It's January 4th...

 

"Who are these masked birds? Not Robin Hood's for they live in open woods. They only deal in stolen goods. Like berry futures, cedar cones and sweet, sweet fruit, but leave the stones."

~Janet Yolen

Cedar Waxwings Unmasked

... and there is an elephant in the room. A big, bloated, shitgibbon of an elephant. But there's nothing I can do about his machinations. Just keep watch and hope for the best! Yes, I am stressed out. Sometimes it feels like having any kind of hope for the coming mid-terms seems completely irrational and ill advised. Right now is one of those times. But I am trying to focus on the things that heal me up inside, like birding. One of my favorite birds to photograph, the Cedar Waxwing, showed up in Louis Park a couple days ago. They are beautiful, and challenging, and that's just what I need to get me through... something of natural beauty, rather then all the manufactured drama that fills every single day! So enjoy this little gallery of the delightful little drunk birds, the Cedar Waxwing.

The Beauty Of A Dark Winter Day

 

"At this season of the year, darkness is a more insistent thing that cold.

The days are short as any dream."

~E.B. White

Essays Of E.B. White

Tired. It's been a long couple of days, and I am tired. But I have even better news, and I will share soon. But today I want to enjoy some football games, and not think about things that are too much for my tired brain.

So for now, don't you just love cold, dark January days. Naps. Hot Chocolate. Snuggles with cats, and really good days with a camera, birding, these are some of the things keeping me sane.

1, 43, 26

"Every bird, every tree, every flower reminds me

 what a blessing and privilege it is just to be alive."

~Marty Rubin

Yesterday was day 1 of our birding year. Yep, we begin on January 1st, and it's perfect, because we encounter more birders, then the annoying, rude, downright nasty and dangerous who speed right by us, as we enjoy the birds. You might think I am being nasty myself, but it gets a little old when you are standing on a narrow road, which also serves as a narrow street that runs through the preserve, and some guy in a truck whizzes by doing 60, when the posted speed limit is 35! 

aqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqwwwww.

By the way, the above sentence isn't me speaking in obscenities, it is, however, Tyler's take on things. Naughty kitty got on Mommies desk. Naughty Mommy forgot to turn her keyboard off before leaving to do errands.  LOL. We are having a good time in 2026, so far, and I am thinking more positive then ever, so to heck with speeding drivers, more naughty kittens is what we all need. And encountering birders on our travels. I have 43 new birds in my 2026 folder, and I am adding more tomorrow. My new favorite numbers are, 1, 43, and 26, so perhaps I should play the Lottery!

I'm Beginning 2025 On A Happy Note

"A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels,

 in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed."

~Ansel Adams

For some sill reason, this photograph has been liked, as of the composing of this post, 151 times, on BlueSky! I can see all kinds of technical errors, the lighting, the foreground, it's not perfectly straight, there is a telephone pole keeping it from being a perfect landscape, but somehow... they liked it! It's the second to last picture posted to the photography community on BlueSky for 2025 and the first to this platform for 2026. I like that. And hopefully, it's a sign of good things to come! Here's to thinking positively!

Well, THAT Wasn't On My Bingo Card

 

"Not only do we have the D.C. jail which is the D.C. gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff, spying on the American people."

~Marjorie Taylor Greene

February, 2022 

A lot of things happened in 2025 that were not on my bingo card, both in my private life, and in the world at large. Doge obtaining our personal information, with no oversite on what he was doing with it! Donald Trump nearly crashing the world economy with his tariffs, and "Independence Day" of fuckery. The murders of Charlie Kirk, and Rob Reiner, the Epstein Files rocking Washington D.C., the loss of my beautiful cat Hendrix, only 9 months after I lost Dylan. But nothing surprised me more than Marjorie Taylor Greene, growing up, right before our eyes! She found her real voice. Her honest voice. I guess. I mean... imagine that! I should have expected someone in congress to lose their mind and finally locate their brain, I mean, after all, Dick Cheney did! But MTG? Will her new found attitude hold? Will she extend her mea culpa in 2026 to reflect a better Christian walk? Time will tell! Personally, I wish her luck. I wish her success in her attempts to change from a politically toxic princess, to a mature seeker of truth. When the truth wins, we all do better.

