BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.

Subject: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: RangerSteve
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 08:30 PM

I went to work today after my weekend (Wed. and Thur.) and updated my "Every Day's a Holiday" desk calendar. It seems that on Wed., the swallows were supposed to return to Capistrano. This is usually a footnote in the local paper, but was overlooked because of the war. So, does anyone know if they got there? I thing it was last year that they missed and went somewhere else. And the buzzards are supposed to return to Hinkley, Ohio at about the same time. No word again in the papers. Saturday, Mar. 22 is designated as International Goof-off Day. Clearly, Pres. Bush doesn't have the same calendar, or he would have postponed the war. The rest of you can goof off for a day. I have to work. It's bad enough I had to work on Christmas, but this is too much. I can't even take it easy, because the Delaware River was 14 feet above normal this morning, and probably 17 feet by 3:30 this afternoon. It's supposed to crest either tomorrow or Sunday. My patrol route covers about 60 miles of the Delaware shore line in New Jersey along with a canal that parallels the river and is also flooding. I'll be roping off boat ramps and such, and pulling unfortunate (and stupid) people out of the river and canal. I'll use the yellow "POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS" tape, and people will tear it down because it's really just a form of police harassment and the river isn't dangerous, and besides, the rangers can't really do anything to us, I know because I saw a nature documentary about a bear named Yogi and they're really just a bunch of bone headed buffoons. If you live along the Delaware, all I can say is EVERYBODY IN THE HOUSE, GET OUT! DO IT NOW!GO GO GO GO!

Okay Steve, take a breath. Have a happy Int'l Goof-off Day, everyone, and let me know about the swallows and buzzards.

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 08:43 PM

I'm happy to report to you that the buzzards once again returned to Hinckley, Ohio (which is just south of Cleveland). I saw a blurb on the news about it on or about the 15th. We're about 100 miles south of Hinckley and we too have migrating flocks of buzzards which start showing up at about the same time, and indeed they have.

I used to go through Hinckley every few weeks and I enjoyed all of the buzzard paraphernalia that people had like mailboxes and such. I've never gone to the "Buzzard Fest" but Karen and I have laughed about going several times.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Tinker
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 08:51 PM

Steve I'll think of you tommorrow.... A wee bit north of you (Montclair) and the rain and thunder just keep coming. The sun will be out tommorrow and I can just imagine the crowds heading out Rt 80 to the Water Gap to search for spring by the river....I'll be on the soggy fields while Lacrosse practice begins....

Tinker

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 08:53 PM

Well, Steve, I have good news! Your summer buzzards are our winter buzzards. Yep, the danged things show up late in the fall and leave in March, which is good news to Leesburg's Officer Sargent Skeeter Moxley. Poor old Skeeter, who went to school with my wife, was assigned "Buzzard Duty" every year and like Wylie Coyote, every year he came back with a new method to keep Buzzard Roadrunner out of the trees in downtown Leesburg.

Yeah, it was either timed charges that sounded like gun shots or sirens or...

Well, you're gonna love this one, Steve. Two years ago, which was the last year before poor old Skeeter's institutionalization, he came up with the perfect plan. Yep, he purchased a very large cage/trap. The idea was to catch all the buzzards and carry them off to some unsuspecting community in the darkness of night and relaese then danged things onto a perfectly innocent community.

Well, first of all, I think that poor old Skeeeter was in way over his head with the moving of these nasty birds because they're protected and like, ahhh, they are birds and birds seem to know how to find their way home. But nevermind logic here.

So Skeeter had this grand buzzard cage trap designed and made by the Acme Buzzard Trap Co. and set it out with a bunch of road kill that he had collected in the trap and well, folks thought that Skeeter, afetr years of being defreated by a bunch of things with bird brains, was gonna win one.

So there was the trap and the moment of truth. At the day's end the buzzards made their customary return but this time found a trap filled with all kinds of roadkill goodies and all fo them had the same idea: party! Well, all 356 of them landed on the trap and at an avergae weight of 15 pounds each, it don't take a Wes Ginny slide rule to tell ya that that is one heck of a lot of collective buzzard! Well, Steve, you guessed it. Those two tons of buzzards exceeded the one-ton-of-buzzards lomits on the trap and the danged thing jst collapsed under the weight!

Like I said, this was just before poor old Skeeter's little visit with the good doctors. They're letting him out on the weekends now but only under the condition that he doesn't look up.

