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Jun. 17th, 2020 07:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynHaven't seen or heard the raven in a while. Not a lot of crow activity, either.
OTOH a ruby throated hummingbird showed up at the neighbor's feeder yesterday. I don't like using binoculars when I'm in the backyard and not very obviously staring into the high part of the local trees, because it can be super misinterpreted, but when I saw the specific motion characteristics of that little speck I whipped the binocs out. 99% of insects don't move like that; I wanted to be sure.
(Clearwing hawkmoths don't really move the same way as hummingbirds, either, but the damn things are the size of hummingbirds and very similar in coloration. The first time I saw one it looked like a flying fuzzy green shrimp and I had to write to a scientist at Princeton to find out what I had just seen.)
Also, I am beginning to feel that most large birds of prey, like lions, do not sound anywhere near as awesome as their PR departments would have you believe. I've seen bald eagles in Canada, Alaska, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts, and on the occasions I've been close enough to hear them, they have made silly squeaky peepy noises. I thought that was because I was looking at a nest with babies in it at first. Nope. That's the adults. No awesome noises, no dignified screams or cries; the sound cinema has associated with eagles is in fact the sound of a red-tailed hawk- which admittedly is a fairly impressive bird but it is not a bald eagle. Similarly, yesterday as I was looking at the hummingbird, I heard this loud, loud, incessant EEK, EEK, EEK noise from the direction of the street. I thought, well, maybe that's the starlings the guy across the street has living under his eaves, they can be pretty loud sometimes... nope. Turns out that's what ospreys sound like. It's the sound recording at this page labeled 'Osprey L1 - High-pitched whistled calls from a male in flight'. EEEK EEEK EEEK EEEK.
This is going alongside 'poops in fluid projectile arc' on my list of notable characteristics of the osprey. Nature does not need to match human standards of dignity and majesty in order to be loved.
OTOH a ruby throated hummingbird showed up at the neighbor's feeder yesterday. I don't like using binoculars when I'm in the backyard and not very obviously staring into the high part of the local trees, because it can be super misinterpreted, but when I saw the specific motion characteristics of that little speck I whipped the binocs out. 99% of insects don't move like that; I wanted to be sure.
(Clearwing hawkmoths don't really move the same way as hummingbirds, either, but the damn things are the size of hummingbirds and very similar in coloration. The first time I saw one it looked like a flying fuzzy green shrimp and I had to write to a scientist at Princeton to find out what I had just seen.)
Also, I am beginning to feel that most large birds of prey, like lions, do not sound anywhere near as awesome as their PR departments would have you believe. I've seen bald eagles in Canada, Alaska, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts, and on the occasions I've been close enough to hear them, they have made silly squeaky peepy noises. I thought that was because I was looking at a nest with babies in it at first. Nope. That's the adults. No awesome noises, no dignified screams or cries; the sound cinema has associated with eagles is in fact the sound of a red-tailed hawk- which admittedly is a fairly impressive bird but it is not a bald eagle. Similarly, yesterday as I was looking at the hummingbird, I heard this loud, loud, incessant EEK, EEK, EEK noise from the direction of the street. I thought, well, maybe that's the starlings the guy across the street has living under his eaves, they can be pretty loud sometimes... nope. Turns out that's what ospreys sound like. It's the sound recording at this page labeled 'Osprey L1 - High-pitched whistled calls from a male in flight'. EEEK EEEK EEEK EEEK.
This is going alongside 'poops in fluid projectile arc' on my list of notable characteristics of the osprey. Nature does not need to match human standards of dignity and majesty in order to be loved.
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Date: 2020-06-17 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-18 07:07 pm (UTC)