Tag Archives: bird

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Thaw

This is Tiktok. In 2019 he overwintered at my house. We had snow and it got very cold at night and I worried. But every morning, he’d appear near the feeder when it got light. Then he would throw a mild conniption at me when I went outside with a hot towel to try to thaw the feeder. “Hurry up, hurry up, I am hungry!” He certainly figured out that I was the person who dealt with the feeder. He would buzz me if the feeder was empty, too. He makes a ticking sound, so that’s where the name is from. One of those old things called clocks, with hands, that ticked.

Right now I have two feeders up. I am seeing a female Anna’s hummingbird in the front, chasing others away, and a male at the kitchen feeder. It may be Tiktok still! I have named the female Emerald. I have seen them together in the top of the plum tree, but this is after Emerald chased Tiktok away from her feeder. It’s a bit unclear if they are friends or not.

Meanwhile, Elwha has the opposite of a conniption.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: conniption.

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Feed the birds

I fill the bird feeder, a day late, because I had to go buy more birdseed. I also buy suet and fill that feeder. I walk both cats, harness and leash, one at a time. I put both of them in the outdoor screened animal container and they crouch, riveted watching the birdfeeder. I put four peanuts along the top of the fence.

I hold a fifth peanut in my hand over my head and wait. It starts snowing, just a little.

The flock of goldfinches, in their winter more subtle coloring, shows up. I count nine. The feeder can hold 6 at a time. They ignore my hand. A stellar jay comes by, but stays high in the tree. Chickadees pop in between the goldfinches. They are rounder and a little bigger and talk to me. No one comes to my hand. Juncos come to the ground beneath the feeder. The cats would REALLY like to catch them.

And then a bird does come. A hummingbird comes to my hand and hovers right by it! It does not land. It doesn’t like the peanut. It then goes and buzzes the glass, where I used to have a hummingbird feeder up, until the ants find it.

I laugh and get the other hummingbird feeder. I make food and wait for it to cool. I fill both feeders. The Anna’s hummingbird finds it within 15 minutes and eats a lot. The other feeder is on a different window, right outside my desk window. It is soon occupied by a second hummingbird.

I hope to have more photographs soon.

I took this out my desk window yesterday.

There is avian influenza around. I have two feeders and wash one very thoroughly in hot water and soap each time. I change the feeder out every time, to try to reduce the chance of the feeder passing on infection. And wash my hands very well too.

Though it’s rather more than tuppence a bag!

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Frosted

Ok, it’s not frost, is it? It’s snow.

I went out each morning to get the frozen feeder and wrap a hot towel around it until TicTok could drink. TicTok would yell at me if I didn’t fix it as soon as it was light.

The Anna’s hummingbirds can overwinter here. It got well below freezing. They can slow their metabolism and do an overnight mini-hibernation. They are hungry as bears when they wake up!

Taken in 2019.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: frost.

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Dating Scream

Happy Halloween, darlings, and let’s make you scream.

I am the Witch of Fourteenth Street, at least, I take a woman over on Fourteenth Street on Halloween. I can’t control her year round, but once a year at midnight, she is mine. Mine, mine, mine.

There is only so much evil one can do from midnight to one am once a year, but THIS year. Oh, darlings, this is so much FUN. She already identifies as a feminist. I can’t make many changes, but I can get away with one. A dating screen. Or a dating scream, if you prefer. While I am in her brain, I tweak a neuron here and a neuron there: just a little. If you mess with too much, they go all schizophrenic on you and some witches have been trapped in brains. I’ve been delicately tweaking this brain for years. Just a touch and then out and wait for the results.

Delightful.

So she wakes on November 1, and does she notice? No. I have to tweak lightly, so my touch doesn’t even go into effect right away. In fact it takes months. She is just having the result now.

“I have a new dating screen,” she says to a male friend. “Have you ever read a trashy romance?”

“No. Why would I?” says her friend.

“That’s my new screen. All these guys I know say “I don’t understand women.” If I ask them if they’ve read a romance, they act all insulted. They say why would I do that? The conservative ones act like it is beneath them.”

“Um.” says her friend.

“But if these guys are interested in women, why aren’t they interested enough to study women’s culture? Romances show exactly what our culture is packaging for sale to women. Bodice rippers. Harlequin Romances. And so forth.”

“Well, I’ve read two articles in Cosmopolitan about women.”

“The truth is that most men think women’s culture is beneath them. It is unimportant. They scorn Harlequin Romances, knitting, women’s work, women’s culture. And guess what? I don’t want to date some jerk who thinks he’s superior to me. Men expect women to respect male culture, but they have no respect for women at all.”

“Hey, not all men.”

“Yeah? Will you read a romance?”

“I have a long list of important reading.”

“Oh. I am disappointed. I would like to discuss a romance with an intelligent male. Never mind.”

“Uh, well… Um, maybe you could pick one that would get your point across.”

Oh, darlings, aren’t I the greatest witch in the world? I primed my victim with quotations. “Women’s virtue is man’s greatest invention.” Cornelia Otis Skinner (1901 – 1979). “In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on woman.” Nancy Astor (1879-1964). “I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). My victim has been thinking about the quotations and has reached a conclusion.

And darling, do you think she will find anyone to date?

Shall we start a pool?

(Evil laughter.)

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how to protect codgers

A friend calls me yesterday, complaining that the new Covid-19 vaccine doesn’t prevent infection nearly enough for him to want to get it. He is in his 70s and says darn it, he’d still have a 60% chance of getting infected.

I thought about it and wrote back this morning:

Re the new vaccine the POINT is NOT to prevent infection, though it lessens it in codgers like me and you.

The point is that the vaccinated younger people shed a s–tload less virus if they get it, because their immune system kills it fast. This reduces the amount of circulating virus so that the codgers stop dying like flies. Also the codgers get less sick if their immune system recognizes B4 and B5.

Got it? Get the vaccine.

I am waiting for the top ten causes of death for 2021 to come out. Over one million US people have died of Covid-19. In 2020, there were between 300-400,000 deaths from Covid. That means that we lost 600-700,000 in 2021. If we lost close to 700,000 people, then Covid-19 would beat out heart disease as the number one cause of death in the US. When did that last happen? During the 1918-1920 influenza, the “Spanish” flu that has been traced to a chicken farm in the US midwest.

Here is a provisional and not final list: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/provisional-leading-causes-of-death-for-2021.pdf. Hmmm. The numbers are not adding up unless a lot of US people died of Covid-19 in early 2022. And cancer is higher than it’s ever been and creeping up on heart disease. But these are not the final numbers, sigh.

Here is a fascinating chart: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf. If you scroll to the end, the top two causes of death in 1900 were pneumonia first and tuberculosis. Heart was fourth. Heart rises to first in 1910 but then pneumonia is back at the top in 1918-1920. I think that the heart has been number one ever since, in the US. World top ten is not the same.

This is not the first pandemic and it won’t be the last. It is horrible. I think that everyone is doing the best they can, though some responses seem saner than others. Remember the old doctor joke about what to do in a code (when someone’s heart has stopped). First: check your own pulse. It’s a corollary that if the patient is dead, you can try to bring them back, but you can’t make them more dead. Also, my latest Advanced Cardiac Life Support class, on line, told me that sometimes I do not have to do cardiac life support. Their example was a decapitated patient. Really? Ouch, doctor humor. But truly, if you are freaking out or want to scream at someone or feel like the world is nuts and you have to do something, first check your own pulse. Slow it down. Breath in four and out four. I can drop my pulse from 101 to 71 in 20 seconds, just by slowing my breathing. You can learn to too.

My recommendation is that if you are due for the booster, get it. And thank you for protecting me and my friend and the other codgers.

No, it is not snowing here yet. But codger seems to be a word for an old GUY. Humph. Would a grumpy hummingbird be a grummer? What is a female codger? I am using codger for any gender, to heck with it.