Green-winged and Cinnamon Teals
Cinammon Teal
Green-winged Teal
Redhead
Common Moorhen and some teals
Slickrock Creek Wilderness (July, 1997)I found this today on a friend's blog. I couldn't have said it better myself. Keep these thoughts in mind as we approach November's Presidential election. Please, for the sake of this country and the world, keep this in mind.
After Pat’s Birthday
Posted on Oct 19, 2006
By Kevin Tillman
[Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.]
It is Pat's birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice... until we get out.
Much has happened since we handed over our voice:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.
Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman
She gazed around the now empty yard checking for stragglers and found none. And with a shrug (I swear I heard a sigh), she leapt into the air to perch on a large cottonwood behind our house and compose herself. I had forgotten there was a camera in my hand.
As I was taking these pictures I noticed she wasn't alone. Suddenly there were a pair of Cooper's Hawks soaring overhead. At that precise moment I somehow I managed to switch the camera back into macro mode, where it promptly got stuck. Another thirty seconds spent fighting with the lens meant that when I finally did get it focused on the sky again, the second hawk was gone. I had completely missed an opportunity to capture two soaring Cooper's Hawks together. Or so I thought, until I downloaded the pictures a few minutes later.
Just looking at these birds I wouldn't think the juncos stand a chance.
I went on a bird hike this morning here at the Well sponsored by Northern Arizona Audubon. I wasn't planning to, but Sonja needed to study for two exams she has this week, so I thought it might be less distracting if I wasn't in the house making noise. We didn't see much that we weren't expecting, although we did have a Bald Eagle fly over at one point. Here are a couple more Western Bluebird pictures. They're always cooperative and photogenic.
We did get some great views of a Sora forgaging around the edge of the water below us. Unfortunately, my camera doesn't do very well taking pictures of Robin-sized birds from 150 yards away. You can sort of tell it's a Sora, at least. I set up the BirdCam along the water's edge this morning with the hopes of getting some video of some of the waterfowl, and particularly the Sora. But for some reason the motion sensor never went off. The only videos I got were of me breaking our tripod as I was getting it unstuck this evening when I went to go fetch it. I'll have to figure out what I did wrong and try again some other time.
For some reason the autofocus decided to act all funky on me. So I switched to manual, but trying to find the focus point on a bird that refuses to sit still is a bit of a challenge. Which is why this picture isn't very sharp. Oh well...
It was well worth the trip. George is one of those rare authors who still seems to care about communicating with his fans. He's set up a blog and a website to keep all of us informed about his various projects and to give us a bit of an insight into who he is as a person. For instance, he's a self-proclaimed bleeding-heart liberal who despises Bush (how can you NOT love this guy?!?) and a huge Giants fan, so he is now giddy with excitement after last night's Superbowl. He even takes the time to personally reply to fan emails (which he has done for me twice now). Although, when I thanked him for that he did mention he is about 3000 emails behind at the moment.
I hadn't even considered the option that this bird wasn't a Northern Mockingbird. I see them in that tree all the time. It looks like a mockingbird...it's in the same place as other mockingbirds...it's a mockingbird. Then I happened to mention to Sonja that some birders had seen a Sage Thrasher only a few days prior in the same spot. She thought that was pretty cool, since neither of us had ever seen one before, and thought we should try to go find it sometime. 
Look closely...
Here is the "Oregon" form. Due to how dark this bird's head is we can even identify it as a male. These forms tend to have the greatest contrast in their plumage, with very dark heads and much lighter bellies and backs.
I've identified this one as a "pink-sided" junco. Now, out of all four of my identifications, this is the one I'm least confident about. Not to say I don't still think it's a pink-sided, just that there is a twinge of uncertainty remaining. Now, I chose pink-sided primarily due to how extensive the buffy coloring is on the breast. In oregon forms, you should be able to see some white near the top of the breast. That said, it's head is still a bit on the dark side, so there is a chance it could be a first year female oregon. But for the purposes of this blog post, it's a pink-sided. So there.
The grey-headed form is almost as common around here as the Oregon, but for some reason we haven't been seeing as many lately. There were only two that I spotted this afternoon. I took the photo of this grey-headed junco near Flagstaff last October, actually. Take special note of the color of the bill on this bird, then continue to the next picture.
Now, when I first saw this bird today my first reaction was grey-headed. Then I took a closer look at the bill. Can you see how the upper half is much darker than the lower half? That makes this bird a "red-backed" junco. For most non-birders, this distinction doesn't really mean that much, and it might still be kind of hard to see. So here are the two birds side-by-side:
Really, the only difference between these two forms is the darker upper bill on the red-backed. And when you see them next to each other like this, it's pretty obvious.
You're very own Abert's Towhee! For how big this bird is (nearly robin-sized) they're rather spineless. The juncos spent the better part of the afternoon pushing this one around, bullying it off of the platform feeder.
...are big and bright!
There is probably one bird that, due to pop culture and curiously bizarre appearances and behaviors, more than any other has become synonymous with the desert southwest. The Greater Roadrunner. Well, it took an entire year, but I finally got some decent photos of one. It's not that I haven't seen them numerous times in the past year, as they are quite common in the area (I'm guessing we probably have two or three that live here at the Well). It's just that they can be surprisingly hard to find when you want to see one. And every time I did spot one, whether it was on the road (of course) or running across the walls of the Tuzigoot pueblo, I never had a camera with me.
There's just something about this bird that makes everyone smile when they see one. I don't know, maybe it's the novelty of seeing a cartoon character come to life. But you never see that reaction when someone spots a coyote or a frog.
I really like this photo, since it sort of captures the personality of the bird. It seemed fairly unconcerned that I was standing so close, and spent most of its time peering down into the grass looking for food. I guess Sonja saw it eating some little bugs and stuff, but it didn't find anything while I was looking.
Whenever it stopped it would raise and lower its tail and crest together. I'm not sure if this is an unconscious display or if it was for my benefit as some sort of dominance/territorial thing, but it was pretty cool to watch. I've never seen any other species of cuckoo, whose family they belong to, so I don't know if it's something you find in other members of the family, either.
This one gives us a good look at its powerful legs. While it is perfectly capable of flying, I've rarely seen them doing anything but running along the ground. The length of their legs helps them not only run quickly, but also hunt and kill some of their more dangerous prey species, like rattlesnakes.
And here is the typical view most people have when they see a roadrunner: the bird running quickly away. Now, if I could only get one of our Common Blackhawks to cooperate so well.
