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Coyote Mercury Posts

Resolutions

January 9, 2009 • • 1 Comment

I jogged on the treadmill in front of the big window at the gym, watching cars pull in and out of the lot, people coming and going, little brown parking lot birds flitting from tree to tree.

A sports car pulled up and a middle-aged woman emerged with a cigarette in her mouth. She adjusted her ponytail, fighting the hair that had been sneaking out since she tied it before work that morning. She stared up at the sky for a few minutes taking deep drags on her cigarette like someone about to go underwater, and she watched the smoke swirl away into the trees.

She glared at the gym with a sour look on her face, flicked her butt onto the concrete and marched toward the door, her face a yin yang of determination and premeditated defeat that clearly said, “Here we go again.”

Meanwhile on Other Blogs…

January 8, 2009 • • 2 Comments

I’ve found a lot of great stuff lately, and so, a links post.

Heather wrote a very nice review of A Place Without a Postcard.

Jon Swift included a post I wish I never had to write on his compendium of the Best Blog Posts of 2008 (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves). Okay, so I picked the post, but it was nice to be invited.

I and the Bird #91 is out on From the Faraway, Nearby, very cool travel/nature/photography site that I intend to start following. Also discovered in this month’s installment of I and the Bird, are some really interesting and compelling sites that will likely become regular reads: Nature Remains, a celebration of the natural world by a gifted writer; the unclassifiable Via Negativa, which is definitely worth a detailed exploration, and Teach me about Birdwatching!!! where I hope to learn more about South American birds.

A few weeks ago, I discovered two really good sites: Flint Hills, Tall Grass and Coyote Crossing. And, let’s face it, blogs with coyote in the name are just cool.

Today, I learned from drivelocity how to put a favicon on my site.

Well. That all makes for a good day of reading.

Old Possum’s Post of Practical Greyhounds

January 6, 2009 • • 5 Comments

On the evening of the 23rd of December, I heard some hoarse panting in the backyard, but it was just my dogs (ouch!). I went to investigate and found that Joey and Phoebe had fenced this little guy.

A possum fenced by the dogs
An opossum fenced by the dogs

I went back for the camera while he waited to have his picture snapped.  He kept waiting there for several hours. I know possums aren’t renowned for their quickness, but this guy was really not in any kind of hurry whatsoever.

Many people are repulsed by possums, but I find them quite interesting and even a little bit cute. It’s hard not to like North America’s only marsupial even if we usually use his nickname instead of the full Opossum that separates him from his Australian kin.

One summer while working at Camp Periwinkle, I was walking back to my cabin in the middle of the night. I had my flashlight off to better admire the stars when I bumped into one of the camp cats.

Or so I thought. (Maybe we humans shouldn’t always be so quick to judge the quickness of other species.)

I bent down to pet the cat, but I was surprised by how coarse its fur was. In an instant, I grew suspicious and flicked on my light to find myself face-to-snout with a possum. He regarded me with indifference as I jumped back and into the air. I’m forever grateful the little guy didn’t bite me as I’ve heard rabies shots are not something one willingly signs up for.

Joey and Phoebe, however, being much more practical, knew last month’s possum as an intruder and had they been able to climb the fence, they might have gotten a nice possum stew for their Christmas dinner. As things stood, though, they received their usual bowls of kibble.

Project FeederWatch Week 8

January 5, 2009 • • Leave a comment

The first Project FeederWatch count for 2009 was a pretty good one. Two new birds entered my count, and both of them are also life birds for me.

The Ruby-crowned Kinglet came by on New Year’s Eve. I had seen him the day before, but couldn’t get a good enough look at him for an ID. He came again on Wednesday. I was sitting on the porch when I noticed him at the suet feeder. They’re tiny birds, but I was close enough to see most of the field marks without binoculars.

I went inside and came back with my Sibley guide and some binocs and was able to study him long enough to ID him. Thus, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet became my last life bird for 2008.

He was good enough to come by the feeders again on both of my count days, but he didn’t bring any friends. He did venture over to the pinecone feeders for some peanut buttered seeds.

On Sunday another new bird showed up at the suet feeder and became my first life bird for 2009: the Orange-crowned Warbler.

At first sight I thought he was the kinglet again, but on closer inspection I saw that he had no wing bars and a yellowish breast. When he turned upside down to get at the suet, I got a good look at his rump, which was bright yellow.

He came back a few times and each time, I was able to use my guide books to narrow him down more and more until I was certain he was in fact an Orange-crowned Warbler, which is one of only a small number of warbler species that winters this far north.

Other than those two, the usual suspects all made an appearance, with the Chipping Sparrows hitting a high count and the House Sparrows still unusually low. Perhaps they’re still leery about the hawk we had last week.

Here’s the count:

  • Black-crested Titmouse (1)
  • Carolina Wren (1)
  • White-winged Dove (6)
  • Carolina Chickadee (2)
  • Chipping Sparrow (9)
  • Bewick’s Wren (1)
  • Northern Cardinal (2)
  • House Sparrow (1)
  • Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1)
  • Northern Mockingbird (1)
  • Orange-crowned Warbler (1)

Wrens at the Pinecone Feeder

January 2, 2009 • • 5 Comments
A Carolina Wren stops by early
A Carolina Wren stops by early

For Christmas our nephew and neice (with some help from their mom, I’m sure) made us some pinecone bird feeders made by using peanut butter to stick birdseed to the pinecone. I hung them from a hanging plant and sure enough, the birds were interested.

