The Language of Love (Red-Shouldered style)

There's just way too much snow around, and all the parks in the area (my usual birdy-haunts) were closed. I walked the Loveland Bike Trail since some kind-hearted soul blazed a trail with a 4-wheeler.
There are RSHA nests along the trail and I was hoping to catch a glimpse...
I found three hawks circling and crying out in that awesome voice they have. I think that the RSHA scream is tied with the barred owl "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" hoot for my favorite bird sounds.

So sit back, turn up your speakers and enjoy the sound of love:

The White Death of 2008

After nearly 24 hours of snow, we have come out the other side with 15 inches fallen and drifts 2 feet high.

Geoff spent 2 hours shoveling the driveway. We usually like our long driveway (we are back in a cul-de-sac and it lends to a certain privacy), but winters suck sometimes.



And here's the end result of all of his work:

He's a trooper, that Geoff. This way we can get out and buy dog food tomorrow.



My car is in there somewhere....



"Hey. Hey, lady in the window with that awesome camera? Could you get off your butt, stop taking pictures and get us some more Zick Dough? We're a little low."



Aren't tree sparrows spiffy with that Eighties crest?

An interesting thing that I read on the Cornell site:
A study found that the American Tree Sparrow seems to prefer to look for predators out of its left eye. This preference may be because the right hemisphere of the brain is dominant for processing visual information. Oddly, the Dark-eyed Juncos examined in the same study preferred to look out of their right eyes.

Huh. Who does studies like this? Where do I get a grant? I could come up with some cool studies.

So. We survived the worst snow storm since 1998. I plan on birding tomorrow...even if it is just to get a picture of Mama GHOW at Lake Isabella. It's my luck, isn't it, to get a bitchin' new camera and then be snowbound in the house?

It's sad, but I took 2 or 3.....HUNDRED pictures today

When they drive you crazy, send the kids outside to play in the snow.










The 2008 version of "Call Of The Wild". Hooper always looks wild and crazy when he and Nellie play...but he's just mouthy.




One, two...cha cha cha....




You totally have to click on this one...I caught 'wren tongue action'!


It snowed for about 12 hours today. The birds were frantic and didn't care that I was right up against the window snapping away. And everyone was dusted with snow.


I let out a Tarzan yell when I saw this starling dangling from one foot.

Later, while cooking dinner (and the ONLY time I didn't have my camera all day) I caught movement out the back window....it was a red-shouldered hawk carrying off one of the starlings. I almost wish I hadn't seen it. That's one that got away.

Dudes!!!!!!

I feel like Moses and the Hebrews after 40 years wandering in the desert.

I got a replacement camera today. And I could wet my pants about it.

What I have:
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H9

It takes movies with sound.

It have super duper image stabilization.

It has a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens.

It has a huge display.

It has 8.1 megapixels.

It has all the usual fun modes to play with.

It has a remote (to take pictures from a tripod...presumably for you to hide in the bushes and take pictures without anyone seeing you? That could be fun.)

It has a lithium-ion battery (no more going through batteries like potato chips).

It has an ISO that can go up to 3200.

It has a strong flash....



I took this in the dark...the battery takes a long time to initially charge so I missed out on the daylight today...that, and I had to cook dinner for the rug rats.



Macro works.

It came with a "flower hood"...what is that exactly?
It has Face Detection.
I could go on and on.... But the thing that made me really do the happy dance:

It has infrared Night Vision:



(This was taken in the living room with no lights on and no flash.)
Can we say OWLS ? ? ? ?

You can probably guess what I am planning on doing tomorrow. There is a huge snow storm coming, but it is supposed to hit later in the day, so I can go get pictures of things that are far away! Oh, did I mention that it has 15X optical zoom and 2X digital zoom? I will be able to look up birds' nostrils.

Come on, y'all. Give us a shout!

Nicodemus 2006-2008

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together…

– Author Unknown

I knew the time was close. Nic had been losing weight fast, and his breathing was loud and raspy. Over the past few days, he could be found sleeping in Lorelei's arms, happy just to be warm and comforted.
This morning, my heart filled up when I saw that the girls had made a soft bed with a pillow in a box for Nic. And they covered him with a hand towel to keep him warm. His eyes were dull and he seemed to have no strength even to let us know he had had enough snuggling.
I picked him up, kissed him and placed him back in his cage with Max, Isabelle's male rat.

