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 |
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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.
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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.
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A bibliography of my published books and stories.
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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. |
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| 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.. |
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My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List.
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| 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.
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dry forest and dry wit of the heartily amused vireos
2006-10-24 - 3:10 p.m.
all photos � 2006 by elaine radford
 yeah, the water is really that color, don't believe, you'll just have to go and see for yourself
Monday, October 23
Note: I have rudely double-posted twice in a day, so if you want to read my adventures on
Sunday, including my jump into the bio-bay,
click right here. OK. Short Version:
Today we got up early and devoted the day to the Guanica dry forest. Guanica is
the classic palm-tree turquoise blue bay where the American forces landed to
seize the island in 1898, thus leading Guanica to proclaim itself El Pueblo
del Amistad, which I think means Town of Freedom, which is more tactful than
Town of Damned Yankee Invader, you've got to admit. Around 10 A.M. we headed to
Yauco, a colorful town of multi-colored houses on a hill in the background (and every fast food
franchise known to man in the foreground) for a visit to what appears to be Puerto Rico's
favorite restaurant, Subway. I mean there's one on every corner. I learned that they serve
lunch at any time of the day, which was a great relief, since I hate fast food breakfast
"biscuits" which appear to be horrible little hockey pucks made of artificial lard
created from discarded vegetable oils since real lard is a) too tasty, and b) too expensive.
And I don't know if I have unfairly characterized the Subway breakfast biscuit, because
I instead got the wrap, which was terrific. Then back to the forest. Then we ended
the day at the parador's restaurant, where I enjoyed a wicked rum punch of their own
invention and a shrimp asapao. There was no sunset to speak of, since it was a cloudless, rainless
day on the dry side of the mountain, but the re-born new moon (no more than the tiniest sliver)
could be seen setting over the trees, with Venus some distance behind it. Very nice. And here I
should mention what I forgot to mention in yesterday's posting -- the spectacular if brief
pink and orange sunset we got because of yesterday's cloud and rain. It was bee-yoo-ti-ful.
Long version: All that jazz plus we birded by car or by foot along the Path of the Whales
almost all the daylight hours. The boardwalk at Guanica is closed at lunch on Mondays, and
the strip at La Parguera is closed in the evening on Mondays, at least during low season, but
you won't lack for food and drink. We hiked down the Whale (Ballenas) Trail to the 400 year old tree,
where we discovered the unbelievable rare lizards that were almost snakelike in their teeny tiny leg to way long
tail ratio and like nothing else we've experienced with their garish radio-active blue/green
fluorescent tail flashing in the sun.
And the birds! Notable birds already seen:
- American Kestrels -- my God, I've never seen so many of these birds, some paired, in one
place at one time, there were places where it seemed every telephone pole or bare branch had its
tutelary kestrel -- this is the true winter playground of the AMKE
- At a little outdoor bar and boat rental overlooking the Gilligan's Island area, we had a beer and
watched two mighty Pearly-Eyed Thrashers try (and fail) to catch the resident lizards
Nonbird notables:
- Iguana -- a nice green one, not too huge and browned-out but of good size
- Amelva wetmorei -- I don't know the common name, if there is one, but this is the
very impressive rare lizard with the day-glow green-blue tail
And here are the new birds added to the Puerto Rico trip list:
- Eurasian Collared Dove -- they seem to have taken over the entire town of La
Parguera
- Puerto-Rican Lizard-Cuckoo -- alas, my first look was my best, I actually found it perched with its
bizarre red-rouged eye, when I tried to get D. to show him, it flew, showing its fine tail, but I couldn't get
D's attention in time to show him
- Orange-Cheeked Waxbill -- a single but fine specimen calmly eating seeds from a tall grass growing in the sun
- Green Mango -- sitting on a wire and for ages, turning this way and that so we could catch its
lime and emerald flashes in the sun, is this normal behavior?
- Osprey -- it ain't a real birding tour until you've seen the Osprey and this one put on a fine show over
the lovely turquoise bay
- Adelaide's Warbler -- Wow is the only word
- Northern Harrier, male
- Troupial -- and singing too, the orange/black/orange pattern of the retreating bird confirmed our ID, but
the two birds we saw managed to show themselves from every side and angle -- another WOW
- Lesser Yellowlegs -- this and the stilt were easily seen from a small artificial retention or sewerage pond behind
Mary's by the Sea, peeps also, but I wasn't in a mood to try to ID any peeps in the heat of the afternoon, as we
found these shortly before the beer stop where we watched the Pearly-Eyed Thrasher lizard chase referenced above
- Black-Necked Stilts -- several
Of course we had our mystery bird, and I'm still kicking myself. Two teeny tiny birds on the Vereda Del Bellenas, fairly close to each other
and affectionate, so no way to make hummingbirds out of them no matter how small they were,
yet the one I got the glass on had a deeply forked tail. The back was olive, and there were two wing-bars. Never got a
clear view of the face or underparts because they held so deeply to the undergrowth.
Of course they were the White-Eyed Vireo, but I never saw such a deeply forked tail before or at least never noticed it, and I didn't figure it
out until I woke up the next morning, so I'm not counting it.
Quick note: I'll do a full report on Tuesday soon, but I'll just note right now that the new birds we added were the
Helmeted GuineaFowl and the Pintail Whydah -- and, yes, by the way, the male whydah was in full dress doing the display for
the rather unimpressed tease of a female.
 parts of guanica had a whiff of the lush deserts of southern arizona, tall cactus and blue-tailed lizards and all
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All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford
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