All Halloweeny

There are those days when staying home and trying to write isn't working. The house has been far too quiet lately. Liam's a senior in high school. 'Nuff said.

I didn't realize how much it meant to have another warm living body in the house, whether it was a person or just a sweetly weary dog, his face all silver, his eyes clouded. Now he's gone, too, and sometimes I just have to put some

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Angry Chipmunks

His day started out iffy.





A mourning dove came in way too low. A bit unnerving, but he held his ground.




I'm shooting from the studio window, laughing already.




He'd barely gotten his pouches half filled with sunflower hearts and corn when a challenger with a ratty tail arrived and pounced on him. Aaack!!




And the Chipmunk Rumble began.




The two animals became a roiling ball

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Release the Goldfinch!

In the two weeks I had the young goldfinch in my studio, she was rarely quiet. She twittered through the day. One of her frequent vocalizations I couldn't recall having heard in the wild. It's the lower-pitched zraayzee call, given a number of times in this video. It's much louder and more emphatic than most of her twitters and twerps.

After hearing it from her, I heard a juvenile give it once,

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The Flower Destroyers

Have your zinnias lost their petals on the bedpost
overnight? Have you been finding puddles of brightly colored sepals and
denuded heads, still gaily ringed with the bright yellow “true flowers” in the
center? I sure have. Experience has taught me who dun it.



You have a guilty look on your face, sir.











Wut. I’m just a goldfinch, perched decoratively

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Don't Dress Up a Goldfinch