Category: Birds

Tea by the pool

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
No diving.

It’s not summer yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t crank out my little bit of bullshit on the patio instead of in the office. I mean, it’s 64°, just past 8 a.m., and there are a lot more hummingbirds out here than there are in there.

Birds of another sort abound elsewhere. Buzzards, mostly. The Benighted States have been at the polls again, hoping to find a few that shit gold instead of what we’re wading through at the moment.

It might help if we focused on finding a species that isn’t focused on eating our entrails.

A robin, maybe. One’s busily plucking bugs from the back yard as I type. Good, useful work, that. Many insects infest the American lawn; many, many of them. A hungry robin might be just the ticket.

Aw, hell, who am I kidding here? We don’t need a robin. We need a Batman.*

* Or a Batwoman, Batperson, someone who identifies as a bat, is transitioning to a bat, I don’t give a shit. As long as s/he/they kick ass.

    Mother’s Day +1

    ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
    “Squatters’ rights, yo.”

    We’re generally light on mothers around here come the second Sunday in May. Herself isn’t one, and neither is Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

    But for this Mother’s Day we have a robin sitting on a clutch of eggs in a fine, strong nest built in the Chinese pistache outside the dining room.

    Two feeders, no waiting.

    We’ve had doves cobble together some half-assed homes under the front overhang that mostly turn into fly-thru eateries for the neighborhood raptors. Hummingbirds tuck their teensy little bide-a-wees into the pines out front. And a variety of little cheepers have grown up in a dead limb of the backyard maple, holed at top and bottom by a ladder-backed woodpecker. A tree dude accidentally sawed it off while pruning the maple a while back, but he reinstalled it and it’s been home to at least one more family since then, so, winning, etc.

    None of these little mothers ever pays any rent, but we don’t care. We even provide free feeds at our BB&B (Bird Bed & Breakfast). From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, as the fella says.

    Coyotes 1, hummingbirds 0

    ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
    Open for business, but traffic is slow.

    The hummingbirds are scarce so far this April. But Herself reported seeing a coyote just down the street as she drove to work this morning.

    Ain’t that just the way it is? God’s Dog is on the job while Her colorful little buzzbombs are off screwing the pooch somewhere.

    Hope the ICEholes haven’t scooped ’em all up. That would be the cutest detention center ever.

    No golden escalators here

    ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
    Going up. …

    Herself and I slipped out for a short trail run before lunch yesterday, hoping to dodge the predicted rain.

    She was taking a break from work, which continues although the feddle-gummint mostly doesn’t. I was taking a break from being indoors, the Monday Geezer Ride having been canceled due to the weather forecast. We are not Portlanders, ready and eager to ride nekkid in fair weather and foul, aiming wisecracks and buttcracks at Beelzebozo’s buttheads.

    Our short-run loop is only a couple miles, and mostly flat — just 268 feet of vertical gain, with one lump going out and another coming back — and we were back at the ranch before the clouds opened for business.

    And business was booming. Nothing like the Durango area, where Tropical Storm Priscilla really brung it and then some. The official tally here was 0.21 inch. But it felt like a lot compared with the usual nothing at all.

    Just ask the lone bedraggled hummingbird who spent about 15 minutes camped at one of our feeders, which hang out of the weather beneath the back patio cover. Every so often s/he would glance skyward as though thinking: “Jaysis! Where is everybody? I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”

    Freecipitation

    ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
    Splish, splash, etc.

    What a gloomy day. The ceiling is all the way down to the deck and the drizzle is intermittent. Reminds me of Oregon, only without all the ICEholes and Natural Gourds wandering around, growing fungus in their footwear and moss on their north sides.

    Ordinarily I’d slip out for a jog between sprinkles, but I’ve already logged two 5K runs this week and fear a third would leave me a smelly puddle of tears, shredded connective tissue, and bone splinters.

    Still, slouching around indoors muttering over the news ain’t no day at the beach neither.

    That Tennessee explosives factory? Holy hell.

    Public “servants” trying to suppress free speech? Par for the course. Public excoriation for thee, but not for me. Shove the First Amendment right up their fat asses by attending your local No Kings! rally on Oct. 18.

    Government employees being shown the door because … well, because Rumpleshitskin likes it? Remember his two-word catchphrase from the unreality show he keeps reliving over and over and over again in the throes of his growing dementia. He’s a man of few words, because he can only remember a few, and can pronounce even fewer.

    And to top it off I’ve got one lonely, disheveled hummingbird parked at the backyard feeder, like the old soak lost in thought who just can’t seem to hear the phrase, “Last call. …”