Lamplighter, the birds around here know me pretty well. The kestrels and the robins were the first to decide that I'm not dangerous. Using that mild OCD and the fact that I've spent my whole life training my eyes to lock on motion that doesn't match the environment, I've spent the last couple of springs chasing invasive European starlings out of the ornamental tree in front of my window. This year I've been rewarded--the cedar waxwings figured out only one tree on the block had any fruit left, and I got to see them learn that I only chase starlings. American crows are illegal to directly harass, but they do not like the range-finding light on my camera and they don't like being watched intently. Studies show that they can recognize human faces even with disguises AND they can teach their offspring which specific monkeys to avoid. No crow has perched within half a block of my apartment to bark about its territory in like 3 years now, a miracle of no small order considering we have a 20+ foot tall streetlight right across the road. That kestrel, the female of the breeding pair, just casually watched me out in a grassy field as I circled the tree to PUT the moon behind her :D. I have multiple moon-and-bird shots, but the real challenge is the magpies because those <unladylike words here> have a sense of humor AND don't like cameras.

I see you have uploading attachments figured out. Awesome! And good to see you.

If you want the picture to appear within the body of the post, instead of way down at the bottom after all your excellent commentary, you go back up to the paperclip a second time and click on it until you see "Manage attachments" and then you click on the attachment you want to manage, and it goes wherever your cursor happens to be. Like this.
Attachment 51513

It sounds complicated, but it's really easy.

And you can have up to four pictures within a post that way, and have commentary in between each one.

Edit: And I see in another post that you are "not a him" so I guess that dapper dude wasn't you.

Like this one?

:D

Attachment 51518

Tree fire from a lightning strike.

Wow. I'd expect flames and smoke if there are hot coals like that and unburned wood present.

Not if there's no oxygen between the coals and unburned wood.

They make a bunch of different poppy themed wreaths and things too.

BigV Indeedy! Exactly, precisely, 100% like that one (though your photo looks slightly vertically stretched when I hold mine up to the screen next to the pic). If I can't get another one when this one dies, I may cry a LOT.

glatt, I'm going to try that sometime when my brain isn't as broken as it is currently...ALL of my physical therapy just came to a crashing halt, with no replacement activities available. :( Meanwhile, a couple more images...Attachment 51864 like me hanging out with a celebrity of sorts! The skull is a scaled-down cast of Sue, the biggest and most complete T-rex we have.

Attachment 51865 Once a year in late summer or early fall we generally get one bitty bat hiding out underneath our porch, which is wooden planks with gaps between. I've rescued a few before other tenants could complain and lead to the poor thing having to be killed; watching nature documentaries for 40 years has given me a pretty good idea how to help, and the local wildlife rehabber says I do a great job when it's needed. For the record, if you need to move a single bat to a safer location, wear leather gloves, handle them very gently, and place them in a clean, dry container to transport. I use a small Sterilite bin with ventilation holes drilled in it, and when moving bats I fill it with dry paper towels--learned that when one WOULD NOT let go of a glove, so I stuck the glove in with and the bat climbed inside because the suede reminded it of being in a colony, surrounded on all sides. The rehabber took charge of that one and once it had recovered she even brought back my glove.

As might be implied if you recognized my shirt from the first pic, one of the earliest revelations about me is that OMG I AM SUCH A HUGE GODZILLA FAN. When I met my biker neighbor almost 7 years ago, he vaguely remembered loving old monster movies he'd watched long before the skull fractures and other injuries mangled his detail memory. I spend a lot of time functioning as a volunteer care provider for him, and now we watch tons of kaiju movies...so many, so often, that when his cerebral palsy required him to swap out his Dyna Street Bob for a trike, he wanted a custom plate. With all of Montana having a population less than Pugetropolis alone, he had no trouble getting the one he wanted. Attachment 51866 For those who don't zone out on Toho flicks, that particular MechaGodzilla (figurine) is nicknamed 'Kiryu' in the two movies it's in, and the IMDb trivia page says the nickname means 'mechanical dragon'. We're not gonna try attaching the figurine to the trike, but it would be SUPER AWESOME to find a local airbrush artist who could put the glowing sparkle-yellow eyes and red racing stripes on Kiryu's face on the trunk lid of the trike...

Since the edit function is giving me fits now, I want to add that the bolt visible near the bat is only 1/4 inch wide--this is probably a "little brown" bat from the genus Myotis, one of the more common bats and incredibly dinky.

glatt, sorry I didn't notice this part quicker, but you're entirely correct. That dapper dude in a suit is the lead singer of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, one of maybe a dozen musicians/groups I will still pay to go see. 2 decades together, all 6 original members still there, have played for 3 in-office Presidents of this country...not who you expect in a 140-seat high school auditorium, but WOW WHAT A SHOW.

Could this be Digr's car?

It might have been....if I were 40 years older.

Cool car, cooler cargo.

So yesterday I hear the freshly-fledged baby robins outside, and there's a shrill panicky sound I'm not used to from them. I go to check and a couple of little <explosion of unladylike words here> boys are chasing one of the babies around the building trying to catch it!

Oh hell no you will NOT!

So I snarled at them about the Migratory Bird Protection Act and how you don't have to be an adult to get in HUGE trouble with the Feds for harassing native wildlife, made sure they had scarpered off to whoever was supposedly responsible for them, and went to check on the bird that had been cowering in the far corner under the bottom step of the staircase that leads to my door. I found the bird in the front yard, thankfully undamaged. The birds in my neighborhood definitely know me by sight, and robins tend to be among the bravest when it comes to me and my camera.

This little guy actually hopped about two feet toward me before I got this picture, then went about foraging in the yard as if nothing had happened. Finding out that a wild baby bird is sure I will not harm it has helped a surprising amount with how I feel about losing all my access to physical therapy :(.

Lovely plumage.



Do robins migrate?

How far can they carry a two pound coconut?