Twitterpated Birds

It took me a minute to figure out what was on the windows at my office this morning. I got closer..

... and closer...

.. and then realized what it was and why.

Every spring male birds see their reflection in the window and perceive it as an intruder in their territory. Last year it was a male cardinal. This year it's a male rufus-sided towhee. He sits on the brick ledge and pecks at the window for hours. We feel bad (and the constant racket gets old) and have tried to stop them from doing it. Let me tell you, there is NOTHING you can do to make him stop short of standing out there in the bushes and shooing him away. Within just an hour he figured out that piece of paper was nothing to be afraid of and started back pecking. Poor thing; I'll bet he has a whopper of a headache tonight!

Male Rufus-Sided Towhee

(perhaps with a splitting headache)

Lessons From History

Tonight on "60 Minutes" the first story was about the Israeli Air Force program and their preparedness training, in part, to respond to an alleged potential threat from Iran. As I watched I kept thinking... how do we humans get to this point? How do we get to the point where we spend more money, energy and time on ways to protect ourselves by attacking others than on our schools, healthcare, and social programs?

I hope next week "60 Minutes" does a story on the subject of the following video: the U.S.'s role in helping to create the Iran of today. The speakers are knowlegable American educators, historians, and ex-military who have no reason to misrepresent the U.S.'s role in crushing the democracy Iran once was. My wish would be that our leaders see the truth in the speakers' comments regarding our country's culpability in the events that have occurred. I hope they recognize the disrespect our government has shown towards Iran. Perhaps they can use that as a starting point to begin a new era of foreign policy, one that respects the rights of others to exist in a way of their own choosing instead of bullying them to achieve their own selfish purpose. (video 6 min. long)

The Garden of Eden

WELCOME TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN

A couple of weeks ago we had rain, a really good rain. Not only does it make things grow like crazy but it makes the colors in the photographs richer, even if the photograph itself is darker. I love the moist, jungley look and feel of this part of the country. I know people like to retire to the dry climates, but that arid look does not appeal to me. Why choose a tan, dry environment when you can have this:

The azaleas have been out in full force. Some are pale.

Some are brighter.

And some are nearly florescent! I did not enhance the color of this photograph.

We have some trees with very delicate pale purple flowers. There must be a family of owls living in the trees in our backyard; you can hear them at night and once in awhile during the day. Saeed and I saw a big beautiful owl sitting in this tree recently (closer to the trunk on a bigger branch.) After a few minutes he flew away with a wingspan of about three feet. Gorgeous.

Our daffodils are gone but the tulips are blooming in stages. These are a pale yellow with a pink stripe, but before that we had some that were a beautiful shade of orange and others that were a bright pink.

Again, I think it was the effect of the darker lighting from the weather but these new little plantings that Saeed put in last year were truly a bright, lime green color. Again, no color enhancement done.

The magnolia tree is loaded with new little buds. In a few weeks these flowers will be huge. The leaves are so thick and leathery you could use them as a plate on your next picnic!

The willow tree is now in full leaf.
(see previous post for this tree, 8th pic down, a few weeks ago)

Our baby dogwood tree is doing well. I love those little pale red tips on each petal.

A young bush with hundreds of little tiny buds.

And our maple tree with lots of little "helicopters" growing for later release.

Since these pics were taken a couple of weeks ago things have already changed some more. I'll keep you updated on the progress of the Garden of Eden!

Peeping Tom

The weather's been nice and I've had the front doors open. I was about to walk down the stairs when I noticed a strange cat staring in through the front door. He/she couldn't see me till I crept down with my camera, so of course what you see is him/her running away. It was a strange feeling, to have a stranger looking in my front door, albeit a cute stranger.

Happy Earth Day!

OK, I released all my pent up frustration yesterday and am ready to save the world! Instead of focusing on all the things that are going wrong I decided to get some positive energy from people who are making a difference. Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund has a new book out called, "Earth: The Sequel," which is about creative entrepreneurs in the energy sector who have ideas for "how we can save ourselves from ourselves". And since most of us can't create the next energy power source, we can go to the EDF website which has a whole page of what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. So, here is Fred Krupp describing the book.

Earth Day April 22

Tomorrow is Earth Day and I feel so emotional about it. There are so many things we are doing that harm the planet upon which we rely for our very existence. I thought man was selfish enough to protect that which he needs for survival, but apparently he's not as greedy as I thought. Actually, I know he's greedier than I can even imagine, so perhaps he's dumber than he is greedy. In looking at what I just wrote I believe I'm more angry than anything else. What does it take for people to recognize that you can't just use something up and then expect it to be there the next time you reach for it? That just because something is there doesn't mean you have the right to take it?

