A Rare Bird

Welcome to Monday - not that it much matters to me.  Heh.  Heh.  Although I do much prefer the weekends insofar as it allows the working kids to come out and play.  After they do their chores, of course.

The weather was halfway decent this weekend.  Not great.  But decent.  We did wake-up to a couple of inches of snow on Sunday morning; but by mid-afternoon it was gone and there were a few sun breaks.

Walked the dike trail yesterday and saw quite a few birdies.  There was a small flock of American Widgeon on one of the ponds and a pair of Belted Kingfishers were chasing each other around.  The sighting of the day, however, came as I neared the end of the walk when a serious birder told me to hustle down the road if I wanted to see a Cinnamon Teal.  I duly hustled.

Cinnamon Teal are not regular visitors to these here parts.  They are what is called an "accidental" species - they show-up in Southeast Alaska at irregular intervals - Juneau is not in their regular range.  This gal (I think) was busy feeding in a dark ditch alongside the dike trail.  She was seriously foraging and didn't seem to pay much attention to the hominids and canids who were ogling her.    

 A Cinnamon Teal forages near the Airport Dike Trail

Never seen a quacker like this before...

Meanwhile, behind my apartment, a number of Dark Eyed Juncos (slate colored subspecies) have suddenly taken up residence.

A Dark Eyed Junco (slate colored subspecies)

In other news, I eagerly await the arrival of Amanda on Wednesday.  She was in Portland this past weekend and is now back in Olympia.  She's really looking forward to the Southeast Folk Festival which starts this week.  I may even try to take in a few events...

Last night was the traditional Easter supper at the folks.  Mom cooked a turkey breast and we had the typical turkey accompaniments.  My contribution was carrot and sweet potato puree and mom's favourite dessert - chocolate peanut butter pie.  She's the only one who eats the pie and it freezes very well - she'll be snacking on it for months to come.  A little piece goes a long way - it's richer 'n pig shit.

On Saturday morning I hauled and stacked the season's second cord of wood at the elders.  I'm still burning wood from the woodshed, I'm guessing we'll be burning last year's wood until mid-June or so...  So the new stuff will have at least couple of months to cure.

Well, off to the elders and then a workout.  And dad's out of cookies...so will do some baking this afternoon.  And I need to pay the monthly bills...