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Year: 2008

One More Month

October 6, 2008 • • 2 Comments

I haven’t been blogging political in months. Hell, I’ve barely been blogging at all for months, but now that we’re only a month out from the election, I can’t resist, not that I have been resisting, per se, but there are things to say.I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary and might very well have voted for him in the general had he been the nominee. We would have been better off.

I’ve been an Obama supporter all along this cycle, but now I’ve gone extreme.

There is a sticker on my car.

I’ve never done that because I think a politician should pay me to advertise for him or her, but with the choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, his reckless and feckless response to the Wall Street crises, his disgusting propensity to attack the man rather than the issues, my car is now an ad.

Of course, I live in Texas so it’s not an especially effective ad, but still. I think it’s important for the world to know, that I, for my part, will be doing the right thing the day early voting begins.

One especially interesting thing is that the day I went to meet the other three Democrats in Williamson County to get my sticker, I was told that while they don’t expect Obama to take the county or even the state, they can’t believe how much interest they’re getting in the local Dems. Change starts at the bottom so that’s good news.

What really needs to change is the fact that somehow we’ve come to be a country wherein being a “regular guy or gal” is somehow considered a qualifying experience for high office. There is a straight line (and ever-shortening bar) from Bush to Palin, whose stardom in the Republican Party seems to stem from her calculated ordinariness.

All I need to know about the GOP is that they think she is the future. Personally, I prefer someone who is smarter, wiser, brighter, better educated, more honest, braver, more pragmatic, more curious and more skilled than the average joe sixpack or hockey mom. The GOP, however, would like to see the least qualified set up to lead.

It’s almost got me thinking about joining a political party. One step at a time, though. I don’t think I could handle officially becoming a Democrat and putting a sticker on my car in the same year.

ACL08

October 3, 2008 • • 2 Comments

I dragged myself away from (endlessly) hitting refresh on 538 long enough to enjoy last weekend’s ACL Fest. It was a good time. Our Galveston friends came in as usual, though they’d already been here most of the previous week due to Hurricane Ike, so in a way, ACL was kind of the last weekend of a good old fashioned hurricane party.

For once the weather was great. There was dust, though not like the lung-blackening filth permeating the air of 2005. It even got a bit chilly at night! The afternoon highs barely topped 90 making the whole thing so much easier than it has been in years when it gets to 108 and lingers in the upper 90s after dark. Here’s to the festival running a few weeks later in the month.

Offsetting the perfection of the weather was a lineup that was a little less exciting than previous years’.

On Friday we saw The Freddy Jones Band, M. Ward – both at the WaMu tent, though I guess by the time we showed up it had become the JP Morgan Tent if not in name than in fact. Hot Chip was next, an upbeat group that sounded like they’d grown up on New Order. That is high praise.

The highlight of the day, and for me the festival, was David Byrne. I grew up on the Talking Heads and they’re still one of my favorite bands, though I never got to see them except for a performance in 1991 when they played without Byrne – good, but not right. Byrne was amazing. He played some new material, but what really got the crowd excited were his trips back to Fear of Music and Remain in Light. Not just two of my favorite Heads albums, but two favorite albums. They played “Life During Wartime,” “The Great Curve,” “Houses in Motion,” “Once in a Lifetime,” “I Zimbra,” and my favorite, “Crosseyed and Painless.” I couldn’t have asked for a better show. With the sun setting at my back and the cool night settling over Zilker Park, I was in Heaven, amazed by how brilliantly those tunes, that style, hold up after all these years.

After Byrne, we caught Alejandro Escovedo’s set, which made me wonder why on earth I’ve never gone to one of his shows before. We ended with Manu Chao.

Saturday was good. Had I skipped it to watch UT paste Arkansas, though, it wouldn’t have been a loss. For me. It still would have been a loss for Arkansas. We saw The Nachito Herrera All-Stars, who were quite fun. Then John Fogerty for the CCR love, the Black Keys and finally Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, a good set, though I had to be told which songs were the Led Zep ones.

