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.

coastal maine trip report part 3: the puffin tour! 2008-06-13 - 5:04 p.m. all photos � 2008 by elaine radford ever so often, a puffin slips and slides when landing on those rocks Last night I finally sipped a small shotglass of the curious beverage left in our room. It proved to be sherry. More of that British-style humor? This morning we rose reasonably early and enjoyed a delicious breakfast on the porch overlooking the water. A male American Goldfinch and a male House Finch visited the feeder and peeped in to see what we were doing. It was a clear, sunny, summer day, without a hint of dark or fog, so it turned out to be a scenic drive through rural Maine. There was a white-tailed deer along the way, but it wasn't dangerously close to the road. Tons of flowers -- bogs of purple iris, small patches of tall and showy lupine. We allowed for plenty of time and were actually the first tourists to reach the small dock at Cutler, even though we had a bit of a drive. A tender took us to the Barbara Frost, which was anchored a little ways offshore, and then we were off. As we were leaving the harbor, we observed a spectacular adult Bald Eagle regarding us from a high perch at the top of an evergreen tree. there's a huge population of the dapper razorbills at machias seal island The water was smooth as glass, and so we were allowed to actually land on Machias Seal Island, which, by the way, has been claimed by Canada. There were some scientists there and a man who I understood to say he was from the Canadian Coast Guard. No ID checks or passports, though. It might be the last time I'm ever allowed to enter Canada without a passport, so I should make a note of the date. Lots of puffins floating, flying, hopping, posing, and just generally doing their thing. I occasionally saw them arrive with small silver fish and creep down into a burrow. I was able to see a little ways into one burrow, enough to see a bit of moving white fluff that I assume had to be a baby puffin. And, just before we were called back, I even watched two lovey-dovey puffins do the dirty deed only yards away from my blind. Puffins can fly, and very fast too, but it was so funny to watch them hop from rock to rock that I was determined to get a hopping photo of a puffin -- and I'm pretty sure that I succeeded. because it was a sunnier, warmer day than usual, the puffins were past the early morning feeding frenzy when we arrived, but you could still see them coming and going into their rocky burrows with one or two pieces of small silver fish for their babies The Razorbills also put on an excellent show, and there were a lot of them. I kept an eye on a particularly affectionate couple and eventually witnessed them getting it on, but Razorbill love is a quickie, and I didn't get the photo even after all my scheming and waiting. The Common Murres kept their distance, but I found them OK. Later, we did a victory lap around the island in the boat and got closer views, since they stayed nearer the water than to the blinds. We even saw a "Bridled" Common Murre morph, with a neat white eyeline and a neat white circle around its deep browny-black eyes. Besides Common Murre and Razorbill, our third life bird of the day was Arctic Tern. There were a number of nests, many unattended, and the guides complained that tern numbers had plummeted horribly over previous years, but we still saw enough to get good looks. I even photographed a particularly patient specimen sitting on her nest. There were also several nicely marked Savannah Sparrows on the island. Other birds visible there or nearby included Double-Crested Cormorant, Herring Gull, Greater Black-Backed Gull, and the Common Eidier. Maybe I don't have to mention these birds again, but I now realize that I'm going to have to separate out the Maine and the New Brunswick birds. For some reason, while I read that the ownership of the island was in dispute between the U.S. and Canada, I thought it was more up in the air than it really is and that this island was really considered part of Maine. I now see that it is beyond any doubt part of New Brunswick, Canada, and thus administered by the Canadian Wildlife Service. Even the U.S. government isn't dumb enough to go to fisticuffs over a piece of rock with some fishy-tasting birds on it. Captain Andy Patterson of the Barbara Frost seemed to be enjoying the beautiful day as much as we tourists, and he hated to see the tour end, so we took a little extra detour to another island to see the seals. My notes aren't too good on the subject of seals, but I think he said that there were Gray Seals and Common Seals. I was quite impressed, having never seen a wild seal of any flavor before. They came in an interesting variety of sizes -- I'll assume that the mediums were females and the smallest ones the youngsters. As we headed back into Cutler Harbor, Captain Patterson spotted a Black Guillemot, and now everyone could say that they'd seen all four of the area alcids on a single tour. Sad news: We were informed that the captain of the other puffin tour passed away on Sunday. I still feel very thankful that our B&B hosts let us know in advance that our original tour was canceled, so that we could reschedule with Captain Patterson in plenty of time before all seats were sold out. Today's tour was COMPLETELY full, and I think if anyone is reading this in the summer of 2008, if you want a puffin tour, you would be very wise to make your reservations with Bold Coast Tours as soon as you can, in order to hold your space. It was almost 2:30 by the time we hopped off the tender and into our rental car -- still plenty of time to drive a little further north and check out Quoddy Head State Park. Here we saw the famous candy striped red-and-white lighthouse -- ever get the idea that there are a LOT of lighthouses in Maine? -- and also Seal Rock, supposedly the most easterly portion of the United States. We took a stroll along the coastal path and checked for whales, since it is supposedly the best spot for finding whales from land. Well, no luck today, but we did enjoy some spectacular views of the rocky shore. At some point, we took a detour to see the "Arctic Bog Trail." It was a quite satisfying bog, with every color of spring flower and a huge number of red pitcher plants and equally red sundews. It was the wrong time of day for birds though, and we didn't see or even hear very much at all, except for a probable rail(!) in the bog itself. I'm not good enough on the topic of rails to want to count that one though. My audio tapes haven't been a total waste of time however: As we exited near the lighthouse, I heard an Alder Flycatcher singing and then located the bird and got some terrific views -- probably trying DH's patience a little, since I can't expect him to be that enthusiastic about our good friend Empidonax. Well, I'm back in my window enjoying my scenic overlook of Jonesport Harbor. A toast to our new life birds, Common Murre, Razorbill, and that restless traveler, the Arctic Tern. Can this really be Friday the 13th? hop along, little puffin back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford