It was a draw.
Annie and the stink bug
It was a draw.
It was a draw.
We’ve relocated
Now we’re at Jefferson County Fairgrounds. We’ve been at Chatfield State Park, but couldn’t get a reservation for the Labor Day Weekend. We had to move out for three days.
The Fairgrounds are not quite the same as the State Parks. That’s us in the back.
Monday we get to move back to Chatfield.
Along the way
Annie
August
Even though we roam the country, I still have a day-job, so there is a limited amount of time available for birding. I walk an hour every day. I take my binoculars with me and pay attention to the birds I see. Once in a while we make a birding excursion, but mostly, our monthly bird lists are the result of 30 hours of walking. The bird list for August. Six states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado. 107 birds. 2 lifers: White-winged Scoter and Purple Finch.
| Canada Goose |
| Wood Duck |
| Mallard |
| Blue-winged Teal |
| Ring-necked Duck |
| White-winged Scoter |
| Common Merganser |
| Ruffed Grouse |
| Wild Turkey |
| Common Loon |
| Pied-billed Grebe |
| American White Pelican |
| Double-crested Cormorant |
| Great Blue Heron |
| Great Egret |
| Snowy Egret |
| Green Heron |
| Black-crowned Night-Heron |
| Turkey Vulture |
| Osprey |
| Bald Eagle |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk |
| Cooper’s Hawk |
| Broad-winged Hawk |
| Swainson’s Hawk |
| Red-tailed Hawk |
| American Kestrel |
| Merlin |
| Peregrine Falcon |
| American Coot |
| Sandhill Crane |
| Killdeer |
| Spotted Sandpiper |
| Franklin’s Gull |
| Ring-billed Gull |
| Herring Gull |
| Black Tern |
| Rock Pigeon |
| Eurasian Collared-Dove |
| Mourning Dove |
| Common Nighthawk |
| Chimney Swift |
| Ruby-throated Hummingbird |
| Black-chinned Hummingbird |
| Broad-tailed Hummingbird |
| Belted Kingfisher |
| Red-headed Woodpecker |
| Yellow-bellied Sapsucker |
| Downy Woodpecker |
| Hairy Woodpecker |
| Northern Flicker |
| Pileated Woodpecker |
| Western Wood-Pewee |
| Eastern Wood-Pewee |
| Eastern Phoebe |
| Say’s Phoebe |
| Western Kingbird |
| Eastern Kingbird |
| Warbling Vireo |
| Red-eyed Vireo |
| Blue Jay |
| Black-billed Magpie |
| American Crow |
| Common Raven |
| Tree Swallow |
| Barn Swallow |
| Black-capped Chickadee |
| Red-breasted Nuthatch |
| White-breasted Nuthatch |
| Marsh Wren |
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher |
| Eastern Bluebird |
| American Robin |
| Gray Catbird |
| European Starling |
| Cedar Waxwing |
| Golden-winged Warbler |
| Tennessee Warbler |
| Nashville Warbler |
| Yellow Warbler |
| Chestnut-sided Warbler |
| Magnolia Warbler |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler |
| Black-throated Green Warbler |
| Yellow-throated Warbler |
| Black-and-white Warbler |
| American Redstart |
| Common Yellowthroat |
| Chipping Sparrow |
| Vesper Sparrow |
| Lark Sparrow |
| Savannah Sparrow |
| Grasshopper Sparrow |
| Song Sparrow |
| White-throated Sparrow |
| Dark-eyed Junco |
| Northern Cardinal |
| Red-winged Blackbird |
| Western Meadowlark |
| Common Grackle |
| Brown-headed Cowbird |
| Orchard Oriole |
| Baltimore Oriole |
| Purple Finch |
| House Finch |
| American Goldfinch |
| House Sparrow |
So far we’ve gotten at least one life-bird in every month this year, except June.
Who knew?
Our Allison transmission has 6 gears. I always took that at face value. Our Aladdin system has a digital display that shows what gear the transmission is in. I can watch it shift from 1 through 6. There is a letter that follows every gear; the letter “L”. I took that to mean “Low”, and that maybe some heavier duty version of the transmission, for a bigger rig or maybe a semi truck-tractor, has a “High” range to go with the Low range. But driving on a slow steep winding road to a campground, when first gear wasn’t quite getting it, I noticed that the transmission downshifted. It downshifted from 1st gear Low, to…. …what? I switched over to the digital display to watch while I messed with hills and gears and figured out that there are two more gears than I knew about. There is 1st gear “C” and 2nd gear “C”. If terminology I remember from my youth still applies, that would be a compound low for first gear and second gear. Our six speed transmission has eight different gears. Who knew?