Sunday we enjoyed Gillian Welch, the Silversun Pickups, a taste of Blues Traveler, a band I’ve tried to like many times, but never quite “got:” A little of The Raconteurs and finally Galactic, whose set started late, but was, as usual, very good. We left before the Foo Fighters. I’ve seen them before and as a friend remarked after that show, “Oh, well, whatever, never mind.”

All in all, a good year. It was too light on good jazz and jam bands, and there were no great revelations like Gotan Project, Husky Rescue, Black Angels or Calexico, all bands I had discovered in years past. Still fun, though, and the weather was mercifully cool.

Next year, it’s in October. How cool is that?

Weekend Birds and Snake

September 23, 2008 • • 5 Comments

The birds are singing a bit more and thus calling to be found. This mockingbird on one of the neighborhood trails especially so. He let me get pretty close before he took off, leaving me with perhaps my best mocker photo.

On Sunday R and I went to Hornsby Bend. On the river trail, we got a good look (and lousy shot) of this Crested Caracara perched high above the Colorado. We could hear, but not see, Blue Jays screeching at him from the nearby trees.

On the drive out, we had to stop for this Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, taking its time crossing the road.

After 20 years in Texas, this is the very first rattlesnake I’ve actually seen (heard lots of them, though). Strangely enough, the previous weekend, my brother was telling me he had just seen his first ever rattlesnake.

Halfway across the road, it stopped and started rattling. Not wanting to run over it and thus deprive the caracara or one of the many hawks swooping around the area of a tasty meal, I eased the car around it, but not before taking a few pictures.

Hopefully, it will be another 20 years before I see another one.

On the way out, with hawks screeching overhead, I spotted this Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, one of my favorite birds. I took his picture, figuring this might be the last one I would see until April.

Of course, I’ve seen quite a few on the way to work the past few days, but they’ll be heading south soon.

Summer

August 20, 2008 • • 1 Comment

Despite George’s concern, this blog is not gone, to the birds or otherwise. The owner’s just livin’ more in the analog world lately.

I spent a fair amount of time this summer hiking and birding and reacquainting myself with the various trails and walks around Austin. A favorite of mine was Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, where my dad and I spent a morning exploring and not seeing the Golden-cheeked Warbler or Black-capped Vireo, the birds for whom the NWR exists. It was late in the season, though, and we did get some nice walks.

And, now, school starts up again, and perhaps more regular blogging. And not just about birds either, although this post may go to the birds, specifically these Black-necked Stilts that shot me the stink eye for making them get up off the road at Hornsby Bend last week.

Birds at Hornsby Bend

July 24, 2008 • • 2 Comments

Every summer, I search for new places around Austin to hike and look at birds and other wildlife. This summer, I stumbled upon The Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory, located at the City of Austin’s Biosolids Management Plant/Center for Environmental Research.

It’s right on a bend in the Colorado, and the combination of river and the treatment ponds draws a huge variety of birdlife such as this Black-necked Stilt.

There are trails along the river, and a road that winds around the ponds so you can walk or drive, which can be nice for bird watching since your car can be used as a blind, which is useful for observing more skittish birds like this Snowy Egret.

I’ve visited three times over the past few weeks, and have seen the following birds (*’s by new ones):

  • Northern Cardinal
  • Black vulture
  • Northern Mockingbird
  • Little Blue Heron
  • Barn Swallow
  • Cliff Swallow
  • Great-tailed Grackle
  • Snowy Egret
  • American Coot
  • Spotted Sandpiper *
  • White-eyed Vireo *
  • Killdeer
  • Black-necked Stilt *
  • Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Brown-headed Cowbird *
  • Mourning Dove
  • Green Heron

In addition to these, I saw a few “mystery ducks” that looked like Blue-winged Teal, but not quite, as well as a bunch of “peeps” (small sandpipers) that I was unable to distinguish, lacking as I do the birding chops to distinguish between the Semi-palmated, Least, and Western Sandpipers. Oh, well, I guess that gives me a reason to go back.