And that is a true story...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 10:22 PM

Good one, Bobert! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 10:39 PM

By the way, I have a photo I've stuck online for just a little while (Don't go looking for it after next week, I'll clear it out). A friend in West Texas in the Davis Mountains sent it, with this message:

We were awakened with a bang this morning. A stupid dove flew head on, full military power, into our storm door window leaving this pattern on the glass. You will note that its beak and head are outlined with a lot of feathers. And yes it was DOA on the steps. The stupid birds do this frequently out here. I have had them fly into the side of the house, who knows. The first few times I found this pattern on my window I was not sure until a neighbor pointed one out to me on his window. I held up a pice of cardboard so the image would stand out.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 11:21 PM

They have strips that a person can put on their windows to avoid such things.:-)

Thanks for the reminder about the swallows, Steve. I'd forgotten that they always returned on my mom's birthday. She would have been 87 this year.

You be careful pulling the dummies outta the river, ya hear?!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: RangerSteve
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 05:58 AM

Thanks, everyone. It's nice to know that at least the buzzards are okay.

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: gnu
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 10:22 AM

I was just out for a spin and saw flocks of a particular kind of bird which is a sure sign of spring here in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada... the Out-of-Town Shopper. License plates of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island abound on the streets of Moncton.

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 10:40 AM

The snow birds have headed north out of Texas and Arizona, Gnu, but many are native to your area, so you probably won't even notice them when they arrive.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Mudlark
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 12:07 PM

Yes, Steve, the swallows returned...there was a picture in the paper, not of the birds, unfortunately, but of a monk welcoming them by ringing a bell at the mission. Spring has sprung in California, the southern half, anyway and we have the opposite problem w/water...not enough of it. "My" river has not been bank-to-bank once this winter.

Take care of yourself out there...keep your powder dry...

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Hollowfox
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 12:25 PM

You have my sympathy, Steve. Stay dry if you can, drink lots of hot beverages, don't catch a cold, and give those dolts a dope slap if only if you won't get into trouble for it. Mary (also at work, but in a huge windowless library)

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 11:26 PM

23 years ago, I worked for a woman who ran an adult bookstore(just north of Wash. D.C.). One day, I read her a news article about the buzzards returning to Hinkley. "Wow!" says she...and next day, jumped in her truck and DROVE to Hinkley to see them!

Turned out, her 'real' hobby was eclipses of the sun, and she has been to 8-9...one in Canada she went to on her motorcycle.... one on a cruise ship...one in the middle of the Sahara desert...etc...seems you meet the same people over & over on these things....kinda like going to folk festivals!

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 12:43 AM

SRS-Just curious when the dove flew into the window? I'm thinking stupid thoughts of symbolism and wondering if the date coincides with the day the war started? That would be an eerie message if it did! Yeah ok, weird thought.
Hey I haven't seen a pelican, heron or trumpeter swan yet, but I'm sure they are on their way!
Peace. Rustic

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: open mike
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 03:12 AM

the bats returnedc to my house on about the same day the swallows and vultures returned. I had on in my house, but i prefer them out side.
Also I saw and heard Sand Hills Cranes going over last week, and today
was fortunate enough to see a bald eagle soaring over me! Good omen!

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Troll
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 03:35 AM

Steve, I read one time that the only crime at sea is stupidity. The penalty is immediate and often fatal and there are no appeals.
The same is true of rivers, especially in flood.
Good luck with your idiots up there. We have them all over the place down here in Florida and we have boating fatalities every year.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: gnu
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 07:01 AM

SRS... they don't stay in southern NB so we do notice when they are moving thru, both spring and fall. Never seen a bird more apt to fly into a vehicle. I slow down when I see any near the road. I've seen a dozen hit the side of a truck at once... flighty ?

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 10:16 AM

Rustic,

You've identified an interesting possibility, but the dove did the kamakaze thing yesterday morning. My friend has a digital camera so it is a pretty quick operation from "point and shoot" to "send." He told me later another one also hit the window (and they apparently do have some kind of bird deterrent on the glass) but this was only stunned and managed to fly off.
If any of you have ever heard Bailey White's essays on All Things Considered you may have heard the following. It is a very short essay in her book Mama Makes Up Her Mind and other Dangers of Southern Living.

Dead on the Road

My mother eats things she finds dead on the road. Her standards are high. She claims she won't eat anything that's not a fresh kill. But I don't trust her. I require documentation. I won't eat it unless she can tell me the model and tag number of the car that struck it.

Mama is an adventurous and excellent cook, and we have feasted not only on doves, turkeys, and quail, but robins, squirrels, and only once, a possum. I draw the line at snakes. "But it was still wiggling when I got there," she argues. "Let's try it just this once. I have a white sauce with dill and mustard."

