Project: One photo a day (but not necessarily every day)

[j44ke]

This picture was taken while on the way to my dentist, yesterday. I have lived near York Minster for 30 years and there have been few occasions when it has been free of scaffolding. Observing how hard we work to keep this building standing, I marvel that our ancestors were able to complete it in the first place....

When I was bicycle touring in southern England during the early 80's, I spent a very hot day riding from Chichester through the South Downs to Winchester. I got to Winchester pretty cooked after a lot of rolling hills on narrow roads. I parked my bike and walked through the doors of the cathedral, and a nun appeared (no kidding) in a beam of sunlight from one of the upper windows and said, "You look like you've had a day of it. Why not sit over here and rest a bit?" I went over and sat on a pew bench. It was cool, quiet and the sun was shining into the center of the cathedral in long beams. And I thought, aha I bet this was what it was like to be a pilgrim and to come all this way on foot and then enter the cathedral and be told welcome this is the house of God and believe it immediately.

[j44ke]

Partial barred owl wing near a great horned owl nest.

[open roader]

I've been trying to contribute for the past 5 weeks but every time i download a pic onto VS the page says my image file exceeds my quota by 2.5kB or 1.2kB etc

I'm re-sizing files for the web down as low as 500kB - what gives?

[echappist]

Partial barred owl wing near a great horned owl nest.

Holy s***, that's one vicious bird of prey.

I think in the back of my mind, I was vaguely aware that GHO can chase a barred owl away from the latter's nest and force the latter to find a new location to roost. Didn't quite dawn on me that GHO can utterly destroy a barred owl as well...

[j44ke]

Holy s***, that's one vicious bird of prey.

I think in the back of my mind, I was vaguely aware that GHO can chase a barred owl away from the latter's nest and force the latter to find a new location to roost. Didn't quite dawn on me that GHO can utterly destroy a barred owl as well...

I'd wager that by weight, Great horned owls are the fiercest predatory bird this side of a Bateleur eagle or a Harpy eagle (both of which hunt monkeys.) They are one of the few predators of skunks, and they will take raccoons as well. And house cats. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has (or had) a nest cam on a great horned owl nest, and one year the parents killed a great blue heron and delivered it in parts to the owlets. I was with my dad "owling" one night, and my father imitated a barred owl and a great horned owl came out of the forest and took his hat. He was pretty lucky to have been wearing a hat.

I haven't found the nest yet, but I have it kind of triangulated within an area of big pines on a high spot in the property. They usually nest in crowns of pines, and the last weeks of winter were pretty tough on pine crowns this year. So they must have lost their usual location and moved onto our property. Before this spring, the barred owls had the run of the place.

[TonyP]

I found a, what I think was, a Great Horned owl on the deck of a rail flat car. It looked like it was flying between cars when the trailer on the flat car took it out. It was every bit of two feet tall, my memory of it was that it was larger than that, biggest bird I was ever that near to, dead or alive. Its claws were as big, or bigger, than my hands. It was the middle of winter, and it was frozen solid.

I was working for ConRail, in Chicago, so that means it coulda gotten hit anywhere in the North East corridor, from New York to Chicago.

If I woulda known a basement Taxidermist I would have tried and gotten it mounted.

[j44ke]

Tonight, it is worms. (click on photo to see video - unless you are eating spaghetti)

[TonyP]

Nobody loves us
Everybody hates us
Let's go out and eat some worms

Big fat juicy ones
Long skinny slimy ones
Pinch them watch them squirm

Bite their heads off
Suck their juice out
Throw their skins away

Nobody knows
How well we can live
On worms three times a day

[rwsaunders]

[j44ke]

I sense a trap^^.

[72gmc]

SDOT is genuinely, eternally confused about how to deal with non-car traffic.

[rwsaunders]

Its days are numbered.

[j44ke]

April 20, 2022



April 20, 2023

[echappist]

April 20, 2022

Robins setting up shop in a nest box?

[rwsaunders]

[j44ke]

Robins setting up shop in a nest box?

Eastern Bluebirds. Same time as last year. Hopefully these won't get eaten by a bear though, which happened last year.

[72gmc]

Ah, Biscuit Bitch. I need to walk over there.

[rwsaunders]

[SlowPokePete]

Dang.

SPP

[j44ke]

Eastern Bluebirds. Same time as last year. Hopefully these won't get eaten by a bear though, which happened last year.

I shouldn't have said anything. That bear is strong.