Internet slower than snail mail.

Well,I am going to try and up date my blog, the way the inernet is going today. I should have guessed and typed it in last month.. OK It is exactly 10:51 lets see how long a pic takes? * minutes !!! Ok will keep downloading and preparing dinner at the same time ! Next. Well I will forget pictures for now I guess

Of dogs ,cardinals, testing and catching up

Hectic week, with little, to no free time. The weekend started Saturday am with this beauty. SW race N Cardinal. Sandy was confused as to "if you could count it", some one had asked her. She is a very limited income lady who lives in a tiny trailer, and loves her ciggies, the occaisional beer and peering at her iris and HER birds. this saves confusion from MY birds. If you had a strong arm you could stand on her porch and throw a baseball into AZ. WE have had 3 in the last 8 years, 2 of which I photod. If you check the history of Cardinals in California, if you where to look for one for your CA list, Blythe would be the obvious spot, any more.
Lee Jones shewed up promptly found and photod a N Parula within walking distance of my house. Annoying'
Foxglove making it ! Corner of the yard turning into a Takahe habitat, more later. Clump grass being added.
Good start to the weekend , as you know you have to pay !So RH and Terrier current sign off.
Jack my wifes hand raised Russel Terrier put her in the emergency room last weekend when it bit her face. She claimed it was her fault. It chewed her hand up yesterday.Hence the singular. I have a 2 bite policy. If the true adage "let sleeping dogs lie" which she did not do in the first event. I allow it as strike one. The second one was not. Ex dog.
A neighbour asked me why I did not put it up for adoption? "They have those rescue places".
So here we go.
"Psycho Jack Russell needs loving home. Has only put person in the Emergency room twice this month. Hand raised and eats them. Looking for home with lots of small children and owners with unlimited medical coverage. Will ignore on command and bite at random. If you wish to own this dog, bring your own shovel"
rh and terrier.

White Owls , migrants and long time no see !

.
It is taking forever to down load pics. This one 32 minutes. So the Hell with it,
trying to photo a Dragonfly and felt I was being watched, I was ! I got of this snap, snd it sank. E-mail during the week, oh my goodness. Spent far too little time with Lee Jones "Birder of Belize" out in the field today. He is going to be around for a few days, too much to catch up with. How much? Looked through notes and rewound the 8-track storage vault in my memory. This much, 33 years,3 months and 4 days worth, is all ! Needless to say there has been much spilt milk that is no point in discussing, after the stable door passes in and out one year under the bridge, since then to cover today, but we birded like old times. Too cool.
We found a smattering of warblers, and a Barn Owl, that is basicly an Albino. This bird is roosting in the same grove as "THE Great Horned Owl, that eats Barn Owls". Nothing like pushing natural selection !
Oh a point of trivia.The circle is complete !
I now have the set. I have my "Birds of Southern California by Garrett and Dunn' in front of me.
McAskie found me a copy, and signed it for Xmas '81, Dunn signed it '86, Jean Brandt to whom it is dedicated signed it,on the ONLY blythe xmas count. Kimble signed it '96 ish, The Unitt signed, Sue Clark of Clarks ranch fame signed it and today Lee Jones Illustrator signed it. It took 28 years !There used to be a dumb game, involving Kevin Bacon and steps he was away from people. So dumb that I played it using myself. I am 2 steps from Bruce Springstein, 2 from Frank Zappa, and 2 from the Pope, and I guess if you are in with the correct religion 2 steps from God. I like Frank Zappa more. I would love a list of the famous birders, my signees could give me a step to.
Next week we start the "Asshole Bush "inspired no child left behind testing. 9th graders trapped in a room for 3 hours for 5 days in a row . Pure Genius. Fortunately science is first, because I can guarantee you, by Friday they will be "Bubbling in" hate mail,and finished in 10 minutes, without opening the test book regards rh and terriers

A somewhat warm couple of days

It hit 104.2 yesterday, 4:15
WEATHERMAN. COOLING TREND THIS WEEK, (jack ass).Temps should be down tomorrow.
At 2;15 pm we sat in class and watch it hit 105.
This is a Weatherbug national web station so you can look it up on the computer, not an ace hardware plastic bird thermometer.
The radio said tomorrow Havascrew lows of 104, cooling to 102 Thursday/ Weekend hot and sunny. Channel 7 news cooling into this weekend with highs only in the 80's. Like the old adage goes. If you want to know what the weather will be tomorrow, wait and go out in it. Too early in the year for optics in coolers. regards rh and terriers confined to indoors. Please watch out for elderly neighbours, and make sure your pets have water

Spring break birds. Wader invasion.

