On Always Being Behind In Electronics Purchases & Tongues & Scalps

We (as in Hubby and I) have always been behind the electronics power curve. We'd just assume wait until the models get better and the prices go down.

Plus we're kind of electronics wimps.

We didn't get our first VCR until 1991. It seems like everyone we knew had them already.

Answering machine — we didn't get one of those until 1998-ish. I couldn't stand to leave messages on them, so I didn't want one.

Now, people make fun of me for the length of messages I leave. I have no one to stop me from talking!

Our camera — film. Until recently. We loved our film camera and had a couple of extra lenses for it. We had purchased the girls small digital cameras that have been the source of the majority of my blog photos for the last couple of years. I borrowed their cameras a lot.

Until now.

A few months ago (about one month before my breast cancer diagnosis) we purchased a very nice digital camera with an extra zoom lens. Hubby had been saving leftover money from his business trips to purchase it.

I've now become a heavy clicker. I take lots of pictures when I'm photographing the birds in our back yard to try and get the best ones. Because of course the beauty is that you can delete everything you don't want.

In being a heavy clicker, I've gotten some great, if not unusual, shots of some of the birds. Specifically, their tongues. Here is the male red-bellied woodpecker. The first two are tongue shots and the last two you can actually see spit.




These next two pictures are a female oriole the first day we saw her when she migrated in. She's licking her lips/beak in the first one. The second picture also has some orange hanging out.


These next two are the female red-bellied woodpecker. It's a little harder to see her tongue in the first one than it was of the male in the earlier pictures. Her tongue is dark. The second picture we got spit again.


The blue jays aren't really showing their tongues, but I thought they were some cool shots of the one bird feeding the other.


And just to mix things up, this molting cardinal is how I'm feeling about now. Or maybe I should say looking like.


How ironic that he just showed up.

A Bird On The Pants Must Be Worth Three In The Bush

Early this afternoon the boys looked out the back door and saw a female downy woodpecker in the prone position in the grass. She was on her tummy, not her back, and we were on the phone with Hubby at the time.

Chaos nearly ensued.

As Hubby is googling to see exactly what we need to do, we notice that she slightly moved and was blinking. Her wings were close to her body and did not appear to be damaged.

Our instructions were to go outside, check the wings to make sure they were okay (our previous visual check was the most we did there!), make sure the eyes looked okay, and then see if the bird would perch on a limb. If it did, we were to let it recover on its own.

Buddy and I went outside, me finding a short stick and him to touch the bird. He scooped her up and, although shaky, she sat on the stick. I passed it off and ran inside to get the camera and a bowl of water, because the poor thing looked thirsty. And it was the perfect photo opportunity.

I poured a little water between her beak and she drank. Then when we decided to sit her and her limb in the box we took outside she ended up on Buddy.

Me: "Where'd the bird go?!"

Buddy: "It's on my pants!"

Of course we were being quiet, so I wasn't sure if he said 'in' or 'on' at first.

The bird did not want back on the stick. And thankfully it didn't peck. Although Caboose's play-by-play to Hubby apparently included, "It's pecking Buddy's crotch!" He has a little more imagination than some of us.

She was just very appreciative, I think.

We didn't want her to fall.

And then she flew off on her own.

Whew!