Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The willow is too close to the house.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

I did not have this on my fuck 2024 bingo card.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Let’s finish the job.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

We won’t go back.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

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Albatrossity

On The Road – Albatrossity – Fall Sparrows

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It’s Albatrossity Monday, and then we head back to the Alps!

(click on the image below for a bigger non-blurry version)

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I still have lots of summer bird images to share here, but the fall is sparrow season here, and I thought it would be timely to share some images of these under-appreciated but gorgeous species. Lots of beginning birders shy away from sparrow ID, because these birds are small, often skulky, and don’t seem to have colorful or easily distinguishable field marks. All that is mostly true, but once you get into sparrows, you find that these challenges can be overcome, and it is worth it. I’d rather puzzle over sparrows than gulls any week!

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Near Manhattan KSOctober 9, 2023

One of the earlier fall migrants into my patch of Flyover Country is the Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis). There are a whopping 17 subspecies of this sparrow currently recognized by taxonomists, These subspecies range across all of North America, only some of which can safely be identified as such in the field. So I have never bothered to learn them; whatever I learned would probably be wrong in a few years! These were a favorite species for a dearly departed friend of mine, Jim Rising, a native of Kansas City, graduate of Kansas University, and long-time researcher at the University of Toronto. Jim literally wrote the book on sparrows. Click here for larger image.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Well, hush my mouth

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Happy Monday!  We have something especially fun from Albatrossity today.  Everything else I had planned got rearranged because we got eclipse photos from cope – I always rearrange things when we get a timely submission, like the volcano erupting or the eclipse.  Or photos from Boo-le-Bark!  Or Halloween costumes.  (hint, hint)

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Albatrossity

Now that we’ve exhausted the stash of images from my August trip to Arizona, and gotten that flamingo out of Kansas and hopefully headed south, I decided to start whittling down the piles of pics from birds who hang around Flyover Country in the summer. But that’s not much of an organizing theme, so for the first batch I have ten pics of birds with their mouths open, for no better reason than that I seem to have a lot of them from this summer!

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Near Manhattan KSJuly 6, 2023

Birds open their yaps for lots of reasons, and in the spring or summer that reason is the need to advertise the availability of a nice territory and a willingness to mate. “Here I am; let’s start a family!” is the bowdlerized version of that message. One of the prettiest songs here comes from one of the prettiest birds, the Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris). And for some reason they were abundant around here this summer! Click here for larger image.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Heading home from AZ

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We have Albatrossity Monday, with a special flamingo treat.  Then we get to see Central Park after the deluge, plus 3 days in Iceland!

(click the schedule for a larger image)

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Albatrossity

After a great day at Ramsey Canyon, I needed to head home, and I had a couple of long days of driving ahead of me. But there were some birds to see along the way!

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Ramsey CanyonAugust 13, 2023

One last hummingbird pic from Ramsey Canyon — a young male Broad-billed Hummingbird (Cynanthis latirostris) checking to see if I had any nectar hidden on my person. Click here for larger image.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Ramsey Canyon Sanctuary – 1

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It’s Albatrossity Monday!  And we have a great rest of the week, too!
(click to see a larger version of the schedule)

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Albatrossity

On my final full day in SE Arizona, I headed to Ramsey Canyon Sanctuary, a Nature Conservancy property nestled in the side of the Huachuca Mountains south of Sierra Vista. This place is special, and if you get to this part of the country and have limited time so appreciate the geology and biology of the Sky Islands, I would put Ramsey Canyon at the top of my list of places to see. I’ve been there many times, and hope to go back many more.

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Ramsey CanyonAugust 13, 2023

I planned to meet a friend there, a fellow Kansas birder who moved to Sierra Vista when he retired a few years back. He is a volunteer guide and walk leader at the sanctuary, and I suspected that his local knowledge would be great to tap into. He’s also a great guy and an excellent birder! I got there a bit early, and while I was waiting for him, I watched some of the hummingbird feeders and caught this female Rivoli’s Hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens) with her hair mussed up. Again, the male Rivoli’s was there, but really wanted to stay in the shadows, per usual. Click here for larger image.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Ash Canyon, Day 2

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Happy Monday!  Looks like a great week – click the schedule to embiggen!

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Albatrossity

Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary was formerly a B&B, operated by a woman named Mary Jo Ballator, that catered to the birding community. I had the pleasure of meeting Mary Jo (and her African Grey Parrot, Cookie) on a previous trip in 2018, but she passed away in 2019 and the future of the property was unclear. It is a world-class birding spot, nestled between the Huachuca Mountains and the high desert, but it was not clear that it would remain open to the public after her death. Fortunately, a major donation to the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory allowed that organization to purchase the property and continue to make it available to the birding community.

On my second full day in SE Arizona, I wanted to go back to Ash Canyon for the morning, since it dawned clear and bright and I had spent a lot of time there in the rain on the previous day. So here are some pics from that morning, along with a rainbow at days end.

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Ash Canyon Bird SanctuaryAugust 12, 2023

The backyard of the former B&B has some hummingbird feeders, but also seed feeders in a nice wooded habitat. One of the seed-seekers was this spiffy male Lesser Goldfinch (Spinus psaltria). A much less abundant and less-studied congeneric of the familiar American Goldfinch (the state bird of New Jersey, Iowa and Washington), this species has been expanding its range northward and eastward in recent decades. So maybe one will be in your neighborhood at some time in the future! Click here for larger image.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Hummingbird banding

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Happy Monday!

We have another great set of OTR posts for this week.  Take a look at what’s ahead. (click to embigen)

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Albatrossity

After a morning dodging raindrops at Ash Canyon Sanctuary, I headed to the Coronado National Memorial, a grassland and foothill-rich federal property on the US/Mexico border. I was hopeful, even though it was early afternoon, that I might catch sight of some of the iconic birds that can be found there.

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Coronado National MemorialAugust 11, 2023

I didn’t find my target birds (Montezuma Quail and Vermilion Flycatcher), but I did find a pair of young Cooper’s Hawks (Accipiter cooperi), or rather, I should say, they found me while I was eating lunch at one of the streamside picnic areas near the headquarters. One of them flew in and landed on a dead snag near my table, and seemed to be sizing me up as a prospective meal. Another, probably its sibling, came along and also glared at me from an adjacent site. Cooper’s Hawks in these mountains seem pretty bold! Click here for larger image.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Stormy Weather

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Good morning!  Here’s our OTR schedule.

Looks to be a fun week!

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Albatrossity

The Arizona Monsoon is a welcome change in the weather, or more accurately, a shift in the wind direction. In the winter in AZ the winds are predominantly from the north and northwest (from CA, NV or UT primarily) and that air is pretty dry. Sometime in the summer the wind direction shifts so that air from the south and southwest (i.e., from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean), bring moist air to the mountains and deserts of the American Southwest. This predictable weather pattern means that summer moisture can make the flowers bloom, and hummingbirds have evolved to move into the state in late summer and take advantage of that abundance. And, as you will see, they move into the state from both north and south.

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Tombstone AZAugust 10, 2023

Monsoon rains in the southeastern AZ mountains come in the form of thunderstorms. Individual storms are usually short-lived and fast moving, but can bring down a lot of moisture in a short amount of time. Here’s one moving across the northern Huachuca Mountains, a bit west and north of Tombstone on the afternoon of the day that I arrived in SE AZ. Click here for larger image.

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