The first visitor was a Carolina Wren who seemed to enjoy swinging back and forth on it between bites of seed. A little while later (after the light calmed down and made for better shooting) his smaller cousin, the Bewick’s Wren came by to enjoy some of the peanut buttered seed.

A Bewick's Wren stops by for a snack
A Bewick's Wren stops by for a snack

I love these kinds of simple homemade gifts. So do the birds.

Coyote Mercury’s New Look for 2009

January 1, 2009 • • 1 Comment

For several months I’ve been wanting to change the look of the blog. I searched high and low for a theme that would have a simple, uncluttered look. I wanted compatability with WordPress 2.7’s new features as well as image pages and a larger content area to display larger images.

Then, inspired by Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (see my post about Zen and the Art and its impact on this blog), I decided that it would be of higher Quality to learn CSS and do the theme myself.

I used some pieces of my old Gila theme (which I had heavily modified over the years), but rather than thinking thoughts like “what can I make Gila do?” I tried to focus on making the site look how I want it and then learning how to do it myself.

More than anything, I wanted something that had a clean and simple design, if not exactly minimalist. The home page, my book page, stories & poems page, and the about me page reflect that. The blog page differs because there’s just more that I like on the sidebar there.

Click the photo below for a look at the image page. Most of the photos I’ve posted since mid-November will link to their own pages now.

Some trees near the pond
Some trees near the pond

Additionally, I wanted to minimize sidebar clutter and focus on sidebar info that’s actually used by people who visit this site. Archives and most of the links on the blogroll now have their own page (friends/family/favorite links are staying in the sidebar). I also rewrote the about me page to make it more personal.

I’m pleased with the end result, but I’ll probably tinker with it a bit more as things come to mind.

Please let me know if anything looks wonky in your browser or if there’s something obvious that seems to be missing.

The Last Post of 2008

December 31, 2008 • • Leave a comment

There’s a tradition here at Coyote Mercury that requires me to once again post this picture on the last day of the year.

So long, 2008
So long, 2008

It’s funny how traditions are born. I posted it in 2005 because I wanted to post something. I posted it in 2006 and 2007 because, well, I already had the picture. In 2008, it has now officially become tradition.

2008 was a mostly good year, though losing Daphne made for an awful stretch that still hurts. Certain emptinesses linger as they are wont to do, corners of the house vacant, two dog beds instead of three.

On the upside, though, the Bush reign of error is drawing to a close, I discovered Hornsby Bend, I read more books than I ever have before, and I learned to like oatmeal.

So, happy New Year.

This site will look different tomorrow…

The Book I Read

December 31, 2008 • • 4 Comments

Actually, it’s books, but if I made it plural, I’d lose the oh-so-clever Talking Heads reference.

As I’ve mentioned before, I never make goals of things I love because then I get obsessive and start to forget to enjoy the thing as the goal becomes the point. Still, I do keep a list of all the books I read each year going back to 1993, mainly so I won’t forget what I read.

I noticed that this year’s list is longer than usual. I counted them up and came to 46, which I suspect is a record for me at least since 1993. I doubt I ever read that many books in the years prior either.

A friend of mine cleared the impressive 50 barrier as of Christmas Eve, and my Dad cleared 100. Since I came so close, I must admit a part of me (the part that likes nice round numbers) wants to join my goal-setting fellow readers and make a goal of topping 50 in 2009, but then I realize that reading this many books has come at a price: I wrote less than I have in years. I’m only about 10 pages into a novel that I’d rather be 100 into. I also barely blogged for six months, and I am a year behind on my National Geographics.

Nothing is free, I suppose.

I think, now, that I will set a reading goal. Read less and write more. Find the balance.

So, for what it’s worth, here are the books I read in 2008, listed in the order in which I finished them:

  1. Evil Under the Sun – Agatha Christie
  2. Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage – Sherry Sontag & Christopher Drew
  3. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
  4. Double Cross – James Patterson
  5. Day (formerly The Accident) – Elie Wiesel
  6. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hollows – JK Rowling
  7. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian – Sherman Alexie
  8. Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone – JK Rowling
  9. Indian Killer – Sherman Alexie
  10. Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets – JK Rowling
  11. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas – Elaine Pagels
  12. Classic Haiku: The Greatest Japanese Poetry from Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki & Their Followers – Tom Lowenstein (ed.)
  13. The Invention of Morel and Other Stories from La Trama Celeste – Adolfo Bioy Casares
  14. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – TS Eliot
  15. The Waste Land and Other Poems – TS Eliot
  16. The Adventures of a Photographer in La Plata – Adolfo Bioy Casares
  17. Rumble Fish – SE Hinton
  18. Selected Stories – Adolfo Bioy Casares
  19. The Intellectual Devotional – David Kidder & Noah Oppenheim (started in 2007)
  20. 100 Days in Photographs – Nick Yapp
  21. The Columbia History of the World – Johan Garraty & Peter Gay (eds.)
  22. Austin: Then & Now – William Dylan Powell
  23. The Backyard Bird Feeder’s Bible – Sally Roth
  24. The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature – Jonathan Rosen
  25. The Mockingbird – Robin W Doughty
  26. The Cardinal – June Osborne
  27. Audubon’s Birds of America – John James Audubon
  28. The Purple Martin – Robin Doughty & Rob Fergus
  29. The Great Blue Heron – Hayward Allen
  30. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird – June Osborne
  31. The American Robin – Roland Wauer
  32. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
  33. Kingbird Highway: The Story of a Natural Obsession that Got a Little out of Hand – Ken Kaufman
  34. Hummingbirds of North America: Attracting, Feeding and Photographing – Dan True
  35. Crazy Loco – David Rice
  36. Barack – Jonah Winter (okay, I admit, it’s a children’s book, but it was cool)
  37. Rumble Fish – SE Hinton (yes, I read it twice)
  38. Dreams from My Father – Barack Obama
  39. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
  40. The Audacity of Hope – Barack Obama
  41. Darkly Dreaming Dexter – Jeff Lindsay
  42. Dearly Devoted Dexter – Jeff Lindsay
  43. Dexter in the Dark – Jeff Lindsay
  44. The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English – Mark Abley
  45. Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth – David Browne
  46. The Holy Bible – King James Version (yes, King James; yes, the whole thing)

You can see the period last summer when I grabbed all the books from the ornithology section of my branch library.

It’s an interesting list, with some really deep and thick tomes mixed with some light and quick reads. There were some real winners this year as well. My top five six:

  • Kingbird Highway
  • Life of the Skies
  • Moby Dick
  • The Invention of Morel and Other Stories from La Trama Celeste
  • The Bible
  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence

What’s the best book you read this year?

Project FeederWatch Week 7

December 31, 2008 • • Leave a comment

I was very curious about what my Project FeederWatch count would reveal for week 7 because of the hawk I saw sitting in the tree above the feeder on Christmas morning. It was an accipiter, either a Cooper’s Hawk or a Sharp-shinned Hawk. The two are very similar in appearance, though the Cooper’s is slightly larger. This one looked a little bigger than a Blue Jay, so I’d bet on Sharp-shinned if I was forced to make a call.

He had some unlucky something in his talons, and he flew off when he saw the dogs. He flew to a neighbor’s tree, prompting an outcry from some Blue Jays that seemed to chase him off. I didn’t see another sparrow in my yard until yesterday, and I wondered which birds if any would show up for my Sat/Sun counts.

As it turned out, most of the usual suspects came by including a second chickadee so my chickadee count is now up to two. A Mourning Dove also stopped by on Saturday evening so I did get to add a new bird to my count list. Only one sparrow, though, and not a single House Sparrow. I guess the sparrows also know that accipiters are sometimes known as sparrowhawks.

I haven’t seen him back either, which is good. I love birds of prey as much as the next person, but I really don’t want my feeders to become a songbird buffet for the local hawks.

And now, drum roll please, the count:

  • Carolina Wren (2)
  • Carolina Chickadee (2)
  • Bewick’s Wren (1)
  • Black-crested Titmouse (3)
  • White-winged Dove (6)
  • Blue Jay (2)
  • Chipping Sparrow (1)
  • Mourning Dove (1)
  • Northern Mockingbird (1)

Project FeederWatch Week 6

December 22, 2008 • • Leave a comment

Week 6 of Project FeederWatch began warm, overcast and muggy. A gloomy day good for staying in, which is likely what the birds thought since I only saw 2 sparrows, a cardinal and a dove.

I was getting bored until evening when I saw a mockingbird check out the suet feeder. I hadn’t seen a mocker in a few weeks and never one at the suet feeder. He inspected it for a while and then seemed to be working out how to get the suet. He finally figured it out, though, and now I wonder if he will claim it as his considering how territorial they can be.

An Arctic front blew in Sunday morning and that brought the birds out. After filling the feeders, a cardinal was already on the platform feeder before I reached the door. A female cardinal also came by, giving me 2 cardinals in my weekly count for the first time. I pulled out the binoculars to watch them and saw that the male seemed to be standing on both feet so I don’t know if this is a new Mr. Cardinal or if the crippled one is now back to fighting form.

The mockingbird was back on Sunday working the suet feeder, and I saw a couple of wrens digging around in the piles of leaves by the fence posts.

Sunday turned into a great day for watching the feeder birds from inside the house.

Here’s the official count:

  • Chipping Sparrow (5)
  • House Sparrow (5)
  • White-winged Dove (6)
  • Northern Mockingbird (1)
  • Northern Cardinal (2)
  • Bewick’s Wren (1)
  • Carolina Wren (2)
  • Black-crested Titmouse (3)
  • Carolina Chickadee (1)

I’ve also added a count to the left sidebar that shows all the birds I’ve counted during Project FeederWatch and the greatest number of individuals counted at one time. I’ll try to keep that updated through April.