Mondaily - end of the Kickstarter, Guppy photo, mystery bird, and weekend fun.

[ellenmillion]

Today, so far, I have done a load of laundry (I still need to fold it), put up a hook at the dog run for the clip, leveled the doghouse (it had settled poorly over the last year), emptied all the old straw out of it, and folded up the last stray tarp from the yard. Then Guppy and I had mac and chee for lunch with Honeycrisp apples and Bugles while we watched Shrek 2. She just went (after complaining) down for her nap.

Oh, and I closed out my Kickstarter at 1090%! Eeee! That last hour felt like a cardio workout - my poor heart. But we did fund 11 coloring books, most of them with color covers. I'll be sending out surveys pronto, and getting all the files together asap, horrah!

But with most of the Kickstarter craziness now out of the way, we can get back to what you're really reading this blog for: adorable Guppy photos!



Also, a request for a bird ID... this lovely fellow was lying stunned on the ground by our fuel tank yesterday morning. The dog ran right over him (oblivious), and he didn't move when humans approached. I went to get some seed to put next to him, and THAT was finally alarming enough that he took off - a somewhat low, awkward-looking flight, but I'm hoping he wasn't badly hurt.



We smoked 15 pounds of pulled pork this weekend! It is TASTY, and my freezer is now full of delicious. I also went and saw Kung Fu Hamlet, which... yes, is Hamlet done in the style of a Kung Fu movie, complete with bad dubbing and spontaneous dance scenes and dramatic fights. It actually worked really well and was very entertaining. Silly, yes, REALLY cheesy, but locals, you should catch this next weekend, if you haven't yet.

And now, I've got surveys to finish sending and coloring books to finish compiling! *skedaddles*

Comments

[redkite7.livejournal.com]

Looks like a Varied Thrush?

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/200/_/Varied_Thrush.aspx

[metasilk.livejournal.com]

I agree: Varied Thrush! How wonderful! I've never seen one in person, though one was accidentally in Vermont last winter or the one before.

For future bird things (blather alert!): For a book I tote around a Sibley Guides (I don't have the Western birds), and love to browse through Crossley's guides (hawks! AUGH! Juveniles all look alike! http://www.crossleybooks.com/ ).

Online I think All About Birds is pretty fabulous for ID and life history: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Varied_Thrush/id
eBird is great for data/reporting/checking out sightings in the/your/almost any area: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/

For apps I use Audubon Guides by Green Mountain digital (for ID; I have a combined birds+more edition that's huge and slow to load but excellent), iNaturalist (for help in ID, but the Vermont Atlas of Life project there has lots of experienced birders/herpers/etc.), and Merlin (by Cornell Labs). I've tried Sibley Lite, something else lite (maybe Peterson's?) and BirdSnap (huge, but very useful premise: upload photo, tell beak, back, tail, and it tries to find your bird).

End blather!

More birdie books

[alexander mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

And according to this "Bird Songs" book-and-player I snagged at The Book Thing on Saturday, the Varied Thrush (which, yes, this seems to be) has a one-note bleat that could pass for a sheep...........

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Woot! That's an awesome Kickstarter result!

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

That wee bird does not look native to Alaska, to me. o.O