New Year - Day 8 - Birds, SPEBSQSA - Random Thoughts

Clear Sky with Birds - January 8, 2011

(all those little black lumps on the branches are Grackles)



Not all the birds in Arkansas fell out of the sky last week, as is evidenced by the hundred or so Grackles that are perched on the branches of this tree.   I was working in my craft room in midafternoon when I heard raucous noises from the back yard.  Black birds (not Blackbirds, but Grackles) were thick on the ground, scratching in the leaves for any dropped seeds around the bird feeders, or under the trees and bushes in search of bugs.  Dozens more were  fighting to drink from the bird baths at the same time.  When I tried to sneak around the side of the house to photograph them in the yard, they took flight, many perching in the neighbor's tree before flying on to where ever it is that Grackles go.

I consider Grackles 'nuisance birds' but they do have their own beauty. Sunlight glancing off their feathers reveals a blue/purple/green sheen; their feathers are actually quite pretty.  I hate to have just filled my feeders with expensive bird seed before a Grackle throng appears. They can clean out every feeder in a matter of minutes, leaving my Cardinals, Wrens, and other sweet little birds without a bite to eat.

After supper, I visited one of my rubber stamping buddies.  She lives about five miles from me, and I am a frequent visitor to her home. She has a marvelous craft area, a separate room that her sweet husband built for her several years ago. He says it was in self-defense; he was tired of seeing and walking around her craft supplies in the main part of the house.  That she also entertained her stamping friends in their den, where he really would have liked to have been watching TV, probably had nothing to do with his decision. Wanna bet?

My son, whose birthday it was today, was in Dallas at a Barbershop Quartet competition, so we had no birthday celebration.  He is very active in the Barbershop Harmony Society, also known as the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc.  or SPEBSQSA.  You can read all about it here should you care to do so.  He is the director of the Diamond State Chorus, and he and three other fine fellows sing together beautifully in a quartet they have named Flashback, They do quite well in local and regional competitions.  I've been thinking about him and wishing them well today.  We'll celebrate his birthday one evening this coming week.

That's about it for this eighth day of the new year. Tomorrow is also a day.