Where birds know no borders

That is surprising, pleasantly so. Not, however, book-a-flight enticing.
The bird I would think most about would be what David Letterman calls "the Manhattan Humming Bird" or stray bullet.
If somebody is going to plug me, I want it to be personal.

Enjoy the mornings when it is early and we step outside to get the newspapers and linger awhile to hear the calming cooing of the doves in the distance and are blessed because they too know no borders.

Before we get too deeply involved in today's topic and before we switch to speaking of food, must quickly return to yesterday's topic because of this thought which just occurred to me:

Remember how Archie Bunker used to make reference to BIRTH PATROL pills?

Funny, funny, funny.

This is a little sad:

http://www.kentucky.com/2011/06/04/1762740/kentucky-approves-sandhill-crane.html

Although, the Wisconsin DNR has killed hundreds of Mute Swans for what they believe to be good reasons so we have nothing to boast about.
Oddly, since they have done so, the Trumpeters have abandoned the bays near us but we do have American pelicans.

It is easy to take the abundance of songbirds and waterfowl for granted and when, and it is infrequent, we find ourselves in birdless circumstances, I walk around mumbling: "What the hell is going on?"

Me sat in bed wiith my big mug of coffee watching the news. Pictures of tornados - I hope you are all safe. Not sure what today's topic is, as the BBC page refuses access from this side of the water. Something to do with birds. . 

Wonderful article and very interesting.  And, yet sad in some ways.  Animals can teach us many lessons about life especially about getting along with one another.  I stepped outside this morning before daylight.  The sky was dark, the air still damp from last night's rain.  The birds were singing their morning songs.  This time of day is special, almost a holy time.

spring rain, you are exactly right -- a holy time.

Says it all.

Computer won't let me access the article, but Good Morning everyone! I shall try again later.

Good morning all. I am drinking my morning tea before I deal w/ what I will call, "the overnight litterbox debacle." Not pretty................................
 
STONEY...................that is horrifying about your swans. Something is just not right w/ that picture.............................
 
Someone stole HAZE's & CHEFD's article................................

We slept under tornado watches last night and heard the gusts blowing hail on the windows, but the worst blew south and just west of us....terrible destruction of many homes, school, shops in Paulding County. Our sirens went off several times, but only a few limbs are down and being dragged off the roads up here in the foothills. So sorry for those hit hard!

Stoney, I am with you on the trip to the Middle East to see the birds...thanks, but no thanks! I am content with the birdies here and close by! Palestine's finest hotels, as described in the article, have NO appeal for me...not anywhere on my top 1,000 bucket list!Too much conflict of the bomb and bullet kind in that area for me....Wonder if they give IQ tests or psych exams to tourists who sign up to wander around over there?

My feeders were covered up with gold finches this am, after the rain stopped about 4:00 am....(I did not brave the storms to bring them in last night to save the seeds from the raccoon, and apparently he did not visit.)
I can see a pair of bluebirds (so cute, mom and dad, blue back, orange chests, white tummies) out in front, checking out the largest of my 10+ birdhouses hanging from the trees. They seem to think the big brown one is good for spring nesting. I will have a perfect view of them from the kitchen window! Hope they stay and have kids!

Arghhh! Just had to open the front door and shoo three deer off the up-sprouting daylilies in the yard!! Varmints! They are not abiding by the rules I explained to them....carrots in the back yard, no nibbling in the front! Those 3 must be from a foreign herd not to have grasped the cafeteria rules here!

The sparrow came to my bedroom window this morning checking the block behind the drain spout as a nesting spot.  That would be great so yjat like you, Moose, I can watch the young.
 
Sparrows are abundant around here as are starlings.  Starlings are a bane, and a pair have decided to nest in the eaves of the computer room.  Must rig up something to prevent that.  I do love to watch and feed our birds but pulling out the insulation and nesting in the eaves is not one my OK list.   
 
I call those moments you mentioned, Spring, "thin places":  Early morning where nature sounds prevail, quiet times in the woods,  sitting by aa bubbling stream.   We're in touch with creation and the Creator. 

Is that a malaprop: yjat f instead of that.

Park4--check out Stoney's link to Sandhill cranes. You may have them visit, but their route maybe a little further north.   I love looking for birds. I live in the city, but we have a nice diversity here: sparrows, gold and house finches, cardinals, woodpeckers, chickadees, doves, pigeons, hawks, owls, crows, seagulls, bluejays...  It's all fun.
 
I went out last evening for my Friday night workout.  On the way home I slid through a red light. I wasn't going fast, but the breaks just didn't work. After that, we decided to stay home and not go out for fish.

