Running with the birds.

Made it out to the west desert today.  Found an arch and got to run with the birds.

As I was driving up a road lined with sunflowers on both sides I annoyed a few birds.  They came out of the flowers and would fly up the road, right in front of me, like a bat outta hell. 

The pictures don’t do it justice, at some times it seemed like I was in a Hitchcock movie, there were at least a dozen flying in front of me, which had me swerving left to right to avoid them.

Up past the swarms of birds, I found this arch.  And it wasn’t even Arches National Park.

Predators at the school.

Ok, calm down.  We’re talking birds, not white panel-vans with “Free Carmel-Mocha Frappuccino” painted on the side.

Our students collected $1,500 worth of stuff for the Animal Shelter, so they earned a “Birds of Prey” assemble, where they bring live birds to the school and let them fly around in the auditorium.

Cool assembly, and it was really funny when one of the birds perched itself on a light bar right above the audience.  The kids had been warned about bird’s tendency to poop wherever they are, even got a visual when he was holding it.  There was a little chaos every time the bird changed perches as the students tried to get out from underneath it. 

No accidents, but funny.

As you can see, I found the owl incredibly photogenic.

Nikkor 55-300mm zoom lens.

I went out and bought a new lens today.   I’ve been wanting a good telephoto lens, my old one must be run manually and when taking pictures of the assemblies and sports events at school, it’s hard to focus, adjust the shutter speed and f/stop without missing the action.

And of course, on the way home I stopped off at the park to see what it could do.  Here are some of the pictures I got today.  These pictures are downsized, but they are the full, un-cropped pictures.  They are mostly pictures of the birds at the park, with one requisite mountain picture and one I messed with a bit.  First the bird pictures, and as always, click on the picture to see a bigger version.

My, what a unique necklace you have there.

This a cropped version of that last picture.

The main picture here is with the lens fully zoomed out.  The inset is the car’s license plate from another shot with the lens fully zoomed in, and then cropped and enlarged.

And the mountains.

For want of an eye patch…

… I know it’s supposed to be a parrot, but can I still qualify as a pirate with a pigeon on my shoulder?

… A customer came into the Chevron this evening and asked if we had any  crackers.  He told us of an incredibly friendly pigeon that was out in front of the store, how he had it standing on his shoulder.  So I grab my camera to go out and get a picture of him with the pigeon on his shoulder, and the thing flies over onto my shoulder.  I laughed, he laughed and then  took a couple pictures of us with my camera.  Fun’s over, put the pigeon on the ground and I head back into the store.

… Yeah, I thought the fun was over.  Just barely through the door, before it can close behind me, the bird flies into the store and lands on my shoulder again.  I walk it outside, over to the bushes by the air hose and put  it on the ground there.  It follows me back to the store, comes in again, flies a little bit around the store and lands on the shoulder of the other guy working there.  He (the worker, not the bird) didn’t like that too much, so I go over, get the bird back again, grab a hot dog bun and walk out again.  This time I go farther,  to the other side of the parking lot, leave a bunch of bread crumbs on the ground and drop the bird there.  It wasn’t very hungry, because it followed me back to the store again.

… Ok, one more time.  I walk it down next to the building next door, leave it on the ground with more bread, and this time I try to trick it by going the wrong way, around this P.O.D.S.*  thing in the parking lot.  I kid you not, the thing flew right next to me all the way back to the store.  Every time it would come in the store and start flying around, landing various places, until a customer came in and I’d get it on my shoulder.  It would stay on my shoulder rather than fly around, and I thought that was better than having it getting friendly  with (as in freaking out)customers.

… At this point I realized it wasn’t going away easily.  So, rather than  having it flying around freaking out customers, I left it on my shoulder and called Animal Control.  I got about the same reaction as when I called them a few years ago to tell them I had a peacock in my back yard. “What?”, “You’re kidding.”, “A pigeon?” and “Never heard that one before.”  I think they finally decided that it would be fun to arrest that bozo claiming to be the Pigeon Whisperer for filing a false report, because they agreed to send someone out.

… I thought it would be only a few minutes, figured there couldn’t be that many animal emergencies on a Friday night, so I actually helped customers with the bird on my shoulder.  Now that was funny, some of the reactions were hilarious, and fortunately nobody got freaked out by it.  But after waiting about a half an hour I kind of got tired of it walking back and forth across by shoulders, and it finally dawned on me I could lock the bird in the back room.

… Animal Control showed up about another half hour later, laughed when I showed her the bird and it climbed right up onto my shoulder.  When she left to bring it down to the shelter to let it free there, she said “and hopefully it won’t find it’s way back here.”

… Oh, and yes, it did soil my shirt.

 

 

*P.O.D.S.  - Personal On Demand Storage, those one-car garage sized storage units they haul over and dump on your property while you’re remodeling or moving or whatever.

Messy birds and impatient drivers

Messy, messy birds. They're spilling seeds out of the bird feeder, leaving a mess right under it. Bad, bad birds. The good thing is that the seeds attract squirrels, who do a little bit of cleaning up for me. they also startle me when I come out the check on the water and they scurry right past me like a bat out of hell. Of course I'm sure I startled him (or her), and at least I wasn't in the middle of eating. Probably gave the thing indigestion. He stuck around in the trees long enough for me to go get the camera and have a photo shoot. I'll have to go to the pet store and see if I can get some Purina Squirrel Chow.

I've started walking down at Liberty Park on a regular basis. I don't know why I like Liberty better than Sugarhouse. It could be that Liberty is level and Sugarhouse is all up and down hilly. Or, since I'm going to be teaching geometry next year, my mind is more in tuned with the symmetrical layout of Liberty as opposed to the wanderings of the road in Sugarhouse. Or maybe it's because of the police presence in Liberty which means that people don't try to take the short way out of the park and drive the wrong direction down the walking lane to get out. Who knows. But I did laugh at this moron who was so impatient that he tailgated and honked at the person in front of them because they weren't going fast enough, in the park. Yeah, kids playing, people riding bikes, rollerblading, running and walking, and 15 MPH isn't fast enough. Even funnier when I saw them parked in the handicapped spot. Something ironic about giving yourself so much stress on the way to an activity, or place, that is supposed to be relaxing. Reminded me of an incident which profoundly affected the way I vacation. We were out camping and had to run in to the store to grab some stuff. This store was immediately outside Canyonlands National Park, out in the middle of nowhere, catering solely to park visitors. As we were scurrying around the store trying to find, and remember, everything we needed, the clerk looks at us and says "Yeah, better hurry up. You're on vacation." Not the least bit offensively, just in an out in the middle of nowhere folksy wisdom kind of way. He's obviously said it so many times that he'd perfected his delivery. I take it a lot easier when I'm on vacation now, and that should include recreational events in the park also.