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Posts Tagged ‘fauna’

feeling blue: Donald W. Stokes, The Bluebird Book. The Complete Guide to Attracting Bluebirds (A Stokes Backyard Nature Book)

Posted in fauna, reseña, tagged , on June 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The Stokes bird books major in the sheer delight of discovering the bird in question. The 1991 Stokes Bluebird Book carries this tradition forward without missing a step.

The book’s three sections explore ‘The Birds’, ‘Attracting Bluebirds’, and ‘Bluebird Behavior’. The first section introduces this captivating bird by way of poetry and observations made about it, mostly when the species was more plentiful than it is today. The Stokes then present the ‘Eastern’, ‘Mountain’, and ‘Western Bluebird’ varieties. (more…)

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swallows!

Posted in fauna, my hometown, tagged on May 29, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Twenty years ago, one of the early-evening joys of coming home to our little house on the southeast side of San José, Costa Rica, with the coffee fields gracing the hills across the river like tightly-braided hair on a handsome head, were the swallows.

Something about that cool, clear hour of the day brought them into close-order, cartwheeling, exuberant view as they plucked insects from the air and entertained my admiring eyes.

I have always missed the swallows. (more…)

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a drawer-full of squirrels

Posted in fauna, my hometown, tagged on May 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »

My early mornings and occasional other moments in our family’s life on Indianapolis’ north side have been punctuated for about a year by noisy chewing. Apparently, this toothy romp takes place in crawl spaces and attics.

Squirrels have been the main suspects, so I’ve been consulting the half-hopeless writings of blogs and web pages where strategies against these relentless foes are mounted, critiqued, and abandoned. (more…)

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new(ish) visitors

Posted in fauna, my hometown, tagged , on May 26, 2008| 2 Comments »

This Memorial Day weekend has provided the time and energy for a major restock of my bird supplies.

The result has been some new visitors:

A Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker has made brief, resplendent visits for seed and peanuts. He’s stayed long enough for this novice birdwatcher to mark the distinction between him and his suspected alternative identity, the Redheaded Woodpecker. (more…)

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remind me how today felt

Posted in my hometown, paterfamilias, tagged on May 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Remind me five weeks from now, when the frenzy has engulfed me again and I’m in a hotel room on some two-week business itinerary, waking up and taking five minutes to remember where I am, how good today felt.

It has been so long since a Saturday at home came down like this one. Sleeping ’til a rested body agrees on its own volition to rise, reading in my easy chair with Tucker and Rosie sprawled on the carpet around me. A conversation, a real, genuine conversation with a family member when we looked at each other and recognized something other than a lunatic tempest in lateral motion to somewhere else. (more…)

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Tucker’s last Spring

Posted in fauna, my hometown, paterfamilias, tagged , on April 30, 2008| 1 Comment »

The voice of our wonderful Colombian-born veterinarian was somber when I called her from Frankfurt to inquire on the results of Tucker’s biopsy. The veterinariological technical lingo added up to just one thing: Tucker is not long for this world.

‘Just enjoy him!’, she counseled with the textured, comprehending warmth of a woman who could have been a pastor, a psychologist, a physician, or a veterinarian. She chose the latter, and not for lack of options. (more…)

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the Robins return

Posted in fauna, my hometown, tagged , on March 29, 2008| Leave a Comment »

In the lingering twilight of Springtime in Indianapolis, I notice that the Robins have returned. One young fellow told me so by crashing into the window of a basement entry, then fussing about how clumsy that must have looked and flying off. Another, a large one in dire need of a haircut, perched just now on the railing that overlooks that same entranceway. (more…)

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preaching to the choir: Ann Chamberlain, Rhodesian Ridgeback (Comprehensive Owners Guide)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on February 4, 2008| 1 Comment »

‘Funny thing about Rhodesian Ridgeback books. It’s hard to tell the reader something he doesn’t already know.

That’s because this beguiling breed elicits such passion and understanding from its owners that most of us end up so attached to our dogs that we know their behaviors and temperament inside and out. As a result, we read about the breed while nodding our heads and commenting ‘Yup ….’, ‘Uh-huh …’ and the like. (more…)

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Jays in flocks

Posted in my hometown, tagged , on December 11, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Something has changed.

We used to have a few Blue Jays around here and from time to time they’d stop by to cherry-pick the peanuts in the shell that I put out in a feeder made for just that.

Now, the Jay Tribe seems to have posted a sentry. Within seconds or minutes of refilling the feeder, I hear the signature piercing call of a Jay and soon a bevy of them has showed up in their blue suits for a feeding frenzy that easily clears out the feeder in thirty minutes.

It’s pretty spectacular.

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red-bellied woodpecker, tufted titmouse, and what the heck are those sparrows?

Posted in my hometown, tagged , on November 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The water in the bird bath is well frozen this morning in our Indianapolis back yard, this in spite the battery-powered ‘bubbler’ I installed as a vacation task this week. Somewhere in the house there lurks a birdbath heater that I bought in the summer in ant-like preparation for winter and then inserted into some perfect space with squirrel-like absence of a record. It’ll turn up. (more…)

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