Shenango Valley in winter time

[hutch--]

Bill,

Means you must have been a beach bunny in your youth. I was lucky as a kid, I never tanned, just went red then white again so I never learnt the habit of getting fried at the beach. Still, if it gets the ladies, it can't be all bad.  :bg

[Bill Cravener]

Steve,
:bg
I guess that's what I was. As a little kid you couldn't keep me my brother and friends out of the water during the summer months. As a teen my good friend had a powerboat (his dad's) and we chased the girls with it. In my twenties the ex-wife and I had one for years. Did a lot of water skiing, fishing and just plain having fun in the sun. Long hours out on Lake Erie catching them big walleye. Thing is you had to do it all within our three summer months, June, July, August while the water is warm enough to stand it. Yep, sun baked I am, too much German and Celtic blood in my veins perhaps. I should have known better, but then you never heard of "SPF 30 Broad Spectrum sun protection" back then.

[MaynardG_Krebs]

Bill,
I can certainly sympathize with you, both on getting older and being tired of winter. If it makes you feel any better though heres a picture of me shoveling snow.

http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy43/wmsfarris/WolfCreek.jpg

[Bill Cravener]

BillF,

Oh my!! Now thats some snow!! :bg

Suns out here and will shine for the next couple days so a lot of this white stuff will melt away.

[oex]

heh you missed a bit

[MaynardG_Krebs]

suns out here and will shine for the next couple days so a lot of this white stuff will melt away.

Glad to hear that. I am ready for some spring weather.

heh you missed a bit

Not to worry! I went back and finished cleaning up with a broom

[oex]

:lol

[Bill Cravener]

Still more winter on the way but weathers reached a turning point I think. Heard this ruckus outside my window this morning took a look see an there was two beautiful bright red male cardinals confronting one another. Heads rocking to-an-fro, bobbing up and down. A sudden clash of feathers then a quick parting, again another clash of feathers. Man what a fight!! :bg

Cardinals don't migrate south and when the temps float around the 30's F you see them out and about. By the way, the cardinal is Ohio's State Bird.

[dedndave]

nice pic Bill - i bet Japheth will like that one   :bg

[dedndave]

i was raised in Michigan (right next to Ohio, for the "foriegners")
i never saw a cardinal in Michigan - you have to get a little further south

the Michigan state bird is the robin - when they show up, you know winter is over and spring is on the way




here in Arizona, we have a lot of sparrows and cactus wrens - and a lot of little hummingbirds
we also have our share of dove, quail, and pidgeons (winged rats, as we call em)
but our state bird is the roadrunner - no surprise, there



see the ressemblance ?

[hutch--]

these are one of ours, a Kookaburra and the cheeky bastards laugh at you.



Here is another, a sulphur crested cockatoo. Can be domesticated and can mimick people with practice. Tend to chew their way through anything including the woodwork on the high part of houses and make more racket than you could imagine. I was up in Queensland some years ago and this flock of at least hundreds used to eat berries from a tree in Hervey Bay that used to make them drunk. Late in the afternoon hundreds of them used to sit on the power lines arguing with each other while occasionally falling off the power lines. It was very funny to watch.

[dedndave]

...used to eat berries from a tree in Hervey Bay that used to make them drunk

...arguing with each other while occasionally falling off...

sounds like they'd make great sailors   :P

[hutch--]

 :bg

They are even funnier than that, years ago I tok one of our old cats to the vet and they had on an old cockatoo there that was partly domesticated and you got one of two responses, if she liked you she would let you scratch under her wings for her and if she did not she would bite you. They have strong enough beaks to bite your fingers really hard. My fatal charm with dogs, cats kids and old ladies worked, I was honoured by being allowed tro scratch under her wings.  :P

Nothing out here is well behaved, I have seen so many cockatoos in the country sitting along a quarter mile of railway that it looked like it was snowing. They tear around like a mobile destruction machine and will chew their way through the woodwork fretwork on old houses, wooden balconies etc ....

Occasionally we get hit with Bogong moths, they breed up in the middle of NSW, spend the summers in the high Bogong mountain areas and fly back to breed again, just occasionally they get blown over the city and we get swamped with a billion moths for a night or two.

[Bill Cravener]

Nice bird pics guys! Makes me even more hungry for summer. My ex had one of them damn little cockatiels for years. She would let it run loose thru the house and it chewed up anything made of wood, picture frames, wooden knickknacks, etc. It loved to bite me, that little bugger.

I like the sound of summer birds chirping and I look forward to the robins, blue birds and yellow canary's returning. Pennsylvania like many other states does not have a state bird, it does have a State Game Bird however, the Pennsylvania Grouse.

Delicious!! :bg

[rags]

Delicious!! :bg

:U
Also, damn hard to shoot.They usually wait until you're almost on top of them before taking off.