Eagles and Pelicans in Okee

 

Today Travalon and I couldn't get going again, so we went to the later, nearby Mass and saw the same couple we had talked to before, as well as the mother and brother of a long-dead famous comedian. The wife in this couple is also named Famous, and I thought she looked familiar, like the friend of a friend on MyFace. We talked for a bit, and I thought maybe she wanted to hang out sometime, but neither of us asked. When I got home, I wondered how to find her. What was their last name? I knew where her husband worked, and his first name, so I quickly found him with a Google search. Then I did a search on MyFace for someone named Famous with that last name living in my town... and a person popped up who was already one of my friends. No wonder she looked familiar! She must have sent me a friend request years ago because we have twenty-two friends in common. I vaguely remember accepting it even though I had no idea who she was. So I sent her a private message that we should hang out sometime, but I don't think she's seen it. Looking at her page, she doesn't post too often.

Travalon and I drove out to Okee to take a walk and check out the bird scene, and we saw lots of bald eagles sitting on the ice. We had seen some large white birds on the other side of the bridge while driving there, but we couldn't stop on the highway to check it out, so we walked along the bridge to see if we could find them. Suddenly we saw a pelican swimming much closer to us, so I assume the big white birds we'd seen from the highway were pelicans, not swans. Then we saw six more pelicans swimming in a group. This is the first pelican sighting of the year for us - I thought they hated snow and waited to come back later. This guy saw us looking at the birds, and he started telling us about which birds were around when, and that the shad (which I assume the eagles and pelicans both eat) grow in population for six years, and then there are too many and every seventh year there is a massive die-off. He said the pelicans have only been around for the last four years, which matches what we have seen.

When we came home, we went out to the dock and saw coots nearby and scaups further away. Then Travalon left to visit his mother, and I went for another walk. I saw my neighbor who is turning eighty on Tuesday, and the famous comedian's brother, and we were both like, "Hey! I saw you at Mass this morning!" He said, "I've been behaving perfectly since then," and I said, "I promise you that I am not keeping track." He was smoking a cigar as he walked along. I kept thinking maybe I heard a train horn in the distance, but it was so faint that I thought it was probably my imagination. When I got my move hours for the day and then my ten thousand steps for the day in quick succession, I headed inside... and as soon as I sat down to blog, I heard the train pass by. Sigh.

Yesterday all we saw off the dock were the mallard with a purple head and his mate.

We also saw this lotus seed head right off the dock! How did we not notice that before? If we had seen it when the seeds were ripe, we wouldn't have had to go out in the boat to collect lotus seeds.

Today as we walked along the trail to Paradise Island in Okee, we saw this hollow that we had never noticed before.

Here are photos of the eagles, the pelicans, and some gulls.

Here is a young one that seemed to be related to the mature one above, since at one point they were right next to each other.

This photo just makes me laugh.

A second juvenile eagle flew in and joined the first one. They touched beaks and hung out.

So I think this is their mom.

Here is a photo, slightly out of order, of the first juvenile eagle with the adult one. I wasn't going to include it, since it's off-center, but it shows how different they look, and that they seem to be related.

And then we saw the pelicans on the other side of the bridge.

Here are the two young eagles again. I think they may be nest mates?

Here are photos from our dock. First, coots.

I like how the male scaups sometimes stick their necks waaaay up. It must be a mating dance move.

This looks like a line of male scaups chasing one female.

Tonight I'm finally going to band practice for the first time in ages. Hope I still remember how to tune the mandolin!

Famous Hat

Anna Banana II's Whirlwind Visit

 

This morning it snowed and snowed. Anna Banana II was in the state for just a few days, and she was planning to come to town this morning so we could all hang out, but because of the snow she couldn't come until mid afternoon. Our place wasn't plowed, so we just hung out at home, but of course I didn't clean. We watched some of my old YouTube videos, we took a walk out in the snow, and I read my blog posts from our recent Florida trip. 

Finally, about four we headed to Rich's house. They still hadn't plowed at our place, but Travalon's vehicle was able to drive through the snow. By then it had warmed up a lot, so we took a walk in Rich's neighborhood with him and Anna Banana II. Then we tried to go to the Hubbard Avenue Diner, but they don't take reservations, and they didn't have a table big enough for us, since Kathbert and OK Cap were joining us. We ended up going to Amber Indian Restaurant, the one Travalon and I go to on Christmas Eve, and I introduced Anna Banana II to the wonders of rose milk. It's so good! The six of us had a lovely dinner, then Anna Banana II really wanted to go to the Hubbard Avenue Diner for pie, but I was stuffed. Also, the co-op was right next door, and we needed to go grocery shopping, so we bid adieu to everyone. I got home just in time to join Night Prayer, which was being led by the Dairyman's Daughter. Unfortunately, Jilly Moose had to work this evening, so she couldn't join the festivities.

