Some Firsts and Some Sweet Ease in Everyday Ramblings

This is Sauvie Island, one of the biggest river islands here in these United States. We were out there for almost five hours on Saturday and it was so beautiful. First foggy but then shortly it cleared and with the bare winter trees and two bird experts and three expensive spotting scopes we saw over forty different kinds of birds.

For me the most exciting was the Pileated Woodpecker. That is the big redheaded woodpecker that the cartoon Woody Woodpecker is modeled after. I have been on trips where people have heard them but I have not ever actually seen one. This guy was in one tree and then flew to another and so through the scopes I was able to see him perfectly and from many angles.

We also saw a gorgeous little Lincoln’s Sparrow with delicate markings, and a patch of orange under his beak in an area they call the lores. He was in a blackberry bramble.

We saw many bald eagles, both immature and a spectacular fly by from two mature adults hunting together that totally freaked the geese, swans, and other waterfowl out. There were snow geese and kestrels, harriers and a peregrine falcon. We saw an early violet green swallow and all kinds of ducks.

Gosh, just typing this I looked up and there is a male downy woodpecker at my suet feeder. We are having the most spectacularly gorgeous President’s Day I ever remember with the sun out, a breeze and warmish temperatures.

I feel bad even sharing this because I know so many of you are having late horrid icy snowy below freezing stormy weather.

Our governor, who I respected and did good things for our state has been an absolute idiot about a woman and has resigned a few months into his fourth term. Everybody is just sad.

I got a couple of high profile murder mysteries at the library late last week and this morning after I fed the cats and filled the bird feeder and millet tray I got back in bed and finished Vertigo 42 by Martha Grimes. I had never managed to read a Richard Jury mystery before and it took me a long time to get into this one. But then, boom, I was in and I enjoyed the luxury of reading last night.

This morning at first Diego came in and leaned against my legs and then somehow Carlo managed to get him calmed down and they both curled up in a big endless pile of gray fur on me until I finished the book.

If I were physically away on vacation I wouldn’t be doing anything “useful”. I tell myself it is okay to have a few days of hanging out and just being instead of doing. Here at home, all the stuff that needs to be done is talking but so far I have managed to talk back.

It will all be there for me on Wednesday when I return to work and start checking things off of lists…

But right now…the sun is out, the chickadees are sing their Hey, Sweetie, Sweetie Hey mating song and life is good.

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” William James

Last updated February 16, 2015