This had a long tail attached but thecomputer.... So try short and sweet. Ok got the damn thing back from the pits of Mordor.Waders Snowy, Semmi P Whimbrel LBCurlew peeps,Stilt sand LB Dow first Baby K Deer build up of stilts Dunlin Sanderling Solit Sand and 2 knot "on the river spits". All splendid when you add up my acreage of habitat.Raptors Male Nharr and WT Kite , perfect habit. Influx W Red tails. BW Teal and Bufflehead 5 Barn Nests, 2 GH Owl VG Swall, Mc G and Yell warb Lazuli stunning. Singing sparrows Lark Brewers WC and Lark Lsr Gfinch = 2 nstlings, Black, Caspian, and Forsters tern. And BH Gull . On the run after losing the last missive.
Rh and terriers.

Foxgloves, and RA

some recent pics, and foxgloves.

At about this time of the year it is a ritual in Blythe to purchase plastic punnets full of poor plants that arrived in a frigid truck from a farm in Oregon. Try and get them home and planted before they die from the heat. And or the punnet melts.
Thus proving you are a gardener, and spring has arrived.Normally we get plants that say "full sun" on the tag. This gives them about 12 hours. Partial shade, six hours.My neighbours can't it seems appreciate the fact that where ever the hell you plant them the ambient air temperature is 110 degrees.They shrivel up !
So basking in this superiour knowledge I was wandering around the K Mart plant lot looking for a cactus. Found a Foxglove in the middle of a bin..
Now I have a soft spot for Foxgloves, and Water Avens, two of my favourite plants. So I bought it,$6:50 nursed it home and sat it proudly on the kitchen table. Where to plant it ?
NOW where had I got used to them ?. Leafy deciduous glades with Bluebells,chiff chaffs and the granite stream plus requisite rivulet with the required Nixie, and imminent chance of rain. My back yard in a word ...desolate.
No migrants, I have thornless Acacias, I bought from a peripatetic hispanic (NO thorns, no flower,12foot high sure, no problem)They are a threat to aviation , pollen storm produers with poison dripping rapiers. So much so that in one area the sun will not venture. So 3 days of hard labour, rock hauling and irrigation management, I have a 12 by 12 Foxglove habitat with dripper and mister, and one foxglove. I am also out $300, but what the hell. I LIKE SLEEPING ON THE COUCH !
Who knows next years trout stream project has a start.. Well going to look for waders, passerine production precluded by winds already, at 7:30 am. A week summary later.
regards rh and terriers

Why I like that picture part ii and more rubbish

It would appear that my computer liked it enough that, it felt no need to include my text, nor in fact anything else for that matter. Damned uppity piece of crap, may pull its plug for a while !
The reason why I like that picture, Included herein is a picture of a GB Heron. I was headed for central Blythe in the early am, ignoring pigeons. Saw a heron in the power complex. Ignoring lights and stop signs, stopped and took its picture. After a honk and a head wave from a passing sheriff, I backed up and parked on the pavement, well kinda.The bird kept peering at something, and plunged into the bottom of a dry canal, like a falling GM share. Then resurfaced, and stood moving its head in tracking motion as the wind blew the two dead flowers around (see top RHS), total mesormorization. This passage of time allowed for the sherrif, to turn around in Auto Zone parking lot, and park, in the corect direction of traffic flow ie parallel to me. And start seemingly,to put down his coffee and ponder how many pages he could fill out before he even got out the car. Time to leave, smiling and shouting thanks.
I will down load some pictures of common birds I took this week. For no particular reason then that is basicly all we have. I was gobbled up by the forecast and even bought another card for my camera, expecting sunshine and migrants.
Even this am "Dallas Johny Mountain Rain tempest etc" 4am to be precise the Weather pimps and their ilk were in their rumpled suits, shooting their cuffs and dancing around like burned out brylcreemed, lounge lizards, expounding my weather. They have not got it right one day in the last seven. Not even close. Today "Early summer temps winds dissappearing, a beautiful lead in to what looks like a wonderful warm wind free weekend in the deserts. with high temperatures" or some such. It was 44 this morning and is blowing like Hell.. So pics an accounting of the Gull and more stuff over the course of today. Going to pick up and repair wind chimes after yesterdays nice spring morning. rh and terriers.
I guess the computer did not want to send that either, so a couple of hours later
It is titledyou get this tagged on.This could be "THE NEVER ENDING E-mail"

Will try sending again. So I can explain my .......