The Life of Birds by David Attenborough

The Life of Birds by David Attenborough 

What a gorgeous, delightful, educational book!  Every chapter in this book is a delight to the eye and to the mind.  From the first chapter chronicling the evolution of birds to the last chapter on environmental challenges facing birds, the book is informative with stunningly beautiful photographs.  The book is broken into chapters following the life cycles of birds in the myriad varieties.  I just can't begin to express how much I enjoyed this book and how much I learned. A really good read.  

Birds Of Bentsen NWR

Two Snowies

Snowy Egret

Snowy Plovers

Royal terns

Galveston Island Birding Trip

JMM and I are native Galvestonians and very much enjoy going back to go birding.  It is especially nice in the fall and winter( but the spring migration can be outstanding too.) Here are some photos from a recent birding trip.

Willet

Snowy Plover

Least Sandpiper

Osprey

Nutmeg Mannikin

This morning while Joe and I were eating breakfast and chatting, we were casually noticing a group of 8 or so "sparrows" on the ground. Then Joe rubbed his eyes, blinked, and reached for the binoculars. He said those were not sparrows and I went to get the Sibley's.  They are an exotic from Southeast Asia which have been a popular caged bird for many years. They are fairly well established in the Southeastern United States.  This is the first time either of us have ever seen them. 

Around OakMeadows

 

Old things. Two of the oldest things I have are sewing machines.  One is my grandmother's Singer treadle. The other is my mother's Singer that she bought in 1961 to replace the Singer that was lost in Hurricane Carla.  My mother was a talented seamstress and made many clothes for herself, for me, and for my daughter on that sewing machine. When she died in 1975, I inherited it and I have used it ever since. In recent decades, i have used it for piecing my quilt tops.  It works perfectly. This past week we took it in to the sewing machine repair shop for cleaning, lubricating, and adjusting the tension. I doubt that today's sewing machines with their computer chips will still be sewing perfectly when they are 50+ years old. 

Our first swallow babies for this year have flown.  They were in the nest on the front porch; the ones on the back porch look like they will be in the nest about 2 more weeks. It is so sweet to see them first wobble out of the nest--the first one out of the nest, two more who follow, and one who decides he likes it just fine in the nest and doesn't want to leave.  Then one after the other they will take the plunge and flutter madly and semi-crash land on the potted palm or window ledge.  The parents meanwhile are zooming around chirping "Look, this is how you do it!"  And soon there are 4 more swallows zooming around.  I would imagine that the parents are tired and glad the the babies will be catching their own bugs. 

JMM has esophageal sphincter spasms every once in a while and he had a particularly bad bout of it Thursday evening. We were getting ready to eat dinner and he ate one piece of pork chop and had an immediate spasm. Usually it lets up within a few minutes but this time it wouldn't let up.  He tried walking around to no avail. To make matters worse he started hiccuping. I looked on the Internet for information on treatment and there really isn't any definitive treatment. Calcium channel blockers and long acting nitrates are sometimes helpful and sometimes not. About 11:30 I suggested that he crush a promethazine tablet and put it under his tongue so that it would be absorbed sublingually.  I don't know if the promethazine relaxed the spasms enough that he could go to sleep or if it just made him sleep and the spasms resolved on their own. I checked on him at 1am and 3am and he was sleeping.  Friday morning I made soft scrambled eggs for him and he was able to eat them and drink some water. Needless to say, Friday was spent recuperating. 

Still reading:
     Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Flexner.
     Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells. 
     The Light between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. 
     Our Hidden Lives by Simon Garfield. 
All 4 are really interesting and well written. 

Since we don't have television, we watch Netflix DVDs.  We are currently I watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have the last season's Downton Abbey in my queue but it is marked "Very long wait." Oh well.  We really enjoyed watching the most recent season of Foyle's War. 

Finally layered, pinned, and basted my baby quilt. Pictures coming soon.

Brazos Bend State Park

Last Friday JMM and I took a picnic lunch to Brazos Bend State Park and enjoyed the warm sunshine and shade under the massive live oaks.  After lunch a stroll along the park trails. Immediately, it was obvious that spring was well under way: Never have we seen so many alligators and turtles! We realized that we always visit Brazos Bend in mid-winter to avoid the heat and mosquitoes so we were never there when the turtles and alligators are out and about. The ducks, of course, were all gone but there were many herons, moorhens, and a grebe or two.  Lovely day.

So excited!

Just a quick note to say how thrilled I am that the barn swallows are back!  Right on time, to the day! They arrived at my back porch this morning! How do they do it?? From Central America to my back porch every year!!  How I love them!! Soon they will be refurbishing last year's nests and then there will be babies (and the poop below...) I will have to go on sparrow patrol though to keep the sparrows from invading the swallow nests. This just makes me so happy!

All my swallow pictures are too dark, so these are from Google images:

Winter Birding in the Rio Grande Valley

The pictures aren't as good as I'd like because it was overcast and we didn't have the tripod with us.

Black-necked stilts

 

 

Blue Winged Teal

 

 

Great Kiskadee

 

Green Jay

 

Ladder Backed Woodpecker

 

Northern Shoveler

 

Orchard Oriole

 

American Coot

 

Chachalaca