area as they are in Santa Fe, substitute another ( Read more... )

I'd have to say that today's Bird of the Day was the Canyon Towhee, because they just kept on popping up.  Certainly not the most spectacular bird I saw today; a Canyon Towhee is a dust-colored bird with only a couple of rusty patches.  And not the most ubiquitous either; that distinction, if you can call it that, almost always belongs to the House ( Read more... )

It isn't officially spring yet, but the weather's definitely taken a turn for the warmer today, and the birds were responding.  They're beginning to sing, so I can start learning the songs of species I couldn't learn in Maryland ( Read more... )

My unusual bird sighting of the day was a flicker -- and no, it wasn't Twisted Bill, though I spotted him yesterday (which meant that he went into the Great Backyard Bird Count, although not by name).  This one was a female, and she was a yellow-shafted flicker.  No mistake -- she had a red patch on the back of her head, no "mustache mark" ( ( Read more... )

So I'm reading the newspaper this morning (The New Mexican), and there's this article about how consumer spending is way down because people are (understandably) saving their money in these hard times.  Unfortunately this sort of behavior, though sensible from an individual's POV (hey, I'm doing it too) does nothing to get the economy going again.

( Read more... )

Well, there were a lot of them, many tied up with having a president who can speak, but there was personal, private pleasure in the musical number played by the quartet of violin, cello, clarinet and piano, as a part of the ceremony.

I've had a special fondness for "Simple Gifts" for a long time.  Those Mythopoeic Society members among my LJ friends ( Read more... )

Via ( Read more... )