Here we have the male Brown-headed Cowbird. I used to think this was just a "blackbird" but there are 18 different kinds of blackbirds in America. The head is dark brown and sometimes hard to tell from black. We also get Red-winged Blackbirds, but no pictures yet. Interesting (maybe to me only) is that ravens are considered in the blackbird family but crows are not. Who knows why. More than you ever wanted to know about birds!
One problem with identifying birds, is many of the female birds all look alike. A lot of them are brown with markings and it's subtle differences that allow you to identify them. This is the female Brown-Headed Cowbird, which from a distance also looks a lot like a sparrow, a wren, a female red-wing blackbird, and a female finch. It's the sharp-pointed beak that mostly gives it away.
Sunday mornings with my sweetheart. Strawberry smoothies, breakfast choices, a crossword puzzle, and the birds outside. Perfect.
When I first built the Plex server I thought it would just be a toy I messed with for a fun side project. To that end I put it together on the cheap in a small form factor case with limited storage. Well I had no idea how useful and popular it would become. This is the new Plex and it's a beast with plenty of room for expansion. The future of entertainment is now!
We're getting plenty of shots of these little critters too. We love squirrels but we try to chase them off the bird cam, they have their own place to eat after all.
As previously mentioned I got a bird cam for Christmas, I plan on trying to document all the various birds we get as I can. But to start, here is the default view (with a lady cardinal helping out for perspective.) It's mounted to the fence facing the house with a special close up lens, hence everything else being a little blurry.
All the weather geeks had us freaking out that we were going to get at least six inches if not a lot more in snow today. Well we did get snow but it seems to be pretty tame so far. Not complaining of course. We'll see, it's only 1 and it's supposed to snow through 9 tonight. Regardless it's always pretty!
This snap not courtesy of the new bird cam, but I had to grab a rare occurrence. Two species of woodpecker at the same time!
Mari got me this modular Wyze bird feeder camera for Christmas and it's up and running on the fence. The camera has a rechargeable battery and the roof is a solar charger. So far it seems to be keeping itself charged quite nicely despite lots of use. We absolutely love it. Expect a semi-obnoxious amount of bird content to come in the future. You have been warned!
Dinner at Cracker Barrel, and a request to sit by the crackling fireplace when its 26 degrees out.
A dusting of snow this morning begins a cold week. Would have been nice to have a little powder for Christmas.
After two days of hard work Christmas has been boxed up. Just need to get them all put up in the storage space. See you next year!
Godzilla (and the little Santa hat Mari custom made for him) says it's time for Christmas to be packed away. Who am I to argue with a 164,000 ton radioactive monster?
And so 2025 has begun. Let's hope it turns out to be a good one, and turn that hope into action.
Casie made this incredible picture of Maddie for us. Its a bittersweet thing. The art is so amazing in how it captures her, but every time I look at it I get a pang of remorse. I really miss that dog.
We kicked off the first day of 2025 up at Dad's house watching the Sun Devils play Texas in a college football playoff. It looked grim early, and they did end up losing, but it was in double overtime so they made a game of it!