Rusty, Spring--I love that time of day too.  When I was younger, I only saw it if I stayed up all night. Since I've grown up (somewhat), I've discovered it's easier and more fun to enjoy that time of day after a good night's sleep. It's always pleasing to hear the robins and cardinals wake up.  I've never gone on a formal bird watching trip, but we keep binoculars in the car for when we spot something interesting.  Stoney, those White Pelicans up in the Fox Cities are magnificent.  I remember the first time I saw one as I was driving over the Polish connection.  They are really big birds!  Also, did you hear that there is a congressman who is trying to establish a hunting season for Sandhills in WI too.

Bebe--poor you a real litterbox debacle.  I don't think it sounds pretty at all--what a mess to wake up to.              I'm not a birder or much of a nature girl, so I'll probably just listen to y'all today.  

CAROL.....................Thank you.............do you have a cat? I made the mistake of  buying a replacement litterbox that was more suited to a kitten.......dumbo me! After cleaning I went down to the lake & walked around the camping oval...................birds galore, clean air, fires going, people moving about..........a nice start to a Saturday. I would not by any sense of the word call myself a birder, but I do love to watch them at their feeders. they make me smile. If you don't have any feeders, try buying one & putting it where you can see it. I think you will love it!
 
 

Since I didn't click on the link provided for the Sandhill Cranes I have deicded that the DNR stands for Do Not Resuscitate....
 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/28/MN3S1NB3C6.DTL
 
The parrots in San Francisco are headed to the burbs!

Are not
five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are
worth more than many sparrows.

If one billion birds fly over the Holy Land every year, and
five sparrows sell for two pennies, how long will it take to earn enough
shekels to replant the hairs on my head?

Spring Rain ~ It is the holiest of times and when the nightstorms
abate, it is the purest of times.

Miss Bebe ~ Cats should be given entrance exams before they
are allowed to live in the house. I am not fond of the creatures, I must have
been a canary in a previous life. I hope you find Jax, I am putting out another Ahem Alert for Miss Blue.

PMS ~
It took some extra clicking but the piece was worth it… thanks.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/28/MN3S1NB3C6.DTL

Probably the same result.

His Eye...

http://youtu.be/_Jvkqtnq6Q8

That explains the migratory pattern through the Holy Land, much easier to keep His eye on 'em.

Moose:  I gave up with the deer.  They just don't listen.  So I tore up the cafeteria rule book and they've got full run of the place.  Which I must admit, delights me.  Except for last weekend when we had 3 bucks (with racks, big ones) running around here - big guys and they weren't interested in shrubs or trees or bushes or grass.  Odd for 3 bucks to hang out together isn't it?  Must have been a gaggle of girls around but I didn't see them...anyhow, I love the deer, the DNR has allowed so much killing off of the herd due to a disease which has long been eradicated but still the killing is allowed - so last year, we had few deer.  This year, it's looking better.  Can't wait for the first spotted fawn...AND BTW, glad you made it through the night.

I Marjorie:  Why is the congressman eager to kill sandhill cranes?  I don't want to read the article because it will make me sad....I know this is Wisconsin and hunting is a sport held in high regard but cripes, just because it breathes, doesn't mean it needs killing and that's just how it seems it is.  Let it be, let them live - if I ever knew I was responsible for taking the life of an innocent unthreatening animal, I honestly do not know what I would do.... And:  does everyone in Wisconsin go out for fish fry on Friday nights?

Glad for the weather survivors! The only time I get to see much of my dear deer is when my apple tree is feeding them, and happily for me, its right outside my window.

I agree with SPRING RAIN about that time of morning b ut MARJORIE also reminded me of "those days" when someone would say "Oh no! The birds are chirping!" and we would realize we would have to call it night, since it was day.

 
 
 
 
http://youtu.be/KV84pwK-JYg
 
 
 

Stoney - Thanks for the " His Eye is On The Sparrow" rendition! We all need reminding of such wonderment occasionally. Our little birds are part of Nature's blessings to us all. Such industry, such busy-ness, ever optimistic.

Park - I have almost given up on teaching the deer some dining rules, but I have so many daylilies (most passed down from a dear aunt who gave their beginnings to me over 40 yrs. ago), and they are so pretty when they bloom....If I can keep the Bambis off the sprouting leaves until they mature...The don't like the taste of the mature leaves...and then keep them off the buds and blooms! The rest of the yard is pretty much natural.

