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.

oahu trip report part 2 2007-01-18 - 10:24 a.m. all photos © 2007 by elaine radford Note: To read part 1 of my Oahu trip report, click right here. Saturday, January 13 I decided that I was ready to stick more than a toe into the ocean. Today's breakfast was turkey slices wrapped around a long stick of mozzarella string cheese, along with the milky Kona coffee. The little kitchenette area in my room made it easy to get going, without wasting time with a breakfast stop. I put on swimsuit, cover-up, and blue flip-flops and headed on out. Anyway, I strolled down to the beach by way of a large hotel, ignoring the signs suggesting that the path was for hotel guests only. Somehow I knew that I wouldn't be challenged. No die-hard beach bum is as white as I am. There was a jellyfish warning posted, but no actual jellyfish as far as I could tell. Heck, other people were swimming, including little kids. So I splashed around for awhile, although I was a little surprised at how cool the turquoise water was. After my swim, I rinsed off the sand at another hotel where, hmm, I probably wasn't a guest either, and then I strolled around for a bit, checking out the various hotel aquariums, shops, and sculptures. Fearing my hiking shoes were going to implode at any moment, I went shoe shopping and eventually ended up with a pair of back-up sandals -- $7 at the ABC store, but I had to check three stores to actually find my smaller than Hawaiian size. Eventually I ended up back at my own hotel, where I enjoyed the rooftop hot tub. At first, there were some other people there, but they all left at once -- I think they were checking out -- so I had it all to myself. It was time for a real lunch. I went to the famous Thai restaurant, Keo's, and actually scored a seat right on the open-air window. I had an excellent Bloody Mary and lemon grass scallops that were also well-spiced. Finally, after multiple re-schedulings and back and forths caused by the weather, I met up with my bird guide for the afternoon. I'd originally requested a mountain tour, but I ended up with a coastal tour, because of the heavy rain in the mountains. I'm just as glad, because I found the key mountain birds I was shooting for on my own. Since we were birding, and messing with the camera gets in the way of the birding, I'm afraid I don't have many pictures to share. However, it was quite impressive, as we went around the area hitting many of the most scenic highlights -- Hanauma Bay, Koko Crater, Sandy Beach, various Wetlands, an atmospheric Chinese graveyard where the inspiration for Charlie Chan was buried. It turned out that it was the humpback whale migration, and when I mentioned that I'd never seen a whale, the guide and his wife went on the lookout. It was a very windy day, with lots of white caps, making it difficult to point out the waterspouts, but they did find a very nice pod of whales, and I observed five waterspouts in a row -- and after the fourth, the humpback whale came up and I could see the back and be properly impressed by just how damn large they are. I also saw two species of Boobies very well in flight, Brown and Red-Footed, and I had great looks at both male and female Great Frigatebirds. At the Paiko Lagoon or Pond -- I'm not 100 percent sure of the name -- I had my life Wandering Tattler. At the Ka'elepulu Wetland Preserve, which actually seems to be set in a neighborhood, I could see the endangered Hawaiian Coot, Hawaiian Gallinule, and Hawaiian Black-Necked Stilt at a glance. I also saw both adult and young Black-Crowned Night Heron and a number of Koloa, Hawaiian Mallards. (They are considerably more drab than "our" Mallards.) I don't know if the Koloas are countable though, since the guide mentioned that they are probably hybrids. It may be that the pure species no longer exists on Oahu. Indeed, we saw one bird that was quite clearly a hybrid. ka'elepulu wetland preserve I spotted a fine pair of adult Northern Shovelers, and the guide said that it was the first time he'd seen Shovelers on this wetland, so I felt like I'd done my good spotting for the day. He seemed a little distressed that he didn't have a camera, but hey. You can't mistake a shoveler for anything else if you see it well. I don't see why his report wouldn't be accepted. In any case, he planned to go back the next day with a camera, so hopefully he'll be able to get undeniable documentation. Near the Oahu cemetary and some historic old trees, we found a huge tree with the arc of a rainbow spread over it -- and any number of Rose-ringed Parakeets, including some adult males showing the rose ring well. Most impressive. Hell, there were so many rainbows and so much beautiful scenery that it's a little mind-croggling. I really don't know the use of trying to put it into words. Go and see for yourself. At the end of the day, there were rainbows and what the guide's wife called "the golden light." As she said, probably a bit tacky if you saw it in a painting, because it was completely over the top. I couldn't believe I saw a whale. I was stopping people in elevators and saying, "I saw a whale!" They probably thought I'd lost my mind. After the tour, I