In the afternoon, I went up to check on him, but I just knew what I would find.

He hadn't been dead for long. His soft fur was still warm.

The girls were told, and while Isabelle has gone through this before and is older, Lorelei took it hard. Her sweet eyes filled with tears and she threw her tiny arms around my neck.

After dinner, we prepared Nic for burial.

The girls painted a rock for his tombstone, with a million red hearts and a message for Nic to take with him to the Hereafter.

Rest, dear sweet Nicodemus.

Hell hath no fury...like Susan without her camera

Okay, let me say all this first...
To answer questions from the comments:
My camera is a Canon Powershot 3IS.
Yes, the image stablization is on.
No, it doesn't have anything on the lens that allows for manual twiddling.
~~~
I know that policies are what they are. They have to be put in place so that everyone is protected, both the store and the customer. I'm sure that policies satisfy 99.9% of customers.

But.

How much is a customer supposed to take?

I took my camera back tonight. But instead of them acknowledging that yes, the camera is still not fixed, and just handing over a replacement, they have to SEND IT BACK TO THE SERVICE CENTER AGAIN, to "validate" that it is not fixed. Are you kidding me? What makes them think that they can pull their heads out of their a**es long enough to figure out that they DIDN'T FIX IT? AGAIN?
So I have to wait 7 to 10 days for this stupid service center to look at it and say, "yep, that zoom is broken" and authorize a replacement.
I added up all the time that I have been without my camera because of these morons, and with this newest send-off, it is almost 2 months. That is just ridiculous.
Why not just give me my money back and let me go get a camera from a store that KNOWS HOW TO FIX ONE? That would not work at all, would it? That would mean a happier customer.
I demanded a manager. That didn't help. He was a very nice guy who didn't deserve the blasting I gave him (I apologized...and he said that he would be just as frustrated as me).

I left the store in tears. Now, I am NOT a crier. I tend to just get pissed off. But I hate to feel impotent and it just was too much to stand.

I had a full day of no snow, no kids....to go birding.
Did I get pictures? Well, sort of:

See that tiny brown bit in the middle? That's a singing eastern meadowlark. About 50 feet away. That camera should have been more than able to focus on an unobstructed bird, in full light. But to get a clearer shot, I DIDN'T zoom.
Hear that, Anonymous?

This is what happened when I pushed the zoom in closer...that slight yellow blob is the front of the meadowlark.
Yet again....I am without my camera. Did I actually pay for this service plan?
If I had it to do over again.....

I don't get it

I don't understand my camera. I used to get really nice pictures, even in "difficult-to-focus" situations. Birds, as we all know, sometimes sit in trees. I can look back at any number of good photos of birds sitting in trees, with lots of branches in the way, and the bird is STILL IN FOCUS.
Let me show you what kind of pictures I got today...pictures of a bird moment that we always feel lucky to see:

I went down the road to look at the nearby red-shouldered hawk nest, to see if any fresh greenery was visible. (That means that hawks are actively preparing the nest)
No greenery, but a nice show of the RSHA that was perched nearby...
It was perched in a tree next to the road:

Why is this so blurry? It was nowhere near as dark as it appears in the photo. And this bird was maybe 30 feet away.
The hawk let out a shriek and took off for another tree. I watched it land, and then I heard an even higher shriek...but not as loud.
The hawk had caught some kind of rodent:

You can see in this one that there should have been sufficient lighting to get a good focus on the hawk. The sun was setting and bathing the bird in a beautiful light. This should have been a fabulous photo. But nothing is in focus, even close objects!

What does all this mean?
My camera is not fixed. I am no longer getting "Lens Error" messages, but the focus is still off.
Even trying to take pictures of the sitting GHOW at Lake Isabella is useless. An unobstructed, well-lit situation still yields crap.

I am about to email my "insider" and give her the bad news. She seems like a nice person and I am sure she doesn't want to hear from me again, but I am still unhappy with this camera that used to take stellar pictures. I missed a golden opportunity today (and other days) because the camera refused to focus. How can a $500 camera take pictures like this?