Month: March 2008

A Few More Hours of Spring Sunshine

We had at least three hours of brilliant sunshine today before the predicted storm hit, so I decided to go to Belfair since it’s been quite awhile since I’ve managed to get there.

Unfortunately, although I went expecting to see the tree swallows, there was nary a one to be seen. In fact, there were remarkably few birds at all.

Still, I managed to comforted myself by basking in the brilliant sunshine reflected in these leaves,

Spring leaves in sunshine

by admiring the many crocuses,

Crocus

and enjoying the birds I did manage to sight, like this pair of Common Goldeneyes.

Common Goldeneye pair

cummings’ “Nobody wears a yellow…”

I’ll have to admit that at times I find myself tiring of some of cummings’ oft-repeated themes, whether spring or “love,” so I’m delighted when i find an odd little one like this that I really like:

186

Nobody wears a yellow
flower in his buttonhole
he is altogether a queer fellow
as young as he is old

when autumn comes,
who twiddles his white thumbs
and frisks down the boulevards
without his coat and hat

-(and i wonder just why that
should please him or i wonder what he does)

and why(at the bottom of this trunk,
under some dirty collars) only a
moment
(or
was it perhaps a year) ago i found staring
me in the face a dead yellow small rose

Perhaps my recent rummaging through old papers and old photo albums piqued my interest in this poem, but I suspect that once you reach a certain age and look back that you begin to wonder why the heck you did some of the things you once did — not that I didn’t start wondering the same thing long before now.

When I go back and look at some of my old pictures I can’t imagine what the heck I was thinking of when it was taken. Perhaps we’d all learn something important about ourselves if we re-examined the different “roles” we’ve assumed in our lifetime and tried to figure out why we did so.

I’m pretty sure I never wore a yellow flower in my buttonhole, considering my allergies, but I wouldn’t be a man if I hadn’t managed to make a fool out of myself trying to impress members of the fairer sex.

Sunday Worship

I usually don’t go to Nisqually on the weekend, but with a long-range forecast of rain and more rain, Leslie and I spent Sunday’s three hours of sunshine birdwatching. If the birds are any indication, Spring is near. We saw the greatest variety of birds I’ve seen since last fall.

My favorite part of the trip was the return of the tree swallows who joined us often on our five mile walk. Unfortunately they’re so fast that I’ve yet to capture a decent shot of them in flight. I’ve had to save that for larger, slower birds, like this Red-Tailed Hawk that buzzed us several times, obviously enjoying the sunshine as much as we were.

Red-Tailed Hawk Overhead

There were too many varieties of birds to include all of them, but here’s a favorite shot of some Lesser Yellowlegs running along McCallister Creek.

Lesser Yellowlegs Running

The media hit of the day, though, had to be the baby Great Horned Owl

Baby Great Horned Owl

and his mommy who stood guard on the opposite side of the nest:

Great Horned Owl

Blogger Survey for Doctoral Student

I received this letter Friday and thought it was worthwhile enough to pass on to my readers:

ATTENTION BLOGGERS!

I am a doctoral student in Communication Studies at Kent State University. For my doctoral dissertation, I am studying bloggers. Would you be willing to participate in my survey?

This online survey should only take about 15 minutes to complete, and it would mean the world to me. If you participate, you will be entered in a drawing to win one of 10, $20 Amazon.com gift cards.

To participate in this study, you must be at least 18 years old, and you must currently maintain a blog that is primarily about your personal musings about your life, internal states, opinions, thoughts, or attitudes. Finally, you must write in your blog at least once a month.

If you would like to participate, please visit the following website.

Thanks so much for your help!

Sincerely,
Erin E. Kleman
Doctoral Candidate
School of Communication Studies
Kent State University
eekleman@kent.edu