If It's Wednesday It Must Be Snowing

....three weeks running

Banished's Birds (Of The Backyard)

Laptop issues are still delaying my posting and so all that snow that fell last week has melted before I get to post pictures. But there were a few pictures of backyard birds that came out well enough to make worthwhile. The wasteage rate was awfully high though. I'm thinking the camera and lenses are going to need a very serious clean-up before bug season comes around.

Above is the Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor)

Then the Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis). These last two filling the niches (and the photofits) of the the Crested Tit and the Great Tit while not being especially closely related.

The same could be said for the Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) though its not so richly coloured as the European version, in my humble opinion.

With 6 plus inches of snow on the ground the feeders were busy. In this shot featured (left to right)

Northern Cardinal (male), Chipping Sparrow, Dark-Eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) and disappearing out of frame at the bottom the female Cardinal.

The pond froze for the first time this year too though there was clear water in the middle for the Canada Geese

The ice pushes the ducks too into the middle of the pond and out of reasonable range for my long lens so the Hooded Mergansers, Buffleheads and American Widgeon escaped me yet again.

But, as the sun went down... Well didn't it go down with a vengeance?

Banished's Birds (of the Outer Banks)

I got some nice wildfowl pictures from last March's trip to the Eastern Shore of Virginia and I got some more just this last weekend from the North Carolina equivalent, the Outer Banks. In summer this is one of those holiday hellholes full of sun, fun and general jollity. It must be horrible. But in January its largely deserted and has some nice empty Atlantic beaches where seabirds and waders seem largely unconcerned by the odd stray human.

Ahhhhhhh these are Willets (Tringa semipalmata)

The little pair running along parallel to the surf are Sanderlings. Then 3 shots of Common Terns fishing and finally a Brown Pelican. 

And after tonights snow then, I hope, some ducks on the pond tomorrow if all is well.    

Look what I just bought !

Cost me $25 !  Has to be worth $100... If I can bear to part with it. In the box unopened but then the Americans never really appreciated Gerry Anderson. I AM open to outrageous offers

Tree MVP

Tree is done. 8 feet of piney goodness. I like the new Grich globe. And of course the MVP of the Banished tree (and the 2013 World Series) David Ortiz.

                                   

More Or Less All The Time

From the Banished iPod today comes Slightly All The Time by Soft Machine, which is so old that even I was only 11 when it was recorded. But it was already a favourite by the time I was 15 and it remains so to this day. I listen to it every couple of days or so, as my title today says...More Or less All The Time. At 18 and a half minutes its the perfect accompaniment to my drive to work and takes me from my driveway to the parking lot in one perfectly timed run. So long as the traffics flowing freely of course.

Formed in 1966 by a right bunch of hippies including Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers they were part of what was called the Canterbury Scene which also produced Gong, Hatfield And The North, National Health and caravan amongst others.

But while the first 2 albums, called with striking originality One and Two were full of songs of hippie whimsy amongst their more freeform instrumentals by the time 1971's Third arrived the band was reduced to a trio of Robert Wyatt on drums, Mike Ratledge on keyboards and Hugh Hopper on bass with the semi detached Elton Dean on saxophones. This double album had just 4 pieces each an entire side (about 18 minutes) in length. Hippie whimsy had largely departed (but for elements of Robert's Moon in June) and jazz-rock and experimentation were order of the day.

 Slightly All The Time is actually a suite  of tunes by Ratledge and Hopper viz. Slightly All the Time/Noisette/Backwards. Enjoy it anyway. I know I will.

I have been very lax this last month I know. But as always winter brings a dearth of bugs and its rained every weekend for the last 3 weeks. One day I WILL get outside in daylight and dry weather and photograph something.  

Pselliopus barberi ...In Context

Putting halloween away for the the year on Saturday was still quite warm work (though the temperature is finally dropping today) and there were still  a few bugs about. There were still blasted mosquitoes damn them! But as I packed up on of this years new additions, the simulated, life-sized, hessian wrapped severed head:

I found one of the falls most distinctive bugs right where it ought to be. The 'halloween bug' as we call it chez Banished (Pselliopus barberi) on the halloween decoration.