Read the, New York Times, profile article here.

A Few Of My Favorites...

 

"You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, all the books you have read, the music you have heard, and people you have loved."

~Ansel Adams

Photography means a lot to me, but I sometimes sacrifice the quality of my photos, so I can get a picture in the moment. Bird photos sometimes have to be taken, before you think about whether the opportunity will be for the art, or whether it will be to build your yearly bird list. I try really hard to bring the two together, but oh boy, there are challenges. Weather. Birds that seem to fly at the speed of sound. I am getting older, so I am having a bit of a tremor in my hands, which might be from arthritis. There are a lot of factors. But here I want to share the ones I got right, or at least, okay. There is a lot of emotion here. They reflect happiness, sadness, serenity, wonder. It has been quite a year, filled with, you know LIFE. Each year I try to get a photo good enough to enter into the Audubon Photography Contest. Hopefully, 2026 will be my year!

My Year End Favorites

I Saw The Sign

"If you had a million days to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world."

~J. D. Salinger 

I saw that sign the other day, and it reminded me of the song from the 90's. I immediately began humming it, and I have been humming it since! Don't get me wrong, I love, Ace Of Base, but I can't get the song out of my head! Of course if you drive around Stockton you will see all kinds of signs. Some seem more like omens, rather than a perplexing. The city of Stockton really needs to do better about things like this... and the crime rate. It's apparent the powers that be have missed the sign!

Speaking of missing the sign... folks really need to stop doing this. Park the damn car in the space. The hashmarks are not part of the space! This is becoming one of my favorite pet peeves. As a handicapped person, I have lost the ability to park in a space, because of fellow handicapped people engaging in this behavior. JUST PARK IN THE DAMN SPACE! To be fair, I see non-handicapped people parking in these special spots as well. Sigh. All I can say is... READ THE SIGN!

It is, what it is!

The Red-shouldered Hawk

 

The hawk was everything I wanted to be in life:

 solitary, self possessed, free from grief and numb to the hurts of human life."

~Helen MacDonald

H is For Hawk

I spotted this absolutely gorgeous, Red-shouldered Hawk, the other day, while we were on Woodbridge road. There aren't as many birds, in our usual places, as there should be, another sign that 2026 will be another difficult year for birding. It's okay. I know there are some hawks like this one, and a particularly chatting Belted Kingfisher along Woodbridge, and some Greater White-fronted Geese on Desmond, so we will start out okay, then it just might mean trips along the coastline for the seabirds and shore birds. Spring will bring the perching birds, and certain hawks in the summer. Pretty soon, I will sitting here again, just before the calendar turns to 2027 and I will be thinking about another year to come. For birds, health and life. But that's a long way off... and five minutes away.

Rainbows And Woodpeckers

 

"A lion does not flinch at the laughter coming from a hyena.

 A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it from a monkey. 

A nightingale does not stop singing it's beautiful song, at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker."

~Suzy Kassam

Rise Up And Salute The Sun: The Writings Of Suzy Kassam

The weather was a gentle mixture of sunshine, rain and rainbows. Well, I guess rainbows are more of a weather phenomenon then weather itself, but the point is, we didn't actually get all the apocalypse predicted. The Sierras, saw heavy snow, and the Bay Area was slammed pretty hard, but here in the San Joaquin country, we made it through pretty well! Louis Park was pretty today, that's where I photographed this gorgeous Acorn woodpecker, resting among the last leaves in the park. Birds were easier to find, as you might imagine, but I didn't get anything new, what I did get was beautiful, and it gives me an idea for what to plan for when we begin a new year of birding, on January 1st! There were lots of birders on the roads with us, which was nice, it's always good to see!

Winter? What Winter?

 

"Color doesn't just add something to a certain something. It gives it life."

~Anthony T. Hincks 

We have had a series of winter storms come through the last few days, so the sky has been dark, and the trees are now merely skeletons, but with the few leaves hanging on, there is color that encourages me to keep looking up. This Sumac tree, in Lincoln Center, continues to surprise me with it's will to live on, and not let go of autumn! Winter? What winter? What is this winter you speak of?  *wink*