"No snakes," I say.

And she won't even slow down for armadillos, although they are the most common dead animal on the road these days. "They look too stupid to eat," she says.

We have a prissy aunt Eleanor who comes to dinner every third Friday. We always get out the linen and polish the silver when she comes. She expect it. Last month we sat her down to an elegant meal, complete with the Spode china and camellias in a crystal bowl.

"The quail are delicious," my aunt sighed. "And I haven't found a single piece of shot. How do you manage it?"

"Intersection of 93 at Baggs Road," recites Mama. "Green late model pickup, Florida tag. Have another one. And some rice, El."

She has many other marvelous essays in the book. I heard some of them over the years on NPR, but others are new to me, and they're all treasures.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: RangerSteve
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 06:31 PM

The good news is only two canoeists were dumb enough to go out on the river, and they gave up early and came ashore. The river hit 18 feet above normal on Sat., but this morning, (Sun.) was down to 17 1/2. No houses got damaged. Lots of interesting stuff floating down the river, though. Thanks for the update on the swallows and buzzards.

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 07:02 AM

I like this thread - lots of good pictures here

Our cool weather is starting - daylight savings ends Saturday. But stupid folks get on the water all over the world.

Christmas some years back my friend's mum was fishing on the river side of the point when a family drove up with a small dinghy on the car - the dad asked her which way to the sea. They wanted to try out their new boat, they'd never had one before!! She told them off good & proper - no jackets, no brains, at least they didn't need rescuing by better informed folks later in the day.

A couple of year running there was a food stall at one of the festivals - Road Kill, they called themselves, but it was only the usual take-away.

We also have birds that don't understand the modern world - the black & white peewit sees intruders in hub-caps & fights them fiercely.

Where I live we don't get many interesting birds (pigeons, gulls) but I have seen 2 sea eagles soaring on thermals years ago up the coast - a sight I've never forgotten.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: GUEST,Rara Avis, cookie-free
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:38 AM

Ranger Steve, my dear other half has lunch along the Delaware every day, albeit in the National Park area across from the Philadelphia Navy yard. Yesterday he saw what looked like an otter. I know you're a bit north of me but have you had any otter sightings?

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: KateG
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 02:01 PM

RangerSteve,

I know that stretch of the Delaware...love it. I'm up at the other end in Sussex Co., but whenever work takes me to Trenton, I shunpike down the River...much more soothing than going by interstate. So Byram and Ravens Rock are safe?

Up by me the Paulinskill had all its watermeadows underwater last week, but things are beginning to dry out now. Heard peepers for the first time last night, and there are red-wing blackbirds at my feeder. I'm hoping to keep the feeders going till the goldfinches turn gold, but with the weather warming I may have to take them in so they aren't destroyed by bears. I had to laugh when I was buying feeders last fall...all that emphasis on squirrel proof feeders, and not one bear-proof one.

Enjoy the spring, and I'll think of you next time I stop in the D&R Canal park to stretch my legs on the way home.

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: RangerSteve
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 08:03 PM

Kate, D&R Canal is my park. Stop in at the Bulls Island office sometime and say "hi". Raven Rock is safe, Byram and Frenchtown came close to getting wet, but survived. RaraAvis, no otters that I've seen, but lots of beavers, muskrats, and recently a pair of bald eagles nesting just north of Lambertville.

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Rara Avis
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 08:51 PM

Tonight at dinner Himself told me he saw one other thing on the river not normally seen this time of year - a fellow in cut-offs and sneakers boarding his ski-doo for a ride. Mister thought that, since the water temperature is only in the 40s, the craft must be brand new and the fellow couldn't wait to try it out. Some peoples' kids!

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 12:29 PM

Whoo hoo! Diane Rehm had a landscape gardener on her program today (James Van Sweden) and my call went through! Unfortunately, the answer to my Bermuda grass problem isn't an easy one--he suggests a chemical approach. Roundup. Oh, well. I'll look into it. I want to plant shrubs, and the only grass I want out there is native buffalo grass. More signs of spring--the grass is shooting up fast, but if you get out there right after the rain it still is tender enough that you can pull out plugs, roots and all, from the garden.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Swallows, buzzards, goofing off, floods.
From: jimmyt
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 10:10 AM

I live on Interstate 75 which is the direct flight path of the snowbirds heading back to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan from Florida. Best place to spot them is either at the Wafflehouse or the haure cuisine mecca for this species, Crackerbarrel, where you can hear the familiar call'"Earl, don't leave our usual quarter, she only refilled my coffee three times!"