Pole and I arrived in Albuquerque on Sunday to do some vacationing and some birding. That’s why there’s no birding entry until today, Tuesday. This isn’t a Big Year for us, so we don’t have to be psycho birding every single second. So after fooling around in ABQ for a day or so, we headed north to Santa Fe, but instead of viewing the beautiful colonial city, our first stop was the Randall Dewey Audubon Center. Psycho.
ahead a state
I’m in San Francisco today for work, and I saw my first California bird: a Common Grackle. All I’ve seen of this city so far are the two blocks of Market Street between the hotel and the office, so I was lucky to see anything at all. Best thing is, I’m ahead of Pole for once: she doesn’t have a bird from this state. Thank you, Common Grackle of California.
if you could read my mind, we wouldn’t be here
Last Wednesday (the 24th) we left on what’s becoming our annual winter trip to Gunflint Lodge in Minnesota. January 28th is Pole’s birthday, so that’s primary reason we make the trip. Unfortunately, we only had a full three days up here, so the whole trip was rushed, and a bit of a disappointment, really. The entire last day — the 28th — was spent driving the 1000 miles from Gunflint (basically the Canadian border) to Chicago. Happy Birthday, Pole.
new year, little day
For the first day of this new, little-yearless year, we tried to relive the glory of the last day of the last glorious year. In other words, we went to the same place we went to yesterday, the Irving Park Cemetery. We hoped we could see the merlin again, but it wasn’t there, and the only birds we spotted were a flock of ROCK PIGEONS. Earlier, though, Pole saw a MORNING DOVE, and so after only one day, she’s already ahead of me.
A rather drab outing and not worth posting except that it’s the first day of the year. And since this year won’t be crazy compulsive like last year, we’re no longer going to post entries for every bird we see. I’m afraid I’m only crazy compulsive enough to keep the lists up to date. End of transmission.
final day, final bird, final resting places [278]
On this last day of the year we officially failed in our Little Year quest (more after the jump), but we did see a lifer, so that gave us some hope. The bird was a MERLIN, and it was the fourth (!) Little Year bird in a row to be a double lifer. There was a sighting a couple of days ago at Chicago’s Irving Park Cemetery, and we saw the bird right where it was supposed to be: perched in a bare tree near the entrance. It flew away after about five minutes, but we had a decent look at it on this warm, rainy day. We drove around the cemetery trying for another glance, but no luck. However, we did see an large neoclassical building with an odd inscription on its pediment: COLUMBARIUM. It turns out (thank you, Wikipedia) a columbarium is place for the public storage of ash-filled urns. These buildings are said to look a little like dovecots, and columba being Latin for dove, columbarium is Latin for dovecot, and so there you go. The odd thing is that the scientific name for the Merlin is Falco columbarius, and I guess the bird is sort of dovelike. But it’s an odd coincidence all the same. So anyway, I think a dovecot for urns (an urncot? an ashcot?) would be a great place for any birder’s ashes.