Any birdwatchers?

[yowser]

The TLS poem of the week is 'Skeins o geese.'

 

[MrPixel]

I saw my first Sandhill cranes last week! Now those are majestic.

Oh, yes. Twice my wife and I made the pilgrimage to the Platte River Valley in Nebraska to experience the Sandhill cranes during their migration layover. On one trip the snow geese were doing the same and the show was amazing.

On a local note, we have given up feeding. We have an aggressive band of squirrels that raid the feeder nearly the moment it's put out. They throw food everywhere, and then the dog wants to get into the dropped food. We feel especially bad about this because we have two pair of cardinals that frequented the feeder, one female so familiar with my wife that it landed on her shoulder on a couple of instances.

A few years ago we decided we were going to trap the squirrels and relocate them. We moved 40 or so this way, greater than 10 miles away so they wouldn't be back (conventional wisdom is >5 miles or they navigate "home"). Things calmed down the next season, but it quickly became obvious it was a futile exercise. Funniest was once when we set the trap out and it wasn't 10 minutes before a female was sniffing around, and the male stalking her realized she was distracted by the food. She was far enough into the trap to be blocked in by the male, he "went for it", trapping both. We never did get a thank-you note from the happy couple.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Fascinating birds. Saw them on the Atlantic coast in Newfoundland.