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Post by Timeblue on Jul 20, 2019 9:56:43 GMT
Great pics @bluebird I'm a bit of a twitcher too but most of the birds we get in England are LBJs. Our goldfinch looks a little prettier though imo. I'd love to view hummingbirds so I'm well jealous in that respect.
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Post by BIuebird on Jul 20, 2019 13:38:31 GMT
Timeblue Thanks! Haha, it's good to know you use the term LBJs there, too. I wasn't sure if that was a regional term or not. European goldfinches are pretty! This is the standard American goldfinch, which we see where I live. The lesser goldfinches are out of our range, so they were different to see while we were in Arizona. I took these pictures of goldfinches in our backyard last year:
Yes, hummingbirds are native only to the Americas, sadly. We are lucky to have them, they are so fun to watch. They are very bold for their size, too!
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 24, 2019 7:09:02 GMT
BIuebird: the reason I came up with the critters is because in your post you wrote "critters" instead of "creatures", check it out. Scorpions are scary, the problem with them is that they get in everywhere. There's not much of a chance of finding a rattlesnake inside your shoe when you wake up in the morning, but if you are in scorpion territory there could be a lethal creature almost everywhere. That the virga phenomenon exists is totally out of discussion, what I was wondering is whether what came out in that picture couldn't be sheer rain because it looks so similar to what rain looks like here. Hey, talking about ostriches, when I was young we (my family) had a South American relative of the ostrich called ñandú (I think in English they also call it rhea) as a pet. I had even uploaded a few pictures of it here but then the hosting site closed so they are no longer showing. Only bird I've ever had. Cute and fun when it was little, but then it grew up to be huge and intimidating.
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Post by Horacewimp on Jul 24, 2019 7:34:40 GMT
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Post by BIuebird on Jul 24, 2019 18:39:59 GMT
Helmut83 Ah, I see! That reference obviously flew right over my head, sorry for being dense there! Oh yes, I have heard that they like to hide in shoes! My dad was in the army reserves during the Vietnam war, and they were stationed in New Mexico for a while. He remembers everyone shaking out their shoes in the mornings to check for scorpions. I'm arachnophobic, so I wouldn't do well living somewhere where scorpions are just everywhere! Luckily most of the shoes I brought on the trip were sandals, so it would have been easy to see if they had contained an unwanted occupant. It certainly could be, I have no way to know for certain since the images look so similar. I did some research though, and the website for the Arizona-Sonora Desert museum (which we visited) has this to say about the phenomenon there: "And even with all the buildup, it is not at all uncommon to have a "frustrated" thunderstorm. Towering cumulus clouds sweep across valley floors, whirling skirts of wind and dust, and throwing lightning bolts. Yet all the rain can evaporate before reaching the ground. This creates one of the more awesome desert sights: virga,the trailing vaporous streams of rain that hang from a thunderhead with frayed ends drying in the layer of hot air over the desert's surface." Here is the link to the web page if you are curious to read a bit more about it. Oh wow, you had a pet rhea? That's really cool! I've only seen them in zoos before. I do hope that you will be able to recover the images, as I would love to see pictures! Yes, ostriches and their relatives can be quite dangerous! By far the most dangerous and aggressive is the cassowary, which is a cousin to the ostrich and the emu. Was your pet still friendly as it got larger, and it's size was just intimidating? Or did it become more aggressive as well?
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 24, 2019 20:27:10 GMT
BIuebird : Thanks for the link to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum site, interesting article about the rain in that area. I don't dedicate myself much to educate myself about weather but the few times I do it strikes me as a remarkably interesting topic. Unfortunately the last time I looked I couldn't find images of Beto, our ñandú pet, in adult age, only a few of when it was young. I uploaded them to a series of posts here, but now I'm not being able to restore those posts because of the problem I described to Horace. Let's see what can be done.
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Post by eloneen on Jul 25, 2019 3:48:40 GMT
BIuebird I see that there's quite a bit of wild weather out west lately, with AZ in particular in a state of emergency for "(wild) Fire and (heavy) Rain." Is the area that you visited recently affected by any of this?
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Post by Horacewimp on Jul 25, 2019 16:14:14 GMT
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 25, 2019 19:24:04 GMT
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Post by BSJ on Jul 25, 2019 19:41:49 GMT
If the pay is right, the ninja twins just might be interested in that gig. Helmut83! Brutal threatening our fearless leader! You should be ashamed of yourself!
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 25, 2019 20:16:27 GMT
If the pay is right, the ninja twins just might be interested in that gig. Helmut83 ! Brutal threatening our fearless leader! You should be ashamed of yourself! I am! But I am more ashamed of the stupidy I made.
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Post by BSJ on Jul 25, 2019 20:20:04 GMT
It wasn't stupid at all.
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 25, 2019 20:46:20 GMT
It was totally stupid, trust me. I deleted the embarrassing part.
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Post by Timeblue on Jul 25, 2019 21:24:16 GMT
Timeblue Thanks! Haha, it's good to know you use the term LBJs there, too. I wasn't sure if that was a regional term or not. European goldfinches are pretty! This is the standard American goldfinch, which we see where I live. The lesser goldfinches are out of our range, so they were different to see while we were in Arizona. I took these pictures of goldfinches in our backyard last year:
Yes, hummingbirds are native only to the Americas, sadly. We are lucky to have them, they are so fun to watch. They are very bold for their size, too! Do you guys get starlings that decimate the fat balls and mealworms? the minute I put these out, a thousand starlings (or so it seems) descend on the feeders. I'm looking for a fatball feeder that has a cage around it just so the smaller birds can get their share.
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Post by BSJ on Jul 26, 2019 0:00:05 GMT
We have problems with wrens and sparrows. Way too many of them. I don't like feeding what I call mice with wings.
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