In addition to anger I feel a sense of helplessness. Although Saeed and I are making steady gradual changes in our lifestyle, even we find it difficult to make all the changes we know are necessary. A society offers its people certain methods and materials for living, so as individuals our choices are limited to what is made available to us. We feel that we are struggling against the material culture in which we live. On the other hand, if the earth-friendly options were more available and more affordable it would be so much easier to make the better choices.

Despite my current negativity I am an optimist. Brooke Medicine Eagle said, "There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet. " I hope she's right.

Look at these three pictures:


And now look at these:





How can anyone be willing to destroy such beauty? Wouldn't it be easier to eat less/no meat? To drive smaller cars? To walk and bike more? To buy fewer material possessions which end up in the landfills? To own smaller homes (guilty)? To use less water? To keep what water we have left cleaner? And so on, and so on.

I am often motivated by the wisdom (or humor in the case of George Carlin!) of others, so please enjoy the writings of people more eloquent that I.

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~Native American Proverb


For 200 years we've been conquering Nature. Now we're beating it to death. ~Tom McMillan


Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry David Thoreau


Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. ~Bill Vaughn


I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~Elwyn Brooks White

Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature. ~Dennis Gabor


Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle, 1855

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea. ~George Carlin

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more. ~George Gordon

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.
~Cree Indian Proverb

Didn't Want To Go Home!

We had the best time last night at Mehrdad and Marzieh's home. They've moved into a new house and you know how much extra work is involved with that, so we've seen less of them in recent months. As the title indicates, we stayed a long time and still didn't want to go home.

Marzieh is a very good cook. Not only does she cook genuine-by-the-book Persian food, she also cooks an Indian dish she knows I love. The dish is called Paneer Makhni and she makes it with tofu for me and I swear it's just as good. I love Paneer (Indian cheese) but she knows I try not to eat dairy if at all possible, for animal suffering reasons. She, herself, was once vegetarian and totally knows what to do with tofu!

Mehrdad and Saeed were patiently waiting (or perhaps not so patiently) for Marzieh to serve the food and Lua and I were running around. When I stopped to take a picture of the boys I asked her to sit with her Dad and you can tell by her face that she wished she were still running around! But Mehrdad held on tight for me.

Lua ran to get her camera so she could take a picture of me as I took a picture of her.

In reality, her picture taking skills need some refinement (well, she is only three.) So I gave her my camera to take my picture and she would point the lens in all sorts of directions. As the subject, I had to move around to get myself in the field of focus. Here was the one "successful" picture!

After our scrumptious dinner we couldn't resist the pleasant weather and went out for a walk in their neighborhood. Since Lua is still learning how to ride a bike the helmet is a must, but she has lots of "poofs" (braids with clips) to adjust so the helmet will go on.

As you can see, the helmet is riding high and will probably protect her poofs better than her skull. One day she'll have to have a helmet with room for her poofs.

The boys.

Lua almost made it all the way home, but right about here she decided being carried home by her Daddy was the way to go.

Lua is such a smart little girl and listens well to her parents. Eventually she crashed and had to go to bed, so we did get some adult time too.

Poor Little Birdie

As I went into the sunroom to open the windows before walking on the treadmill I noticed a beautiful (dead) bird on the steps. I identified it as a Yellow-Throated Warbler with the help of my Peterson's bird guide. It had obviously hit its head on the glass and it make both of us feel really really bad.

I came out the back door to check on him so that if he "woke up" and flew he wouldn't fly right into the sunroom through the door.

How beautiful can nature be? It's overwhelming to me sometimes.

It's estimated that over 90 million birds die this way every year. You can see the feathers (upper right of photo) still stuck to the glass where he hit.

Is it any wonder that birds fly into glass? It looks like there are trees and bushes through that white frame.

Saeed immediately got on the computer and found some websites with tips for what to do to minimize the incidence of birds crashing into our windows. There are products you can put on the glass that look clear to those of us looking out but opaque from the outside, with no reflection to confuse the birds.

Within minutes he was measuring our windows. Do we love animals or what?!

The idea, of course, it to change the birds' perception of what they are seeing in the reflection. Here are some basic tips from a website called "How To". The following is from that site:

Things You’ll Need:

• Bird Silhouette Decals
• Poultry Netting
• Hanging Plants
• Wind Chimes

Step1

Go outside and assess the "bird's-eye view" of windows. Look at anything that would give birds the impression that there is no barrier at the window glass.

Step2

Put inexpensive stick-on silhouettes of hawks, falcons or owls on outside of window.

Step3

Hang plants, streamers, wind chimes, or other objects outside the window.

Step4

Move feeders away from large picture windows.

Step5

Put a barrier of garden netting outside the window. This is most effective if firmly mounted about a foot away from the glass.