A Birder’s Dozen…

I’ve mentioned Jim’s crazy “Bird Buffet” on our back deck many times in my blog…we currently have at least eight bird feeders in operation (in the summer, we also have three hummingbird feeders).  The kids are on March Break this week.  Yesterday, Anna called me at the bookstore and said excitedly, “I think we’ve got waxwings!” 

In my somewhat distracted state, my mind made a weird jump back to the times the kids had come home with lice…I thought, “Oh, no…how do we get rid of waxwings?!”  It took me a couple of minutes to realize Anna was talking about birds, not something contagious!  After I recovered my senses, Anna and I discussed what kind of waxwings we were afflicted with had hanging around.  She sent me a photo via e-mail, and we decided they were Bohemian Waxwings.

Huge Bohemian Waxwing in the lilac bush out front (photo by Anna)

Jim and Anna both have new Nikon cameras (Jim has a D-90, and Anna a D-3100), and have been using the birds as subjects…here are some of their best shots:

American Tree Sparrow sitting in lilac bush out back (photo by Anna)

 

American Tree Sparrow (I think) coming in for an icy landing (photo by Jim)

 

Black-capped Chickadee (photo by Jim)

 

Black-capped Chickadee coming in for a landing at one of the finch feeders (photo by Anna)

 

Blue Jay perched in the top of the lilac bush out back (photo by Anna)

 

Blue Jay at our large feeder (before the squirrels chewed it!)...(photo by Jim)

 

Cardinal in the lilac bush out back (photo by Jim)

 

Goldfinches and Pine Siskins in a feeding frenzy (photo by Anna)

 

Hairy Woodpecker cleaning up after the squirrels...(photo by Anna)

 

Purple Finch trying to decide where to start (photo by Jim)

 

White Breasted Nuthatch perched on the gate (photo by Jim)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip around our yard…watch out for waxwings!

Excuse Me, Sir, But Your Search Engine Has Run Amok…

This is another assignment set by my friend over at Hippie Cahier…she suggested we write a post about search terms people use to find our blog.  Since I’ve been thinking about doing this already, now is as good a time as any…

1. transistor radio.  This now obsolete device was mentioned in exactly one blog post about waiting for a hurricane, and 31 nostalgic people found my blog because of it.

2. Mia Michaels.  Nine people with nothing better to do were searching for info on this ditzy dance diva, who appeared in this post because she used entirely the wrong word to describe a dancer’s performance on So You Think You Can Dance.  Mia’s catty claws were out last season…a lot of her comments were nasty and unwarranted!  Please bring back Mary Murphy (believe me…I never thought I would say that!).

Mary...we want you back!

3. how were readers digest condensed books.  Two poor souls typed this into a search engine.  Hmmm…how were they?  Heavy.  Expensive.  Good fire starters or doorstops.  The boxes they came in are handy for mailing other books though…

4. price to put cat to sleep saint john, nb.  This one mystifies me…yes, my blog is called Herding Cats in Hammond River, which is near Saint John, but it really has nothing to do with cats, and I don’t remember ever talking about putting a cat to sleep in any of my posts.  I have no idea how much that costs, and I don’t want to know.  And yet, two people found my blog this way…go figure!

5. the dog eat my homework.  This search had to have been typed by someone whose first language was something other than English (at least I hope so).  It got me two hits on this post about my Schnoover (Schnauzer/Poodle/Hoover) who eats everything in sight, including things not normally consumed.

Jake's favourite things to eat...

6. sock pile.  How bored does one have to be to Google “sock pile”…twice???  I wish I had their phone number so I could invite them over to sort them…they obviously have more time than I do…

7. deviated septum how to fix ontario.  I talked about Jim’s deviated septum in this post.  I have never tackled the issue of “how to fix Ontario.”  I don’t live there any more for a reason…

8. tapioca cheese steak like made in school.  That lunch lady needs to be fired…if she’s putting tapioca in the cheese steak, she’s doing it all wrong!  I don’t remember them ever serving cheese steak of any sort in our school cafeteria…tube steak, yes!

Hold the tapioca please...

 9. dirty girl sneaker.  Okay…this is just wrong.  I write an innocent story about a family trip to Hopewell Rocks, and this is how they find it?

10. muddy kids.  See #9.  Ditto.

11. blue jay cheerleading.  I’ve written about blue jays, and I’ve written about cheerleading, but I’ve never seen a blue jay cheerleading (it’s tough for them to find spankies small enough to fit).  Maybe some poor sap hoped that major league baseball games have cheerleaders now?  Not happening…

12. huge bean pod.  This person wasn’t just looking for any bean pod…it had to be a huge one!  Apparently, size does matter!

P.S. Did you notice how I put all the terms into the tags, so people could find them again?  Never let it be said that I’m not Internet-savvy…