Hi Folks,
The last couple of days were chore days, so I didn’t post. Also – Hooray!!!! I got my old desktop back and it is functional. I have been spending my spare, and unsparing time, trying to restore – from backups – all some of the files that got trashed. There are some of the most ridiculous seeming problems. For example, my email program – Outlook Express – now does its “Spell Check” in French. And I can’t seem to find a way to make it remember to think in English. That is a true PITA!!!
The computer tech/guru who worked on the machine really did a pretty good job, and charged a very reasonable fee. I do have backups for what was on the machine, but I am hesitant to restore a lot of files at one time, for fear that I screw up what is now, at least, a partially functional machine.
I had to go to Bozeman (about a 100 mile round trip by the time all the shopping was done) yesterday. Mostly getting bird and “furry bird” food. I came back with some 400 pounds (181.2 kg) of food. And I got home, just before the blizzard struck. It is still Blizzarding… Our low this morning was -4 F (-20 C); and right now it is really nasty out 30 mph winds, with a temperature of 5 F (-14 C). The weather channel says we have “light snow”; as opposed to “dark snow”, I presume.
Our most abundant birds at our feeders right now are “Rosy Finches”, which are present here in a huge flock, probably close to 500 birds are around our feeders at times. The grey-crowned rosy finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis, is the most abundant one here, but the other Rosy species, or types, are also represented in small numbers.
Grey Crowned Rosy Finch.
Leucosticte tephrocotis is a bird of high mountain habitats being found above the tree-line in summer. The really nasty weather found at those elevations forces the birds down to lower elevations in the late autumn. The first ones typically arrive here around the middle of November, and they leave around the middle of March.
Taken in 2012, A Mule Deer Doe We Call Notch-Ear, Eating Sunflower Seeds From A Bird Feeder.
My first picture of “Notch-Ear” was taken in 2002, and she is here this year, but I don’t have any images of her available yet (computer problems, remember, 🙂 ). She is here this year with a pair of fawns. Unfortunately, they, and all the other deer around here this year, are really looking awful. We had a nasty drought in the last half of summer, and that tremendously impacted deer forage. They really don’t have much to eat. So… I don’t begrudge Notch and her kiddies a few bits – or a lot – of sunflower seeds. However, it is the other 12 or so deer that have shown up at about the same time she comes by, that reallydrain the bird feeders.
This was one of Notch-Ear’s fawns last February.
The length and shape of this species’ (Odocoileus hemionus) ears, clearly visible here, is the reason they are called “mule deer“.
I haven’t had time to continue the discussion of why invertebrate zoologists are members of a “dying breed”. However, that discussion will continue in a day or two. It is more imporant to me to get my computer up and running and useful before I do much other work, such as writing.
However, before I leave —
NEAT MARINE STUFF ALERT!!!!
See the first videos of living giant squid in its normal habitat. OMIGAWD !!!!
This short entry by Dr. Craig M. in Deep Sea News discusses this video.
More later,
Cheers, Ron