went up to the lounge to grab one of those $1.75 drink specials -- a Blue Hawaii this time -- and I saw that the Saints had actually won a play-off game. Then I knew that it was all a dream and none of this had really happened. I drank my drink and put my binoculars in the safe and went walking by the ocean for awhile to come back to reality. Finally, I went back to my room to soak in the tub and finish off my bottle of wine. honolulu from chinese graveyard featuring the original charlie chan Sunday, January 14 I hopped out of bed, washed my hair, finished off my turkey and mozzarella for breakfast, and found a Sunday newspaper on my doorstep. I pulled out a few pages to read while waiting for the bus and checked out of the hotel, again leaving my bag at the front desk. I never got a chance to catch up on the news, though, because the bus arrived almost before I had a chance to sit down. I headed for Makiki Heights and the Makiki Loop Trail behind the Hawaii Nature Center. You have to stroll a bit through the neighborhood of no doubt million dollar homes, which was a fine bird-spotting area in and of itself. I saw more Rose-ringed Parakeets and I even spotted a small Carolina Anole, my only reptile for the trip. It wasn't raining, but there were areas where it was quite muddy, so you had to watch your footing. I took my time and went around the entire loop, starting with the steepest section of the trail and descending through the study area of various trees and shrubs. At one point, I heard a familiar song, and yeppers, it was a male Northern Cardinal. At another stop, I heard the familiar song, done less expertly, and it was a female. I even saw what was either some kind of pied/albino/leucistic type cardinal or perhaps a hybrid between the abundant Red-Crested Cardinals and the highly visible if less abundant Northern Cardinals. That poor thing was an exceptionally ugly specimen of the avian species. the makiki loop trail is famous for its tree roots, don't laugh The spirit of the forest was, as at Manoa Falls area, the White-Rumped Shama Thrush. Those birds could sing their way out of a paper bag upside-down. The Pekin Nightingales turned out to be small fussing birds, more like Chickadees than like songsters. Every time I encountered them, they seemed to be blessing somebody out. Most of the Bulbuls were Red-Vented, but I encountered a few Red-Whiskers too. All in all, not a bad area for a hike up hill and down dale if you wanted to check for forest/mountain birds without the damp entailed by a visit to the Manoa area. I got back to my hotel just in time to slip into the first floor washroom and clean off my shoes. It wasn't quite 2 o'clock, so instead of grabbing my bag, I went back to Keo's for lunch, this time for a Razztini (raspberry martini) and a hot basil with beef. I'm afraid I then went to the bar and enjoyed another $1.75 Blue Hawaii. Quite possibly, I could have passed the rest of the afternoon in this fashion, but I decided to get off my duff and check the grounds of the Iolani Palace for any interesting finches. I went ahead and picked up my bag, since I could easily catch the airport bus from near the Palace when I was done. iolani palace, supposedly the only royal palace in the united states Well, as palaces go, the only "American" palace won't be putting any mad Germans out of business. There weren't any Chestnut Mannakins either, although there were an extraordinary number of homeless people taking advantage of the once and future king's promise to make it safe for everyone in Hawaii to put down a sleeping bag and sleep by the side of the road. Hell, one guy had even set up a tent. Yes, on the Palace grounds. I have no idea how long before law enforcement showed up and invited him to camp out elsewhere, if they ever did. Anyway, I explored for awhile and snapped some of the standard tourist snapshots, and suddenly it was raining, and I figured I'd better be on my way. Thanks to my status as a Northwest Gold, I was whisked through the line ahead of a rather huge crowd. I wanted to wear my socks through security, so I'd somehow made my dying shoes last until I got to the security line, where I took them off and threw them away in the trash can intended for your illicit bottles of water and sunscreen. After going through the screening, I peeled off the muddy socks and put on the new sandals. It wasn't ideal to be breaking in new shoes at the airport, but it was certainly better than on a hiking trail. Once cleared for take-off, I found myself free to enjoy the various gardens at HNL airport, including a Japanese, Chinese, and true Hawaiian garden. I think I only found the Japanese garden on my previous visit. Perhaps those naughty airport lounges insulate you too much from the real experience. After sunset, I ordered Hawaiian nachos (some kind of sweet coconut pork was involved) and a double Knob's Creek in Stinger Ray's. Then it was time for the various and sundry flights back to New Orleans. In my cozy 27A exit seat, I slept like a log from HNL-SEA, leading to comments from my fellow passengers about how they wished they could sleep on an airplane. I hope I didn't snore. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford