Cinnamon is sooo tired. We had an outing today and she ate lots of junk food so I think I finally wore her out. She hasn't been into as much mischief tonight like her usual trying to get into the bathroom trash or sneaking into the kitchen.

I headed out to the bird store to pick up some bird food--my flying squirrels on my window have been deprived of their mixed nuts. I need to keep them happy so I can test out a night vision monocular. I also took a look at the birds out back at the feeders to practice some digiscoping. I'm getting better using the Denali with the digiscope adapter.

Of course, I missed the best birds of the day! As I pulled into the parking lot off of 394 and Carlson Parkway I saw two large birds. The largest was an adult bald eagle that was being harassed by a peregrine falcon. The falcon was swooping back and forth over the back of the eagle, and the eagle was pumping its wings as hard as it could trying to gain speed. They were out of sight before I parked the car.

I'm no nature photographer but I have heard Stan go on about what he knows about bird behavior based on his observations watching birds and animals while out photographing them. I did that with a white-throated sparrow today (pictured right). I've always known a white-throated sparrow when I see one because of the black and white striping on the head (some with a yellow spot) and the white patch under the bill, but I've never really noticed the shape before. While photographing I really noticed that the tail on these guys are about as long as their bodies. Who knew? Better birders than I, I suppose. There does seem to be a big trend in bird workshops focusing on bird shape as opposed to bird colors.

Speaking of which, I've heard Pete Dunne is coming out with his own field guide and I've heard that he's going out and watching birds and then going to describe the birds individually based on his personal experiences with the birds and their "jizz" (Note to all of us under 40--jizz in birding terms doesn't mean what we thought it meant in high school. In birding terms it means the over all feel of the bird, so quit your snickering when you hear a 73 year old birder say, "Well, the jizz of that bird makes me say loggerhead shrike.") Anyway, kind of goes back to that theory of looking at birds by shape and behavior as opposed to just color.