PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

Recent entries july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04 the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03 Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01 lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30 wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24 Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more. By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets. A bibliography of my published books and stories. Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List. HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.

king rail joins the list list, and we re-new our forgotten friendship with laconte's sparrow 2011-10-29 - 5:24 p.m. A pretty easy day today, although the fans may have noticed that my Louisiana life list has now exploded to 223 birds, since I've picked up a total of 9 birds for the festival. Well, according to the list, I've picked up 9 at the fest; for some reason, Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher wasn't previously on the list, although I'm confident that it should have been. We decided to sleep in late today, rather than signing up for the early A.M. tours. I had a leisurely breakfast and then checked in the clubroom to see if there were any good sightings. "Oh, they phoned in about 15 minutes ago that they found LaConte's Sparrow," she said. Many years ago, too many years ago, we drove down a dirt road past some stands of grass and found a LaConte's Sparrow that just sat there and looked us in the eye. You know how something like that happens and it never happens again and you start to doubt yourself? Well, the habitat where we found the LaConte's Sparrow was just the same -- a bit of gravel if not dirt road off to the side of the main road and a stand of grass with four LaConte's Sparrows in it, one of them so bold that it just stood there and blinked for awhile with all the birders standing in a circle around it. What a magnificent specimen with the orange accents on its gray-cheeked face. My camera isn't set up for photographing small sparrows in the breezy grass, but I think several of the fest organizers got some fine photos. You see, even though we didn't creep out of bed at the crack of dawn, somehow we caught up to the early A.M. tour. Trust me, with birds, it usually does NOT work out that way. Before the LaConte's, we stopped behind a group that got a phone call about a Say's Phoebe. They had an American Golden-Plover in the scope, and we all inspected the American Golden-Plover, and then we were alerted to the presence of a fine family of three Great Horned Owls. One of them was sitting on a telephone pole -- a situation the local small stuff, ranging from Red-Winged Blackbirds to American Kestrels, did not wish to encourage -- and two of them must have been lurking quietly in a large nearby oak tree. One of the fest organizers pointed out one of the lurking owls and while we struggled to find this surprisingly well-camouflaged beast, that's when the third owl flew. What a marvelous sighting. It was funny to see a Great Horned Owl sitting grumpily out on a post, while a flock of Blackbirds gathered and glared. All their glare and stare went for nothing, for it was the courage of the American Kestrel, who struck again and again, that finally drove off each of the three Owls in turn. As we considered these fine Owls, one of the ladies suddenly pointed out that the Say's Phoebe had come up and perched on a post in the sun, where we could all see it. Pretty sure that one of the fest organizers got a photograph for the Rare Records Committee, but there won't be any question about this bird's ID. It was easy to see, with great light, nicely posed, and several people got at least poor shots, if not magazine quality shots, proof enough of this Review List's species visit to the fest. At a nearby pond, one of the experts helpfully got Stilt Sandpiper and Long-Billed Dowitchers in the scopes, to allow those of us who are less than expert to feel more confident in their ID. I may have seen Stilt Sandpipers in Louisiana before but, if so, I didn't know it well enough to put it on my state list. I also noticed, as I was reviewing my list this afternoon, that I hadn't had either Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher or White-Crowned Sparrow on my Louisiana list previously. I should have added the SCFL years ago, and I should have added the White-Crowned Sparrow yesterday. Finally, it was time to cut some rice. 59 and 60, our field pass numbers, were high numbers on Thursday, meaning that we had to wait several hours. Today, they were low numbers, and we were in the second group to go out. I'm damn glad that we went both days because I saw no Yellow Rail today, and Roger may have seen one, but only briefly. Instead, in the much wetter and more rutted fields of today, we had a great many Sora and Virginia Rail -- and we even had a very nice look at a King Rail. Actually, the expert facilitator who rode with us on the combine said that he probably saw three King Rails, but we all had nice clear views of one of them. That's a life bird for me and Roger, so we're pretty delighted. You had the option of staying to view the bird netting/banding and even trying to hang around to catch another ride on the combine after everyone else had their chance, but we've had two good rides, and I don't want DH telling everybody he had to spend his entire vacation on farm equipment, so we decided it was time to head out for a decent lunch. We found a nice restaurant on Lake Arthur called the Regatta, the kind of place where people pull up in their over-priced wooden boats and have dinner. I told DH to help himself to a glass of wine or two (he voted two) and that I would stick to water and drive back from lunch. He probably earned it for putting up with some of the weird, small birds, but I think he got a kick out of it too. Also, he pointed out that he didn't actually have a Sora on his life list before the fest. I always see them when I'm alone at Fontainebleau...so that's an extra addition to his life list. We got back to the hotel, and he just took a swim and is now taking a nap. No way I'm taking a swim at 600 but I suppose I should go down and use the workout room before the reception. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford