Just More Birds

The weather has finally turned to something more like summer weather, well, at least for half of the day today, probably tomorrow, and then a few days next week if the forecasters are correct.  It was nice to feel the sun on my skin today, wear shorts comfortably, wear sunglasses, and complain about how humid it was!
It was a great afternoon to do some bird nerding.

We didn't see anything our of the ordinary but had a good time waiting for small, fast birds to give us a chance to get some pictures.

A Pacific Wren.  I guess I have recently decided to embrace my new bird nerd level and try to collect photos of as many different species as I can.  This bird has a really pretty song and does not make getting its picture easy.  It took the better part of an hour to get this okay shot.

Lots of female Rufous Hummingbirds out today!  I know the bottom picture isn't very good but I liked the flash of color.

I will be leaving tomorrow for a 6 day kayak trip in a group of islands an hour west of Wrangell called the Kashevaroff Islands.  It is a beautiful area with limestone sea cliffs and shorelines, lots of whales, a ommonly seen family of killer whales, sea otters, and just some beautiful scenery.  If the weather forecast is correct, there should be opportunities for some great photos!  I'm also hoping to see some of our familiar whales and get some photos of some new ones.  This will be my first multi day adventure here in Southeast in a few years so I am excited!

Stay tuned!

Bird Nerd

Somehow I have become somewhat of a bird nerd.  Well, what I should say is that I have become more of an open bird nerd after having been one secretly for a long time.  I'm not the nerdiest of bird nerds and my skill in identifying birds by their songs needs quite a bit of work but trying to capture birds on camera has become a fun hobby.

This is more often than not the result of bird photography, a shot missed by fractions of a second or an incredibly blurry bird since many of the smaller ones rarely stay still for long.  This bird was a warbler that was a first sighting for me, a warbler called a Common Yellowthroat.

Getting a little better.  At least his yellow throat is visible as well as his robber mask.  Andrea has also become a bird nerd and it was an app she has on her phone of bird songs that brought this guy close enough to us to get some pictures.

This last picture is one of Andrea's.  I think she got the best photo.

A Quick One

A cool bird nerd moment for me.  There have been some Cedar Waxwings around lately which is a rare sighting here.   These guys were eating the first salmonberries on the bushes in my yard a couple mornings ago while I was riding my indoor bike.  I had to jump off the bike and grab my camera to snap a few pictures.

A buck on the beach with a broken antler.  Looks pretty uncomfortable but didn't seem to be affecting him too badly.  I hope nothing serious results from this so he can live through the summer and we can see what the antlers look like once the velvet sheds.

A very unkempt porcupine.  He has an Albert Einstein or Bernie Sanders look going.

Sap Suckers

It's amazing to me how a long walk in a natural setting can make the problems and issues of the human world fade and seem less important.  That has been much needed as of late as 2020 has so far been a pretty miserable year.  The Muskeg Meadows Nature Preserve has often provided the needed respite from the insanity and fearmongering that has been 2020 to date with its impressive population of animals.
A few days ago while we were taking an after work walk, we came upon a willow tree that was being tapped by a Red Breasted Sapsucker.  We stopped to get some photos of the colorful bird but did not realize that we were about to experience a very entertaining nature story.

These orderly holes bored into the bark of this willow are the signature of a foraging sapsucker, many a tree displays the almost artistic scarification left by these hungry suckers.
Many years ago I was fortunate enough to witness a phenomenon that answered, at least in part, a question I had had for a long time regarding the Rufous Hummingbirds that migrate here much earlier than seems necessary or wise for such a small, delicate, and energy dependent bird.  The hummingbirds arrive here in April which is a time of year when it is still cold and winter has only very recently departed.  There are no nectar producing flowers yet, not many insects, really nothing I could think of that could sustain these little birds so early in the year and make it worth leaving their warm winter homes for the cold north.  It was a mystery that I was really, really curious about and pondered over every year when the first hummers would show up.
It was a Red Breasted Sapsucker (RBS) that answered this question for me and at least partially solved the mystery of what keeps the hummingbirds humming in the very early spring.
While walking a nearby trail one April, I came across an RBS foraging on a trailside willow.  I watched it for a few moments until it flew off to another tree further away but was quickly replaced at the trailside willow by a hummingbird.  The hummingbird hovered at the newly created holes weeping willow sap and proceeded to reap the rewards of the RBS's work.  Mystery solved!!  I was very excited and awed by the efficiency and glory of the natural world.  I have since seen this commensal partnership many times and every time I wonder at the relationship between these two birds.

This recent RBS added some interesting and enlightening chapters to that older story as I learned that it isn't only hummingbirds who benefit from these pretty birds.  After this particular RBS left for another tree, some smaller birds quickly flew into the willow and made their way to the oozing sap.  The resident warblers also seem to enjoy the fruits of the RBS's labor.

This is a male Yellow Rumped Warbler, Dendroica coronata.  According to my field guide, this is the Audubon subspecies to be specific.  Silly bird nerds!!

This guy is an Orange Crowned Warbler, Vermivora celata.  I don't know where its orange crown is or why this species is named in this way as my field guide describes this bird as "dingy, greenish yellow with no distinct markings".  I guess Dingy Warbler isn't very flattering but come on biologists, why be so misleading with the name.  Why not Green Warbler or Yellow Green Warbler at least?

These sugary sapsucker wounds don't just provide energy to other birds, this greedy little guy barged right in and scared away the warblers until we decided he had had enough and then ran him off.

On a different day here at the nature preserve, I saw a squirrel try to attack an RBS.  The RBS was low on a nearby tree to the tree the squirrel was in when the squirrel jumped from its tree right at the RBS.  The RBS flew away safely and I guess I don't know for sure if this was a deliberate attack or just coincidence, but squirrels have predatory tendencies sometimes and that one might have wanted to add some variety to its diet.

This Hairy Woodpecker was not eating sap from the willow but was a cool bird sighting for me on a different day near the same spot.  These woodpeckers aren't common here so seeing one close enough to get some photos was nice.

The above picture was a really cool bird sighting despite the obvious fact that I had my camera in black and white mode from a few days before.  This is a Cedar Waxwing which is pretty rare to see here so was a total surprise when I saw it chasing insects through the bushes.

A couple more of the Red Winged Blackbird.

And, as a reminder, what I call the Muskeg Meadows Nature Preserve is also the Muskeg Meadows Golf Course where deer, porcupines, and the occasional bear usually outnumber the golfers.

Enough

This post is going to be a sharp detour from the normal sharing of experiences in Alaska as I am fed up, worried, angry, confused, and at the end of my tolerance of ignorance, political correctness, and media propaganda.  Keep reading if you want be you were warned and if it makes some of you not like me or not read this blog again, so be it.

Enough of this racism bullshit.  Enough of this systemic or institutionalized racism propaganda being forced on us by the powerful who want nothing more than complete control and will do whatever it takes to get it including instigating hatred between us.  Enough!

Is there racism in this country?  Yes.  Are there racist people in this country?  Yes.  Such is humanity, an imperfect species competing for resources just like all other species.  There is some degree of racism anywhere there are human beings and the truth is, this country is one of the least racist on the planet.  How the hell else do we literally have people here from every part of the world?  Will racism ever go away?  No, there will always be some hateful people who will hate for some reason be it a different race, class, fan of a sports team, gender, whatever.

I have had enough of being told that I am somehow evil or bad because I am white, especially because I am a white male.  I have had enough of being told that white people can't experience racism.  I have had enough of being told that I have white privilege.  I have had enough of being lectured to by progressive white people, most of whom are truly privileged and have grown up in affluent white neighborhoods, that I am somehow ignorant of what "people of color" experience in America.  I have had enough of these entitled, ignorant, politically correct white people.  I am sick of white people who have bought into white guilt.  Deal with your guilt yourself and quit trying to put it on me, I got over it and I'll give you some advice on how to get over it -  THINK!!!!    Just think for God's sake!!

Why should I feel guilty about slavery in America?  I shouldn't.  My ancestors did not live in this country when slavery happened and even if they did, that wouldn't be on me.  It was a horrible thing but England and the US ended it and even forced other countries to end it.  And guess what?  Like it or not, the Arabs and Africans played a huge part in slavery as well.  And guess what?  Every race has enslaved people at some time in history.  And guess what?   There is slavery in many, many countries right now and many of these countries are the ones the guilty white people like to defend the most and consist of  "people of color" enslaving other "people of color".

Enough of  the saying "people of color" as well.  Doesn't anyone else see the idiocy of this phrase?  If  a person called a black person "colored" or a "colored person" they would be considered uncouth at the least and potentially racist at worst but switch the words around and throw an "of" in there and you are an enlightened, politically correct white savior.  What happened to judging by the content of one's character and not the color of their skin?  Wasn't that MLK's hope and dream?  Well what the fuck people!  Now we talk about skin color more than ever in my lifetime!

I'm so sick of self righteous white people who are so race conscious but get uncomfortable and awkward as soon as a non white person is in their vicinity.  But I do enjoy watching them fumble and bumble around trying to act some way that they think is showing how unracist they are.  I have had enough of entitled white people telling me that I am racist if I relate a story of my early life in Alabama because they are so experienced from their lives in the suburbs or maybe had sex with a black guy once in college.

There are good people of every race and shit people of every race, that's the reality of the world.  Racism exists and always will and every race is guilty of it, not just white people.  By the way, speaking of white people, I recently did the Census and learned that "white people" include Lebanese, Arabs, Egyptians, Morrocans, and other Middle Eastern and North African people.  Evil white people!!

The current riots are not about racial justice or police brutality, they are a deliberate attempt to destroy and overthrow our society. There is not a problem with police murdering black men in the streets.  There are bad individual police, there are terrible circumstances, bad decisions, tragic situations but no intentional, deliberate execution of black people by police.  Please visit this website from the not even close to right wing newspaper The Washintgton Post and read the actual statistics.
I'll give you an example:  in  2015, 259 black people were killed by police compared to nearly 6,000 black people killed by other black people.  Where is the problem here?

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/


Get over yourselves white people, the world doesn't hinge on you and your guilt.  We are all people.  Doesn't matter our skin color, what matters is who we are individually.  All races have a history with awful atrocities in it but we learn and move on.  Do we expect the Mongolian people of today to pay reparations and feel guilty about the Khans?  Do we expect the Tlingit to live in guilt for enslaving Haidas, Tsimshians, and many other less powerful tribes?

Get over your white guilt that has been indoctrinated into you over your life, it's not helping any race.