November's Birds Nest - Thanksgiving Edition

Bird of the Day - Red Tailed Tropicbird

You have to look hard to see the skinny red tail. This is a bird seen often in Hawaii. I worry about the lava flow from Kilauea volcano and the impact to wildlife habitat.

Happy November!

Hi Birding Friends, Wow, November and we are back to Nature's time. Love it, but can't believe how fast this year is zooming by.

I spent part of the day just 'zoning' out after all the stuff I did yesterday. My back wasn't too bad today, though there are twinges now and then. It's cold again here tonight, but I didn't cover anything outside as last night, the predicted hard freeze didn't reach this yard and garden. The one huge banana tree that my brother planted away from the others, so it would shade some of the hostas wasn't damaged at all. I forgot to go back outside last evening and dig it. I am not sure that I can as it's about 15 feet tall and will be quite heavy in the stalk and root ball area. I might just dig a couple of the "babies" that sprouted along its base. The tomato plants didn't suffer any damage either and the same is true for the pentas, lantanas, and verbenas. The bees will still have some flowers to visit before winter.

Thank you, Birdmama, for the new "nest". I am amazed that that volcano is still producing lava after all these years of its eruption. I wonder where all the material for that lava is coming from. I remember one settlement in the path of another flow, being destroyed as the lava just kept creeping along toward the sea. I wonder why bulldozers can't push earth up to form a berm/channel to turn the flow away. I guess they've tried it. Nature marches on to its own tune.

Waving to all Birding Friends. Have a lovely Sunday. We have the annual Sausage Supper at the Lutheran Church up the road a bit and I am so looking forward to that. Love their food, it's the best and so is their apple butter. I missed out on that earlier in the Autumn, when they cooked it, so I am hoping to get a few jars tomorrow. Bet it is all gone.

Happy Sunday!

Good Morning Birding Friends - the sun is shining, my front yard is golden (from all the neighborhood tree leaves) and I have The Cisco Kid playing on the TV. Since I stopped cable, I am discovering all sorts of older TV shows . Every 2 years (I think) my company closes for election day - I believe it is a collectively bargained benefit. I know we close for presidential elections, so it must be 2 years because we are closed tomorrow. I had common sense and requested a vacation day for today so I am enjoying a long weekend.

I need to get my rear in gear and go grocery shopping. I didn't bother doing it yesterday, chose to take care of smaller errands like filling my gas tank, running to the post office and going to the recycling center with my paper, cardboard and plastic.

Once I return home from shopping, it's me and the rake for a couple of hours. I'd like to look like I made some kind of effort , even though the trees are not 100% done shedding. I'll rake this major load of leaves then mulch the next little load and feed my shrubs and grass.

Bird of the Day - Eared Grebe (aka Black Necked Grebe) - Eastern and Western North America

Oops, forgot to say Happy Monday everyone!

Hi Birding Friends, It was a lovely Autumn weekend here in the Gateway City. After the sausage supper yesterday, (we went up to the church about 12:30 to get out takeouts). Cindy, the girls and I went to Forest Park, on the western edge of the city, but still surrounded by neighborhoods, and drove around checking out the beautiful sights of the trees, ponds, lakes, fountains along with the Zoo, Planetarium, Art Museum, Municipal Opera(outside summer productions), etc. I wish we'd gone earlier so that we could have gone into the Art Museum. It's beautiful and there's so much to see. Recently, one of the medical schools used a CTscan or MRI on a couple of the mummies that have been there for many many years. I didn't realize it, but the girls have never gone into the museum, so that will be on the "list" for a weekend outing.

Birdmama, Have you been lucky enough to see any of the Grebes or Loons up in your area. I have seen many videos of them, but never have seen them in the wild. I think we are way too far south for the loons, but not sure about the grebes. Cool they way they seem to run across the surface of the water.

I need to close to go put my feet up. My right leg is hurting, I think from the bulging discs in my back. It starts near the hip socket and goes down the leg to my knee. Of course, falling due to getting my foot stuck in my sweatpants yesterday morning didn't help much. Luckily I was near the wall and didn't take a hard fall. DD fell down the back porch steps yesterday. Luckily she didn't hurt herself. It seemed to happen in slow motion and the girls and I couldn't get to her in time.

Have a nice Tuesday, Everyone. Waving to all Birding Friends. Stay safe and be well.

Possummink, funny you mention all of the falling. The original owners of my house had grab bars installed in both bathrooms. I removed the bar in the 1/2 bath downstairs when I bought the house. I kept the grab bar in the main bath because, well, you never know. The grab bar in under the towel rack and roughly a month ago, after I took a bath, I was getting dressed and my socked foot got hung up on my yoga pant leg. I fell forward and managed to brake my fall with my right forearm, near the elbow on the metal grab bar. Now, physics would have forecasted that I would hit the towel rack, which had some give. But nooooo, I had to be the odd duck and miss the towel rack and head straight at the metal grab bar with no give in it.

I never bothered to get an x-ray (boy was I black and blue). Of course, it's the same arm as the frozen shoulder, so for 3 weeks I contemplated having the arm amputated - surely that would hurt less . The bruise and knot around the elbow area are gone now but there is some occasional tenderness depending on how I place my arm on my desk at work.

Flash forward to this past weekend and I almost did it again, this time in a spare bedroom. You would think I would learn to put the yoga pants on first and THEN the socks .

I have not seen any of the Grebes. I joined the Audubon Society and really need to take them up on the offers from the local chapter when it comes to field trips related to bird watching.

I raked up 10 bags of leaves in a solid 2 1/2 hour time frame yesterday afternoon. The frozen shoulder started screaming around 90 minutes into it, but I have to say - it was quiet and mild (near 60) and beautiful. Aside from hearing the occasional car on the main road up the street, it was me and the singing birds and the rhythmic raking and rustling of leaves. The smell and crunch of the dried up maple leaves took me back to my childhood. I raked up a huge pile and almost dived in.