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.

part 5 of our point pelee, ontario trip report: in with a whimper and out with a bang 2007-05-06 - 7:21 p.m. The weather is still glorious, with nothing to blow the birds down to the ground. Nonetheless, we managed to add a few beauties to the list and to re-acquaint ourselves with several old friends. The day started with a whimper, when we just missed seeing the Henslow's Sparrow by moments and then the Red-Necked Grebe by moments. For awhile we spent time enjoying the Palm Warbler who was actually flycatching off a pile of sand just off the path and then the many, many, many Red-Breasted Mergansers cruising offshore. Oh, and we noticed a couple of male Baltimore Orioles fly in too. Then, glory be, when we went back to the Henslow's Sparrow area, the bird was there, right at our feet, utterly unperturbed by all the photographers with big guns trying to grab his photo as he browsed in the clover. A long, intimate look at a bird you don't see every day. Hell, he was so close that Roger couldn't focus his binoculars on him and had to borrow mine. And it didn't matter, because there was plenty of time to make the swap. Back to the Woodland Trail where we checked on the Cooper's Hawk to see if she was sitting any more photogenically on her nest. Nah. Just a tail, albeit a tail pointed in the other direction. However, along the way we had GREAT views of a Black-and-White Warbler that did everything but land on our heads. There was another Brown Creeper too, in the same bit of swamp. A lady startled us by calling Lincoln's Sparrow, two of them. They were, in fact, Swamp Sparrows, but now that I've been alerted to the existence of Lincoln's I will be looking very closely at the Swamp Sparrows I meet. While waiting for the tram to take us back to the visitor's center, I spotted a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. We hurried over, and the bird took a higher perch and began to sing. Uh oh. Mr. Baltimore Oriole was not happy and chased him down to a lower bush again. What a colorful conflict to see. We took a quick peek into the local rock shop, which had a great collection of Amethyst geodes. Of course, my collection is pretty good this time of century, too, so ultimately I decided not to buy this time. In the interests of getting out of the midday sun and reducing our UV exposure, we decided to hit the Point Pelee wine trail. Heh. It's all about good health and responsible skin care, don't you know. Our first stop was the Mastronardi estate, where the wine tastings were free, so if you just want to sample and buy, it's the way to go. The woman in the shop seemed quite knowledgeable about carbs and was able to steer us toward the lower carb offerings. In the end, we purchased a very pleasing chardonnay. The second stop was the Pelee Island winery -- not the vinyard on the island obviously but the retail store/plant down the road in Kingsville. Here, for $5, you get the full-fledged tour of the factory, 6 tastings, and a souvenir wine glass. Everyone got the same three wines at the beginning of the tour, and then it was taster's choice for the second three wines. I think I actually got some pretty neat photographs of the equipment, including the "pig" vats -- well, you'll see why they're called that when I post the pictures. We picked a bottle each of the Merlot and the dry Reisling to take with. After a short break, we headed back to the park to see if there were more warblers fueling up for their night flights. However, because of the wind, not too many warblers were there, although we did see a few different species flycatching to get ready for their evening departure. Most were Ruby-Crowned Kinglet (if I hang out with the big boys long enough, they'll have to recognize me one day), Yellow Warbler, and Yellow-Rumped Warbler, but there were enough Palm Warblers to hold our attention, and we also observed another beautiful male Black-Throated Green Warbler. Really, though, we had to struggle and fight to find the warblers, which isn't the way it should be, so we decided to head back and maybe crack open a bottle of wine. Near the exit to the park, we noticed a crowd and asked what was going on. "Long Horned Owl babies!" was the answer. So we parked and took a look. These were fluffy just-fledged, not-yet-flighted owlets who had climbed out of the nesthole and onto the branch to take their snooze. A park ranger had to play traffic cop to stop people from parking all anywhere instead of in the parking lot. But they were cute as pie and made you just want to rub them all over to see if they could really be that soft and fluffy. Just adorable. Oh, and Long-Horned Owl? Well, this young park warden was, as I said, given the traffic duty, not the bird tour leading duty. Great Horned Owl. New birds added to the trip list: Henslow's Sparrow Black-and-White Warbler House Wren Great Horned Owl back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford