Get Your Geek On

Non Birding Bill had his final dress rehearsal last night for his MN Fringe Festival Show called THACO. Bill wrote and directed the show and if I'm geeking about birds, Bill is equally so when it comes to theatre and role playing games. It's interesting the number of people that are coming up to him or emailing him privately saying they will come see the show, they just aren't prepared to publicly admit that there are role playing games in their background. Anyway, I love the slogan he came up for it: "Get Your Geek On" which I will be doing Saturday.

I am experiencing the periodic lull the happens at bird feeders behind the bird store. Everybody is gone, even the goofy one-legged grackle. Since all the vegetation has been removed by the creek the Canada geese have full on access to the back parking lot and are trying to come into the back door of the bird store when we're unloading deliveries. Lori put some food out and we heard this strange flapping noise, there were two geese violently fighting by the back door. Lori thought she should try and break it up, but for one thing I thought the geese needed to work out their pecking order and the second thing was I didn't want her getting injured. That would be a fun workmans comp sheet to fill out--employee injury due to Canada goose.

The birds at my home are very active and I have house finches galore on my feeder. I even have a cardinal coming for mealworms right at 7:15am. He refuses to visit the feeder if the NovaBird Camera is out on the ledge so I have given up trying to film him for the moment.

If anyone is interested in something really gross and incredibly fascinating at the same time, check out the story about a hummingbird vs praying mantis at Bird Watchers Digest.

Sad News

I was fortunate enough to get acquainted with a kindred spirit by the name of Jason Starfire at the ABA convention in Tucson. He was my kind of birder: enthusiastic, young, humorous, incredibly talented and not afraid of a bawdy conversation. I had just met him but knew that great times were ahead knowing him at future birding conventions. I'm sorry to learn that Jason died all too soon this past weekend. Mike McDowell links to a great article about this extraordinary guy whose loss is mourned in the birding community.

The crazy "cat" lady down the street

I've have spiraled out of control into the world of hoarding. I have cats, oh my do I have cats, just not the furry kind. There has been a vertible monarch 'splosion behind the bird store and I have been collecting caterpillars (cats) and eggs. As of Saturday, I had about 26 eggs and cats that I had brought in from a milkweed patch at the edge of the employee parking lot and yesterday our mall landscapers wiped it out. I found another patch near our bird feeders and I have never seen so many eggs on milkweed ever! One plant had 14 eggs and three newly hatched caterpillars. Many leaves had 2 eggs and one leaf had two eggs and one wee caterpillar. I can't stop picking them up but my monarch ranch is now almost filled to capacity. My employees are contributing to my monarch madness, Denny sent me a link to an article about how monarchs navigate during migration--cool stuff.

I think part of my problem is that it's a slow birding time. Birds are moving out of nesting territories, some are flockingup for migration and in our case at the store, all the brush trimming has more than likely sent birds in search of quieter yards. I'm sure we'll have better feeder activity next week. Of course, it may be so darned hot that the birds are just laying low. On the NovaBird Camera today, all we got were crows and the poor dudes are panting in almost every shot.

March o' the Penguins and a surprise

So, I finally made it to see March of the Penguins. I enjoyed it, in spite of the fact that I had an incredibly chatty old couple behind me. "Is that the male, no the one on the left." "Look at that, it looks cold." "What's that comin' to kill 'em, a skua?"

The movie was a tad anthropomorphic for my taste but it was incredibly beautiful. I did have to stifle a laugh as Morgan Freeman is talking about "penguin love" and the movie showed a male and female penguin moving languidly and slowly rubbing their bills over each other's bodies as new agey music swells in the background. The camera moves in close for the tender caresses and then the male gets behind the female and I was expecting the usual cloacal kiss, but it went on for at least a minute--those male penguins have stamina. It was all so artfully shot I found myself shifting in my seat from the eroticism and then I realized--I'm watching penguin sex, chill out (ha, I just inadvertently made myself laugh). The tension was broken for the rest of the audience when a small boy in back asked his mother "What are they doing?"

The movie also got a tad mellowdramatic about the unbearable, gut wrenching anguish of a female losing her chick. Ladies with children around me started to sniffle and I wanted to lean over and say, they really don't take it that hard, but I think regular people would rather think penguins suffer huge emotional strife.

The coolest part of the evening for me were the previews. My ears perked up when I heard a voice over say, "From the studio that brought you Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal" (I love Labyrinth, it's a sickness I know). Then I realized it was a preview of Mr. Neil's movie with Dave McKean called Mirrormask. They even mentioned their names (and pronounced them correctly) in the preview and called them such things as award winning and master storytellers. I felt so proud, my friend had made it to the big screen. Non Birding Bill and I saw a rough cut of it last year and I was afraid it was going to be one of those arty movies that I just wouldn't understand. I realize now that I didn't see the final editing and the wonder of Mr. McKean's artistic vision and Mr. Neil's storytelling. I'm very excited and I think I will be able to genuinely want to go see it and not do it out of politeness. It looks really cool, so check out the preview.

Now, I'm going to enjoy some more fried green tomatoes, one of my all time favorite foods. I had a very successful raid of a friend's garden last night.