The sound of birds, being birds, with guitars.

Interesting to me, as we so often idealize and romanticize nature as we view it. But, life is hard for those outside the house. This gives a soundtrack to life being lived, in a way that I think better than the new agey mood music does.

via Althouse)

Another hummingbird from this evening.

Sitting outside while reading the Trial of Anne Hutchinson gave me a nice perspective on the always busy hummingbird feeder this morning.

Fable doesn’t have to mean fiction when dealing with members of the Corvid family.

Amy has a new job. A great blessing indeed. It’s a children’s day camp, with an office about a 10 minute walk away. The main camp which has summer and winter programs is about a 15 minute drive north, up along the foothills, on the edge of civilization.

She was doing inventory up there today and, gracious wife that she is, invited me to go up there with her. She to inventory. Me to read. And read I did. With the quiet of a wonderful forest, full of trees and plants and birds. So refreshing for my soul.

I did all the reading I needed to do and more.

I also took the occasional break to soak in the quiet and calm. On one of these I noticed a black chinned hummingbird darting from a telephone line, out and back, out and back. I couldn’t quite figure out what she was doing at first, she kept up that out and back quite a while. Then I noticed all the little flying bugs. She was, apparently, acting the part of a flycatcher, catching bugs in midair, and having quite the feast. Didn’t seem to be bothered by me at all, so in one of her forays, towards me, I took her picture.

Took the picture with my new cell phone, as a matter of fact.

There was a bit of a commotion in the pine tree that stands right outside, just past the deck. The pine cones are starting to open, and apparently the local birds realize there are tasty treats inside.

The sun was descending in the west. The stellers jay was after a bit of dinner. I took some pictures.

More to come.

I woke up this morning and there was this beautiful web made between two small branches on the cedar tree outside. We don’t tend to have a lot of these great concentric webs around up here, and even if I don’t like spiders, I appreciate good engineering when I see it.

I got up, took a picture, then went outside to do some work. About an hour into it I looked up and there was this raven, sitting in a branch across the street. I didn’t see him land there.

As far as I could tell he was just hanging out, checking out the yards.

And these few from this last week:

We’ve been having a black-chinned hummingbird assume the feeder as his own.

He perches on a branch, watching and waiting.

I’d be bothered by his repeated attacks on every other hummingbird, except for the fact that he often starts to sing this lovely little song while he is on duty.

I was sitting near the window typing, writing a bit on the Israelites in front of the Red Sea. A large form moving fast right outside caught my eye. I immediately thought raven. Quickly became clear it wasn’t a raven sitting on the nearest branch of the cedar tree. No frivolity in its eyes or mischievousness in its demeanor. It was a dead serious bird, with piercing eyes–and a piercing beak. It flew in and landed right above the bird feeder. Watching for a tasty morsel. I watched it for a moment, got up and walked upstairs to get my camera. The hawk turned and stared at me the whole way, watching me. I sat back down near the window. It looked at me with eyes of a predator–a look that is quite apparent even even if one is not the prey. It scanned the whole area with eyes much sharper than my own for a bird or a rodent. All the wee beasties had found cracks and crevices, hiding amidst the forest clutter. It flew off down the hill, due west.

A red-tailed hawk.

Watching.

Gallery is working again. Thanks Siteground!

We’ve had quite a winter here in Lake Arrowhead so far. Just about a storm a week, with a fair amount of snow. I haven’t shoveled this much snow… well, ever. It’s a great workout. And not too bad in 35 degrees as opposed to 0 degrees.

I finally posted a Gallery of selected Winter pictures, mostly from January. Enjoy.

I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas. I’m very much pressed for money these days and have expenses and opportunities and possibilities that seem to be asking me for more money. Somehow I’ve not yet worked out how to get paid, rather than pay, for doing a lot of work.

Anyhow, those concerns tapped a lot of my materialistic interest. I didn’t really want anything, and couldn’t come up with any ideas. So I got a gift card. For whenever I had an idea.

This past week I guess I got bit by something. And I used my gift card.

I got a webcam (and I’m noticing that it’s gone up in price since I bought it). I don’t know what it is, maybe part of my slow exit from my extended retreat, but I just thought it would be fun to have.

So, now as I wonder what it was specifically that bit me I’m trying to come up with things to do with this webcam. One of the ideas I have was to do some readings. I’m trying to see how it might work as the occasional live cam posted on my website on another page. I had it going a bit yesterday near my bird feeders, and had quite a nice closeup view of the juncos and the chickadees and such.

There was a merlin too out back, the second time she’s been around in as many days, but I don’t think she got close enough to see well.