Travalon is really into watching the NCAA Tournament. Today he told me something shocking: Holy Cross College is a Division I school whose football team had a 12-1 season, but they didn't get invited to a bowl! And we got invited to a bowl with our lousy 6-6 record! They were in some sort of postseason tournament, so maybe that's better than a bowl? Still, it seems like these little teams have to really have amazing records to get invited to bowls and tournaments and stuff. Speaking of which, St. Francis College in Brooklyn has the oldest basketball team in New York City, but they are shutting down their entire athletic program. It makes me sad, because while athletics is a huge money generator for the big name universities, the smaller ones must lose out on money because they don't get invited to tournaments or bowls. It seems so unjust - your postseason should be determined by how good your season was, not by how big a name your school is. I hate the NCAA.

Famous Hat

Travalon's Work Art

 

Not too much to say about my day today. I worked on campus and had all my steps and all my staircases by the time I got home, so I really wanted to sit on my derriere and do nothing. But thanks to stupid old Daylight Saving Time, it was so sunny and beautiful out that I felt guilty for going into the house and sitting around. Who needs that? I miss dark evenings. DST must be popular with people who don't go outside during the day, so they need day at night... which makes morning happen at night. I'd so much rather get up with the sun and then have it go down at a reasonable time.

I did go for a walk at lunchtime in the Allen Centennial Gardens, and there were actually flowers blooming! The white ones are snowdrops, but I'm not sure what the yellow ones are.

Yesterday the Workforce Development people came back to Travalon's workplace to work with the kids again. They had the kids build little things out of marshmallows and graham crackers and toothpicks. Here are a boxing ring, a suspension bridge, and I'm not sure what else.

Travalon made a little gas station! Check out the little marshmallow gas pumps. The thing on the right is that thing you can use to put air in your tires or vacuum your car.

Then today at work he drew this really good turtle.

As always, I am busy looking for things that glow under blacklight. I have had this lei for years, probably from my wedding shower.

This journal has been sitting around at work forever, on a table in a common area. It's hard to see in this photo, but the pink part did glow.

Another thing from work - this Christmas card came to... our department? It was a very generic address, not to any particular person, and I couldn't find that we had ever used this vendor for anything. Yes, it has taken this long for me to get around to checking it.

The inside is far more spectacular under blacklight.

This morning Travalon went out to the dock again. He saw some scaups.

And he saw at least three pairs of common mergansers, seen here with a couple of buffleheads.

Stay tuned for more bird photos and photos of things glowing under blacklight. 

Famous Hat

Exciting Badger Basketball Game

 

I forgot to mention that last night Travalon and I watched the Badgers men's basketball team play Oregon. It was an exciting game with the two teams changing leads constantly, and the Badgers just barely won, so now they're on to the Final Four in Vegas. Today I was reading an article about them, and it said, "Nobody wants to be in the NIT," because it's considered the also-ran tournament for the big names who don't get into the Big Dance, aka the NCAA Tournament. However, there are small schools just big enough to be Division I who had really good records this year and didn't get into either tournament, and I'll bet they would love to have a post-season. Maybe instead of being the also-ran tournament for marquee names like Oregon and Wisconsin, it should be the tournament for the schools that had over twenty regular-season wins but didn't get a ticket to the ball, like the Troy University Trojans. I don't know what you have to do as a smaller school to get invited to the Big Dance; the second team we beat, Liberty University, won twenty-six games this season, which is an amazing record. At least they got into the NIT.

Travalon took more photos off the dock this morning, while I was at work on campus. (I thought I was ready to go back, but the day took it all out of me.) Here are some good shots of the common mergansers. The male is white with a black head, and the female is gray with a brown head. They both have bright red bills that are long and sharp for catching fish.

The male bufflehead is preening as the females look discretely away.

Still preening...

Finally got his look just right!

And here are some coots swimming around.

A decision must be made: should they go under the dock?

They do come to a decision, and they swim under the dock.

Finally, here are our friendly neighborhood dinosaurs, the sandhill cranes, in a neighbor's backyard.

I think this is the same yard where the owners sprayed the cranes with a hose to get them to leave, but it didn't work. The cranes hollered a little, but apparently they didn't mind getting sprayed that much, because they wouldn't leave. In my experience, if you don't want cranes somewhere, just wait two minutes and they will be gone. This has worked well for me in the past when they were, say, standing right in front of the door and I had no other way to get in. They don't stay still for very long, so you don't really need to move them - they'll do it for you themselves. Unless they find a puddle, and then all bets are off. They rival Peppa Pig in how much they love muddy puddles.

Famous Hat