One year I did not spray and they ate every bud in one night, over 50 blooms! So, I spray Hinder (smelly Deer Off spray) around the yard after a rain and about every 3-4 days when the blooms are out. I do feed the deer off the back deck several bags of carrots each week, and they are so tame, they come when I call out, "Ok, where are the girls? Here, deer!" I hear them trotting through the leaves in the forest, coming to the feeding area just off my back deck. They line up and look up, waiting for the manna of carrots! I have had as many as a dozen or so at a time

It is true that people have called for a hunt to thin the herd, and the manager of our gated community gives out "hunting passes" to his buddies to hunt on the forested land that abuts our development. We hear gunshots occasionally, especially on weekend night. A 22,000 acre college near here has such a herd that they allow bow hunting in controlled sessions and warn students that hunters will be on campus. If they overpopulate, they starve, so I guess thinning is necessary. I agree that it is hard to see how too many Sandhill Cranes can be a problem, though(?)

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art- Fisherman Extraordinaire Izaak Walton like me enjoyed sitting on the bank of a well appointed stream and pondering the heavens above as the winged Ones looked down at Mother Earth where dinner resided. One incomplete without the other.

Tommy Typical~ Izaak Walton reckoned that the best stuff for tying fishing flies is the long hairs from the tails off the white horses that draw the Queen's carraige. A friend wrote to Buckingham palace quoting this bit of wisdom and requesting a few horse hairs. To his delight, a rather posh envelope arrived in the post containing horse-tail hair and a "With compliments" card. In the days when I had horses, all the hairy stuff from the grooming brushes was put outside for the birds to collect as nesting material.
 

Rusty,Thank you for sharing your word, "thin places".  That's a good name.  Can I ask if you invented this term or did it originate from some place else?  I love it.

Rusty,Thank you for sharing your word, "thin places".  That's a good name.  Can I ask if you invented this term or did it originate from some place else?  I love it.  And yes, that is a time of day when we are close to creation, and the creation reminds us of the One who made all things.  How magnificent is His handiwork.  He knows when a sparrow falls.  I am so thankful He cares for us. There is a song that says, "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he cares for me."

I, too, like "thin places," but have always believed they are nigh-magical places where special and especially-gifted people cross back and forth between two realities.  Magical. And more....
 
For the first time I today noticed the "Talent Show," and set about typing a sonnet...only to receive a red message: Too many words. It IS too many, but you can't just do away with lines; you'll ruin the form. 
 
Has anyone else tried it?
 
On Topic: It's pure magic to me how birds foretell weather changes, chirping madly,
swiftly flying. As if to warn....  For two days now they've been so "warning," I suppose because we're near -- but not too -- the path of tornadoes.  The only tornado we've had was forty or so years ago in McBean, a teeninetsy town nearby; the only thing it hit and destroyed was the McBean post office.  Given what's going on in post offices, surely poor McBean no longer has its one. We're about to lose several; none of it makes sense.

Georgia ~ There is a limit of 150 words, but I can't imagine that a sonnet would go over the limit.  I'd be disappointed to know that the format discourages entering a poem, even more disappointed that I might not have a chance to read your sonnet.

The old post office
down there to McBean
a moderately busy place…
forevermore unseen.

Alright, I can hear the groans.



 

Haze - the beauty of what you wrote overwhelms me. The connection of the itty bitty useful things makes me hear universal laughter...

Rusty:  "thin places" - I love that.  It's perfect...  thank you.

More, Stoney, more...no groans, just wanting more.

A twister she come through one night
her intentions were selective
She picked the only structure whose
aura was defective

Ben and Peg stood there
glass shards beneath them snappin'
Oh, God, I thought that I'd be dead
before this would ever happen

Okay, that would be rejected by crappy country singer.
What we need here is RY and/or paolos who are really good at this stuff.

Past time for bed. I live in a thin place so maybe I'm off Trout Fishing In America, calling in at the Cleveland Wrecking Yard. I need no alarm clock, the birds will sing the morning in for me. Nos da.

Hazel ~
You should order the one half mile dehydrated brown trout version. They ship it in a roll and you just lay it out and add water.
All you need is some horsehair, feathers, a tiny hook and Bob's your uncle.
Or, if you are really hungry, a fat juicy night crawler.

Stoney I love it!  What did it take you, 30 minutes.  You need a chorus... okay that would be rejected by a crappy country singer,we need paolos or roadyacht and then we'd have a zinger... I'm jest funnin.
   Geeze you are a talent, I went to make up our bed and I thought to myself 'P, you used to teach poetry,  remember that week you worked on sonnets?" - & I remembered: oh what a week that was...They never quite got the rhyming down, but they appreciated those who could and did. You're my Sonnet Hero.  Seriously.

"...and Bob's your uncle."  ???!!!  That made me do that laugh out loud thing. You're in great form tonight.

a sonnet follows the rhyme or pattern of the A,B,A,B,C,D,C,D,E,F,E,F,G,G rhyme scheme.
 
 
Who came up with stuff like this? 
 
It's those two G, G lines that'll get you every time.

Spring, Georgia, Park, the term "Thin Places" is Celtic--and that's not just Irish.  It is the place where the ordinary and the mystical meet.  I learned it through the study of the Celtic way of Christianity.   It is also something that can happen in a place one time you are there and not be there the next time.   There is another term "Mountain Top Experience", and I have come to learn you don't need the mountain top.  
 
I also think it can be where we are aware of the spirits from the past, Georgia.  I hike a mountain where American Indians used to camp and at times I am positive they are with me.  Other times I don't sense them at all.
 
I'll try to repeat this tomorrow in case one of you has missed this.  I love the term and the feeling the thin place offer.
 
 

Rusty ~ I always thought the thin place was a reference
to the top of my head.

Stoney ~ I doubt Willie Trask himself could improve on
that.

Rusty, Thank you.  Do you recall the TV show from the early  90s Beauty and the Beast?  There was a Halloween episode about an Irish poet. I remember her words, "when the walls 'tween the worlds grow thin . . ."  those words were so lovely, they have stayed with me all these years.  However, I do not personally believe this, the words were still beautiful.

Park4 ~
It is snowing yet again: beautiful stellar dendrite clusters that sparkle in the light at the backdoors even before they land.
The Beauty was on cloud nine last night. It was pretty and she loves snow only slightly less than Smilla Jasperson. It is our Danish blood.
The cardinals at the feeders never look better than with a pure white backdrop.

Georgia ~
There is no word count at Peterman's Eye… I checked.
I can't remember how, but I stumbled on some YouTube Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae duets earlier.
Boy, she was the tops and though he may have had an equal or two, nobody was, in my opinion, better.

Rusty ~
As a little boy, I sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night to sit, watch and listen to things almost nobody else knew about.
Mr. Simpson, our old next door neighbor, came out one night with an eye to startling or joining me.
I said, "Hi" when he was still ten feet away on a night blacker than the inside of your hat.
"I heard you peeing before you came down the stairs."
He asked how late I stayed out?
"Never until…" I was searching.
"The threat of dawn?" he offered.
"Exactly," I said, "it wrecks everything."

paolos ~
Very nice, thanks. Now, can we channel up old Willie? I miss him.

The toilets were stacked on shelves. They were stacked five toilets high. There was a skylight above the toilets that made them glow like the Great Taboo Pearl of the South Sea movies.

Stoney ~ I think Willie Trask is a legend and he exists only
in the village, although I did find an anthology of what was called
"primitive" verse edited by one Willie Trask in our public
library.  I have since wondered if they were one and the same.  I
think I will pour another tumbler of John Jameson’s finest and perhaps the
aroma will draw him out.  Would you care
to join me for a nightcap?

Tommy ~ You're welcome to join in but you may have to regale us with tales of the Great Taboo Pearl of the South Sea.  I'll be the one sitting quietly, just listenin', sippin' and rockin'.Stoney will be the one noddin' either in agreement or off to sleep. 

nite cap, foolscap

fill them both

before you nap

when you wake

the breath you take

is like the trail in the lake

you know the one

like the boats make

if in the air

a bird goes by

does it leave a wake

there in the sky

Eli ~ I'm pouring.  Straight up or on the rocks?

rocks,please.....and not the Wallmart ones, I'd like the FourSeasons ones that got smuggledinto the Club Car for thin nights like this

Only the best for you RY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amS4IZfA_tc

I remember that! and the guy that had all 7 plates spinning on those sticks- - and Topo Gigo...a really great shoe

Straight up.
Aahhh

Birds are flying over the borders all over the world, and they do not care for the boundaries, check points, or government rule of each nation. Do Mexican sparrows come over and stay, or get nesting material and go back south?

Do you think the Cuban seagulls light on the piers of Key West without consequences, or the Russian birds cross over the Bering Sea or into Scandinavia from their wintery homes with no passports or green cards? Isn't it odd that mankind cannot be as free to wander as are the feathered fowl? Perhaps those humans who know where the "thin" places are and can sense the sheer veil between worlds....maybe they can cross over. ..(Cue Twilight Zone theme.......)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi6wNGwd84g&feature=related

The bill to hunt sandhill cranes in WI is being introduced by Joel Kleefisch, husband of the current Lieutenant Govenor, Rebecca Kleefisch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/us/wisconsin-consider-hunting-of-sandhill-crane.html?_r=1
It is to combat crop damage. At least that's what they are saying. Here is more information
 
 http://www.savingcranes.org/hunting-issue.html

STONEY...........................I swear I did not conjure it...............or did I???? You mentioned the wonderful Jo Stafford. She was my father's favorite and a few years ago she gave me a CD of her music. Lovely....................