“‘Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog’s honest bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
‘Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come.”
– Lord Byron, “A Friendly Welcome”
[saveagrey]
by James Brush
Coyote Mercury Posts
I’m trying to identify the ducks that are suddenly showing up now that it’s getting cold up north. I finally managed to ID the mystery ducks that spent last winter on the pond near the house when they came back this year. It was easy to figure it out, once I realized they weren’t ducks, but were American Coots.
The other day, I rode down to a small lake near the house and saw these guys cruising along in the fading light.
The one in the back is a mallard, but I don’t know what the two ducks in front of him are. There were a few female mallards farther ahead, out of frame, but these aren’t female mallards.
Any duck experts out there want to help me out?
None of them big words here, according to this site:
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It was interesting to have it scan peruse individual categories, though. My posts missives on Lost, movies and current events reveal more book learnin’ a slightly more cultivated intellect…
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while my gooder more erudite posts on stupid college boy wastes of time books seem more worthy of acclaim highest accolades…
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Thanks (a lot) to E, George, and Fred for inspiring this little exercise in self-inflicted insult aspersion casting. I hope nobody thinks this blog sucks aspirates.
(I wonder what this post will do for my overall rating, what with them extra 50 dollar words added in.)
Another great bird. Over the past few months I’ve developed a thing for egrets and herons. The great blue heron being one of my favorites. When I see one fly overhead, I tend to stop and stare.
I especially love watching them take flight, their slow but sturdy wingbeats pushing them up several feet at a stroke. Unlike the ubiquitous turkey vultures riding lazy on the thermals, the great blue herons seem to have a sense of where they’re going.
This one was settling in to roost for the night atop a tree overlooking the golf course. I wish I’d been clever enough to climb down from the trail where I was riding my bike to get onto the other side of him so the sun would be at my back, but I would have lost the light by the time I got down there.
I took a few pictures and rode on.
This fellow has been hanging around our local pond lately. I know nothing of his personality, but around here being a great egret is simply a matter of not being a snowy egret or a cattle egret.
If only it was so easy to be a great person.
Saturday morning was perfect for walking the trails around the neighborhood. I started at the pond, enjoying the way the early light struck the trees from low in the east.
The ducks had come back to the pond after summering in northern climes. A great egret and a great blue heron also came by to catch the scene and probably a few fish as well. A turkey vulture and a low-flying helicopter also made appearances.
After the pond, I walked up to the little nature preserve I discovered back in August. Even though Texas isn’t known for its autumn show, it still felt that way with leaves falling like golden snow while the cobalt sky blazed in that special autumn way beyond the branches, growing more naked with each gust of wind.
I watched the path more than anything, though, listening to the sound of my feet crunching the leaves into next summer’s mulch.
When Daniel Boone goes by, at night
The phantom deer arise
And all lost, wild America
Is burning in their eyes
-Stephen Vincent Benét, “Daniel Boone”
Joey got his tooth sharpened cleaned today, which also meant a nice car ride along I-35, listening to the audiobook version of Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man. He seemed to enjoy the ride and the entertainment, though there wasn’t enough eating or peeing on trees in the book to hold his attention for long.
[saveagrey]
Another Friday another Friday Random Ten with little asterisks by the two I’ve seen live.
- “More” – Erik Truffaz – The Mask
- “You Can’t Get Away from Me” – The Reverend Horton Heat* – The Full Custom Gospel Sounds
- “Small Favors” – Fountains of Wayne – Out-of-State Plates
- “Low Battery” – Jaga Jazzist – A Livingroom Hush
- “Eleanor Rigby” – Gene Harris – The Three Sounds Live at the It Club, vol. 2
- “Little Church” – Miles Davis – Live-Evil
- “The Tungflec Treaty” – Chicago Underground Trio – Flamethrower
- “Oscillate Wildly” – The Smiths – Louder than Bombs
- “The First Vietnamese War” – The Black Angels* – Passover
- “Headed for the Future” – Neil Diamond – In My Lifetime
After the failure and subsequent restocking of my ‘pod, I’m still not through cleaning house and I’m only halfway through adding the ‘s’ albums.
It takes a regularly scheduled workday to fully notice the end of daylight savings time.
Each day the shadows have lengthened, often without notice, but with the changing of just one hour, falling back and giving us – for a few days – more time, those shadows seem to lengthen faster. Perhaps it’s in the way they cut across the highway like great zebra stripes ticking off the miles on my way home. They weren’t there last week, though.
The dogs, of course, can’t understand why they’re having to wait an extra hour to be fed. You’d think they were starving.