Kevin Apuzzio: RIP

We will never forget!

You were a brother to all of us across the nation and you gave the ultimate sacrifice - thank you!

No more word verification -zAp

In case you subscribe to the blog and you haven't popped in for a while, I wanted to let you know that I have removed the word verification feature/requirement from the comments sections. It is now easier and less time consuming for you to chat to me. Removing word verification means I have to deal with a little bit more spam, but that's ok - I love hearing from you so I want to make it as easy as possible. Thanks to Lynne for pointing out that this is a pain in the butt - see I listen and act!

How's your weekend going? I had a great trip to Bucks County, PA today - more soon.

Ltd ID challenge: Bird calls

I'm laying down a challenge to all you bird ID experts out there. The challenge is to ID more birds than I could in the video I posted here. I managed to ID 6 birds in the video based on birds calls (this includes the Great Horned Owl). I will award the much coveted Noddy Badge Award to the person with the most correct birds. You may display the badge on your site for a month for all to see and admire - wow ;-)

Rules:
You can post your answers in the comments below or at the video post. It's probably easier to post your answers while watching the video. Do me a favor and please give me an indication of when you first hear the bird in the video, so I can verify. I won't post any of the comments on this post until the winner has been decided. The closing date for this challenge is Sunday the 20th of April.

I hope to hear from you soon!

Video: African Fish Eagle

Honestly I could post Youtube videos all day...although I won't. I couldn't resist putting this one up as the cinematography is AMAZING! Wow, I even spelled cinamatography right the first time, not bad for a Friday.

Video: Great Horned Owl with chick

Amazing video courtesy of Youtube and KCCITV. Can you identify the bird calls in the video? Let's see how many we can get. Drop your thoughts into the comments section please.

Someone send me wings

For those of you worry warts out there please don't worry about Thumper, he can hardly catch a cold never mind a Cowbird. He's very loving and pretty, but he's not smart! He's also declawed which makes climbing pretty tough for him. Actually even if he had his claws he would still battle to climb because he's sense of balance stinks. Oh well, he's well fed by his owners and the birds entertain him.

BTW, I'm pretty excited because I am going on a County birding trip to Bucks County, PA. It looks like the weather is supposed to be rainy so not sure how many birds we'll see..... Have a great weekend all and enjoy Spring! If you're in the Southern hemisphere, get out those blankets and warm gear and huddle up around a nice warm fire place.

Avian Sleuth

For those of you who like to play bird ID games this is pretty well done. You scroll through a highly detailed visual world and hear the birds -- but they are invisible at first. There are binoculars to zoom in and focus, as well as text hints. Unique, entertaining and educational. As someone who develops interactive training for a living I found this pretty well done. I wish there were more sites like this out there. If you know of any please let me know.

Wordless Wed: Vulture roost

The magic of the web

I just looked at the FEEDJIT map for visitors to my blog today and I must say I'm FASCINATED. Look at how diverse the map is and people are literally coming to the blog from all over the country. I look at the flags on the map and I wonder what it's like to live there. The nice thing about the map is that you can see what the geography looks like. I find myself zooming around the map looking at all the different places and imagining what the birding is like there. To me this gives the internet real power. The power to travel to places in your mind using the resources of computers. Don't get me wrong I would rather travel in the real world, but this is a nice substitute for a Sunday evening.

Now check out the international visitors - sadly no Africans today. Isn't the web amazing though? All of these people came to my blog reading my humble musing from ALL of the world using a zillion different types of readers, feeds, search engines, browsers etc etc - WOW. Thanks for stopping in and I hope you get something from my blog - a laugh, a chuckle, a smile, a slither of info...something.

As chilled as a .............

How was your weekend?

Kites and Grebes

Today was super relaxing which was nice, as I had plenty of late nights this week finishing off a major project. I was supposed to be working on my basement, but I blew it off to spend time playing hopscotch with my daughter. She's only 4 and she was cheating (I promise), so we moved to the backyard to fly a kite. I never had a kite as a kid so I am still getting used to the whole concept. Being a bird fan I love anything that flies so I spent a considerable time today cruising my $1.50 dollar store kite - yip we really spoil our kids! While out in the backyard I heard some woodpeckers drumming and I also had an Osprey fly over, which is a new garden bird for me - SCORE!

After wrapping up the kite flying we headed for dinner at a diner (told you we live BIG). On the way back we stopped at one of the reservoirs and I managed to get some great looks at a very bold Horned Grebe. There were also two Common Loons hunting in the water close to us and I showed both of them to the oldest ankle biter. I am really doing my best to get the kids into birding and the outdoors. This mindset has been solidified by Bill of the Birds' recent post - No child left inside.

Anyway, I have no bird photos but I did find an awesome video of Horned Grebes diving and fishing courtesy of YouTube.