When my Dad and I went last week, we saw huge flocks of Red-wings and Swallows as well as large numbers of Egrets and Little Blues. I can’t wait to see the birds that show up once migration begins.

It’s not all pretty birds, of course. There are pretty spiders like this graden spider also.

The spiders are good as there are very large flocks of gnats, flies and other bugs around those ponds. When we got back in the car to leave, it was like sitting in a plague of insects. But closing the car up in the heat for an hour while we stopped for lunch cooked them pretty well.

Young Mockingbird

July 10, 2008 • • Leave a comment

Last Friday, this little guy showed up in a small tree by the window. I knew he was a baby something, but R saw through that streaked breast right away and called him as a baby mockingbird. A few minutes later one of the adults showed up with a bug and fed it to him before flying away.

The young mocker sat in the bush, trying to stay balanced on the thin branches and chirping for another bug. Eventually, he fluttered over to the neighbor’s shrubs, which are thicker and offer better protection since, according to Kent Rylander’s Behavior of Texas Birds, mockingbirds leave the nest a week or so before they can really fly. The adults feed them and watch over them, chasing away jays, cats, and any other predators that may happen by.

Later, when walking the dogs, I saw the adult singing from a nearby tree while eliciting chirps from several sets of nearby bushes.

That afternoon, we watched as a pair of black-crested titmice led a family of newly-fledged youngsters around the yard, showing them where all the feeders are. I suppose it really was independence day.

Young Grackle Learning to Live

June 27, 2008 • • 3 Comments

Now that I no longer live in south Austin or around campus among the famous grackle trees, I’ve come to appreciate these rather striking iridescent birds.

There are a few that have been nesting in the trees around the house and so every few weeks I get to see the fledglings learn how to be birds as they follow their parents from feeder to tree to birdbath.

Here’s one of the juveniles with his short tail and fuzzy, discombobulated look.

He hops, beak open and wings flapping,  over to one of the adults who has clearly just scored a nice juicy peanut.

Fortunately for junior, the adult bird is feeling generous.

“More!”

The Birds:Twenty Mile High II

June 26, 2008 • • Leave a comment

Last year, on June 22, I rode my bike 20 miles and counted the different birds I saw while zipping along the trails and roads in my little corner of north Austin. I intended to repeat the experiment on the same day a year later, but missed it by a day. So, here’s the birds I spied while riding 20 miles on June 23:

Northern Mockingbird… everywhere

White-winged dove, Mourning dove… poking along trailsides, but no Inca doves this time

Common grackle, Great-tailed grackle… open fields and parking lots

European starling… patrolling the medians

Great egret… hunting in the pond like a snake on a stick

Barn swallow… loads of them by the lake–riding over the dam one paced me about 3 feet above my head, a great look

Scissor-tailed flycatcher… a personal favorite, singing from a signpost

Northen Cardinal… singing from a wire

Hummingbird… most likely black-chinned, but too fast to be sure

Pigeons… flying over the parking lot

Blue jay… hard to miss from the trails and near the houses

House sparrow… waving goodbye from my driveway

Purple Martin… chillin’ on a martin house along one trail

Western Kingbird… perched in treetops on the trail where the Incas were last year

Turkey vulture… circling in the distance

American crow… kaw-kawing from the treetops

Great blue heron… looking like a statue on a pole near the golf course

Green heron… flying through a swarm of mockingbirds and scissor-tails

Swans and Muscovy ducks… feral domestics on the duckponds

This year, I saw 22 birds in 20 miles. Though I didn’t see last year’s Inca doves and snowy egret, I did catch the kingbird, hummingbird, pigeon, and turkey vulture. There are others, but I was moving too fast to really see whatever titmice, chickadees and sparrows might have been lurking in the trees.

In addition to the birds, I saw rabbits, deer, and humans.