Tag Archives: heron

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Local traffic

Traffic at the cat bowl, November 2021.

Duck and coot traffic at Kai Tai Nature Park.

Laptop traffic. It’s busy.

Bushtit feeder traffic.

Great blue heron traffic. How many do you count in this tree?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: traffic.

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Long Covid and post pneumonia update

I was up above 5000 feet last week and did not need oxygen.

This is wonderful! I was on oxygen continuously from March of 2021 for a year and a half. I was really getting better and then had my Covid booster in early October. I crashed again. Do I regret the shot? No, because the crash is because antibodies went back up. Only some of them, though. My muscles and lungs were not working well again, but brain was fine (ok, some people do not like my brain, but they are idiots) and aside from having to avoid gluten, no digestive stuff.

About a month ago I really started feeling my fast twitch muscles work again. It was two years in March since this fourth pneumonia and I’ve had something Long Covid like after each one. Recovery took 2 months in 2003, 2 months in 2012 and 6 months off in 2014 and then an ongoing mild chronic fatigue, so I worked about half of a regular family medicine schedule. I saw 7-10 people per day instead of 16-22. I was also a single parent running a business with two children, so that has a lot of energy draw as well.

On the second morning there, my pulse was 61 and oxygen level 98% on room air. HOORAY! I am back to baseline from 2014. Since it took 2 years to recover, I really do not want to do this again. No more pneumonia. I have had two more rounds of Covid, but apparently the super high antibody level made it really really mild. An immunologist tested the antibodies since I keep getting pneumonia. He said I have the highest Covid antibody level he’s ever seen. Protective was over 50 and mine was 25,000. I seem to be darn good at making antibodies.

Now what? I have felt better for the last month. I still get tired and have about a half day of the energy level from my 20s or 30s, which was high. I am hiking, up to 6 miles in a day twice two weeks ago. Now to start biking and maybe running. I don’t like to run but it’s good training. I want to ski next winter at least one day. Maybe I will swim too. I used to swim a mile twice a week, but it’s been a long time. Also my swim team daughter expressed scorn for my freestyle stroke. Sigh, children are born to humble us, which sucks.

I am still trying to see if I can work with Long Covid patients. I have rather too much experience with something very like it. But I think I would like to enjoy feeling well for a month or two, first!

Hooray! I hope other Long Covid folks are working their way out of the woods too.

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more blue

For Wordless Wednesday: I am not wordless today, but the herons are so stealthy!

Hiking with my daughter and friend B on the C and O canal, ah! Here is an east coast great blue heron. Standing very still across the canal, just the colors of the rocks and winter trees and leaves. I look for birds or I could have walked right by without seeing this one.

Great blue heron standing on one leg, with surrounding rocks of the same color.

I love the one legged stance. I will need to do a lot more Tai Chi before I can stand on one leg that comfortably. The heron only moved enough to keep an eye on me.

Great blue heron, standing on the shore of the C & O Canal on one leg, observing the photographer.
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zoom

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Oh, hoorah for zoom lenses, because I feel like I am standing on another branch to photograph our heron. My friend goes to the other side of the tree and I work my way around. We are great blue heron paparazzi, in love with our subject, taking picture after picture.

However, we did not get her to fly from the dock. That was another boat arriving and a person walking out.

 

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tall tree

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Our heron flew to these trees: see? I crop the photo and there she is.

P1090149

I am saying she, but I don’t know. For so long we have used “he” to mean both he and she. Let’s reverse that for the next 2000 years, use “she” to mean both she and he. Turn around is fair, right?

And those are really big trees. She doesn’t look so out of place standing there. Nor would I have noticed her if I had not followed her flight.