Author: doerfpub

Still Seeing Red (Part 6 of Many)

Guess what?…. yep another bird post.  This one actually came out of a discussion with my brother Ron regarding the previous post (Part 4) on a red colored bird I had come upon previously.  Originally I had classified that bird as a Purple Finch, but upon further investigation we decided it was actually a Pine Grosbeak (at least we think).  While trying to determine that type of bird, I came upon some pictures I had taken that match much better to the description of the Purple Finch.

Purple Finch

In agreement with the guide description, this guy’s beak is a more tannish tone and he is sporting a pretty trendy crest.  To be honest, I really do not know much about this bird.  I snapped a few pictures when I had the chance, but I really have not been able to observe any of its interactions with other birds or feeding habits.

Continue reading Still Seeing Red (Part 6 of Many)

Crimson Pride (Part 5 of Many)

Yes, another bird post.  Trust me, I have a lot more to go.  Today’s focus is the Cardinal.

Cardinal

This bird has a special place in my heart for two reasons.. 1) it is my state bird (and what I didn’t know, it was apparently selected by Illinois school children back in 1928 and then made official in 1929 by the General Assembly) and 2) I accidently shot a cardinal with a BB gun (my brothers’ single cock muzzle loading Daisy) when I was a little kid.  Yes… it was an accident – I was shooting at a hedge apple when I either had my sites off or the dumb bird decided to land in the fire zone.  Whatever the reason, the bird literally locked his talons onto the branch, rolled forward until it was hanging upside down and proceeded to shoot blood out its neck right at me.   The fact that I can still remember the exact spot I was standing and every detail of the scene gives an indication of the traumatic impact that had on me as a little kid.  A beautiful (and protected) bird struck down in his prime because I wasn’t careful.  I have never set my gun sights on any form of bird to this date.  This is another reason I try to save little birds (see Part 4)- so far 1 adult accidently killed and 3 little birds saved

From an observation perspective the cardinal is pretty cautious…

Continue reading Crimson Pride (Part 5 of Many)

Slacker Retribution

I feel like I’ve been slacking a little bit on my regular posts.  I do have a number of additional bird entries to make, but figured I would step back and summarize some observations that I have made over the last week or so.  Hopefully, this will hold you over until I get through the pending feathered posts. 

 For starters, I was the recipient of outstanding service at a downtown establishment last week.  Around 9:00am, a coworker and I had a serious craving for some dark chocolate.  Typically this is a result of a need to relieve some work stress – nothing like taking a stroll downtown to clear the head and come up with a new approach to a vexing problem.  Our destination was a tiny little confectionary shop called the Nut House nestled in between the towering skyscrapers of Peoria IL (okay, if you are familiar with Peoria, you just laughed).  So off we went to ruin our teeth.  Disappointment soon took over as the shop did not open until 9:30 – Denied!  Like kids we were gawking in the window at the chocolate we desired.   A lady’s voice startled us from behind and asked if we were looking for something.  I recognized her immediately (guilty of chocolate addiction) as the store owner.  We mentioned we just came down for some candy, but noticed we were early.  Having sat out on Black Fridays before, I’ve been conditioned to be at the mercy of posted hours so I was totally shocked with her response.

Continue reading Slacker Retribution

To Live Another Day (Part 4 of Many)

UPDATE: 5/17/08 – My brother did an investigation on this little guy and we now believe that this bird really doesn’t match up with the purple finch.  For one thing the beak is different – the purple finch has a brown/tan beak that tapers to a point, where the pictures below appear to show a bent beak at the end and clearly a darker tone – it also was a fairly stocky bird which didn’t fit well with finches.  I had originally dismissed the Pine Grosbeak due to my guide’s maps which showed it really was not an Illinois bird, but my brother found some web links which matched up pretty will with the bird images and his book indicated that at times the Grosbeak can come down south a little farther.  So until someone produces alternative reasoning, we are changing the original assessment to the Pine Grosbeak  – now back to your regularly scheduled programming

Today’s bird has a special memory for me.  A month or so back, I was taking my dog out and noticed he was pretty interested in something out in the yard.  I called him off and put him back in the house to go and investigate the cause.  As it turns out, there was a small bird just laying in the grass.  It appeared to be a young bird that had either fallen out of a nest or overestimated its mastery of flying.  In any case, it seemed distraught and clearly concerned about the predicament it was in… not to mention being hovered over by a curious human.  Fortunately, for this little guy (I guess), I’m a softie for animals in distress (no, I dislike PETA if you are wondering – any organization that puts concern for a donkey higher than a human life is no organization I want to be associated with).   I first decided to snap a few pictures since I had not seen this type of bird (especially this close).

Not sure, maybe Purple Finch

Now that I am looking at the pictures up closer, he looks a little pissed.  He didn’t have any problems with me snapping a few photographs and was pretty much content to just sit there – likely pretty scared.  Here is another shot from a little sharper angle in order to get a better feel for the beak angle and reddish crown.

Continue reading To Live Another Day (Part 4 of Many)

I Bet He Gets Some Ribbing in Bird School (Part 3 of Many)

Continuing the tribute to the winged ones, today’s focus is on the titmouse.  Probably one of the stranger names for a bird since it doesn’t really resemble anything of the things that come to mind when I see that name.  I might have to track down the origin of that name out of sheer curiosity.  Based on the images in the field guide, I appear to have Tufted Titmouses (or is that Titmice?) which again is common to the region I live in.  This first picture is a tad fuzzy and dark, but I thought it was interesting because it looked a tad fat.  Due to the poor lighting I am unable to tell if it is browner than gray and thus might be a female.

Titmouse

Based on observation, the titmouse has to be the most skittish of all of the birds that use my feeders.  They are very timid and always land on a nearby branch first and survey the situation before eventually diving down into the larger birdfeeder (with songbird mix).

Continue reading I Bet He Gets Some Ribbing in Bird School (Part 3 of Many)

Nuts, Another The Head Rush (Part 2 of Many)

The bird posting continues.  Today’s bird topic is the nuthatch.  Based on the field guide, my guess is I have the White Breasted variety which coincides well with its popular regions.   Although a slightly fuzzy picture, here is one sitting in my old feeder.

Nuthatch

It is always easy to distinguish the nuthatch because for some reason it prefers to face downward – my guess is he enjoys the feeling of a head rush or he is just showing off because the other birds that have visited the tree rarely take this position.  It is a little startling the first time you witness it, but the nuthatch literally runs “down” the tree.   Often times he can been seen in the following pose…

Continue reading Nuts, Another The Head Rush (Part 2 of Many)

Hang It and They Will Come (Part 1 of Many)

Two years ago, my wife and I moved further out into the country…. basically built a house on 15 acres in somewhat isolated woods.  We tried our best to limit the amount of clearing so we could enjoy the sights and sounds of nature – our little escape from the hectic stressful lives we live during the week.  The first year was focused on getting the house built and managing the new property.  Last year I finally got around to hanging a birdfeeder in a tree just outside our balcony which happens to be placed perfectly out my master bedroom window so it is the first thing I get to see in the morning (thanks to LASIK it is no longer just a bunch of fuzzy shapes).  I soon became fascinated by the daily visits of various birds and eventually evolved to trying to take pictures of as many as I could.  Now, it has been a long time since I did a lot of photography, but this has turned out to be a little challenging due to having to shoot through windows, trying to focusing on nervous birds and fighting the lighting.  There is improvement as I experiment with settings and angles but clearly a long way to go.   The side effect of all of this is I’ve become intrigued by the differences in the birds – sizes, colors, social behaviors, eating patterns and food preferences.  My wife says I am bordering on obsessive and likes to rib that is an “old” person’s hobby.  It occurred to me while going through about 400 pictures to date that this might be something interesting to blog about from time to time.  So……. you guessed it.  I do not know the frequency yet, but I there is a lot to draw from and hopefully you will enjoy see what I have the luxury of witnessing every day.   If you can help out with any naming corrections or additional input, it would get GREATLY appreciated.  So with my trusty Nikon digital camera and “Birds of North America – A Guide to Field Identification” – by Golden Field — special note, I am using the same bird guide I have had for my entire life – published in 1966

Today, I thought I would start with some quick shots of the yard and focus on the Chickadee.

Continue reading Hang It and They Will Come (Part 1 of Many)

Book Recollection: Ronnie

Anybody who knows me knows I like the Rolling Stones…. and that I absolutely can’t stand the Beatles but that pretty much goes without saying since those two bands really don’t mesh well.  I was excited to see Ron Wood put out an autobiography since I have actually drifted towards him as my favorite guitarist.  Not to slight Keith, but he is pretty much in a downward spiral.  I also really like his artwork and almost broke down and bought one about 6 years ago when I was in Denver the night they were playing – as Ron mentions in his book he used to pair up his gallery showings with the concerts.  I didn’t feel like spending the money at the time ~$1100, but 2 years later that print was worth much much more than that…. someday I will have one.  The book was a pretty quick read and clearly English.  As with the Slash book, it really didn’t dwell much at all on the craft of his guitar skills as opposed to the wild life and numerous debts.  The early years were interesting since I really didn’t know that much about his past before joining the Stones.  It is amazing how many famous people he has met, rocked with, wife swapped and lost money too.  What was really nice is the book is full of his photographs and his artwork – he actually sketched all of his houses.

Here are some highlights that stuck with me:

Continue reading Book Recollection: Ronnie

A house is on fire … somewhere

I was going through my digital pictures I’ve been taking for a future blog subject when I came across an image I forgot I had taken.  In complete coincidence, I happened to be holding my camera when a news broadcast came on the television from our local news station.  There were working on a breaking story about a house that was on fire.  I had actually seen this from the highway on my way home and was wondering where the fire.  I was in luck!  News 25 was gracious enough to give me a graphic showing exactly er…. hmmm .

Peoria House Fire

well it appears to be burning somewhere in the heart of Illinois.  The good thing is they actually know what state it was in unlike my previous post about ESPN

“Mill-e-wah-que” which is Algonquin for “The good land.”

I get to check off another city in my Travel Log.  Yesterday I drove up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to attend an Architecture Best Practices Forum at a large company headquartered in the area.  Ironically living only 4 hours away, I have actually never been here before.  I am not sure if there is a connection or not, but first off, it is COLD up here.  Get this, it is the end of April and I had to drag out a heavier coat to come up here because it is 38 degrees out.  This clearly must be a figment of my imagination since we are currently in a death spiral brought on by Global Warming. 

Warning….. quick tangent… speaking of Global Warming, I was eating dinner in the hotel last night and an add came on with Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich whining about the political vogue topic of global warming.  Since I didn’t really have the opportunity to change the channel like I usually do, I had to sit through the stupid commercial which as expected ended up disgusting me (This is exactly why I try to avoid commercials whenever possible).  Turns out, that the two politicians were communicating their concern for the environment and how they are going to do something about it.  So, here’s a start Nancy – how about NOT flying to SYRIA in a provate jet with your personal entourage in order to talk to the head of a country considered to support terrorism – oh, and this environment damaging trip … is considered AGAINST U.S. LAW.  In fact, how about not flying in a personal jet to visit the Dalia Lama and since you were not authorized to speak on behalf of U.S., stating it was a personal visit. 

Now with that off my mind, I just wanted to comment that Milwaukee appears to be a surprisingly nice place to visit (although it would better if it was not so cold).   Driving downtown was a little interesting since my Garmin GPS was totally confused and kept wanting me to turn left for apparently no reason – there was a lot of construction around the downtown area which may have changed traffic patterns from those in my GPS (purchased only last November).  I was a little disturbed about how high some of the new highway overpasses are going to be – it looked to be about 4 – 5 stacked lanes high.  As it turns out we simply drove through downtown and eventually arrived at the Radisson on North Shore.  Fairly nice hotel, but clearly a former Holidome.  I am going to cut them some slack since they had fresh cookies, but the two ladies checking in myself and coworker need to pay a little more attention to their directions.  My coworker was given a room number and told to go out and around the outside of the building to an entrance in the back.  Not wanting to make him walk that far with luggage, I drove him around there and then drove all the way back to the front in order to get to the elevators for my room.  After walking through the lobby, making the appropriate lefts and rights I came to the indicated elevators, took it to the third floor and walked down two hallways to room 357.  Get this, my coworkers room number turned out to be…. 356 (right across the hall and straight up from the location I dropped him off at earlier.)  Good thing I didn’t have a 357 at that time. 

Anyway, pretty impressed with this area of Milwaukee –  local parks (lots of joggers out), above average homes nestled in the trees and an incredibly nice outdoor mall (good thing my wife didn’t come 8^) .  Among all of this was the company HQ I was up here to visit.  Definitely a place I would like to come back to and spend some more time exploring.  Van Halen was playing the Bradley Center yesterday, but I found out too late to hunt down some tickets.

 Well, off to find out how to turn up the heat in my room – oh, bonus points for naming the movie the title of this post comes from.