Cloudy afternoon. Low diffuse light. Plenty of company circling for no apparent reason.
Mostly turkey vultures
With a few black vultures mixed in.
Some looking like stealth bombers.
One kind of bird flying around begets others, so worth a closer look to see what else is there. Mostly in silhouette.
A hawk.
A kingfisher.
An anhinga.
And lucky me, Judy made a traditional birthday cake from mom’s original recipe with crispy crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside 7-minute frosting.
Coffee on the deck, an afternoon drive to the island. Stopped on the way to find an Aplomado Falcon. Missed. Tried another spot. No luck. Texted Jon for help. Tried another spot. Still no. Saw a lot of other birds. Never made it to the island. Drove to Brownsville for take-out wings. Ate them at Oliviera Park waiting for 250 screaming parrots to fly in at dusk and roost in the trees. Identified three different species. An excellent day.
Usually there are a lot of Canadians here in the winter. This year, Covid regulations in their own country don’t allow them to cross the border to their less-responsible neighbors to the south though. They want to keep the brakes on their outbreaks.
So we were surprised when Canadians showed up here this winter. We were glad to see them, but curious. We asked. Turns out, Canadians can’t cross the border from their country to ours. They can’t walk, drive, or take a bus. They can, however, fly, so they’re here. Does that make sense? You can’t cross the border on the ground, but you can fly. I hope the rules work in reverse for them; that flying back to Canada from the U.S. is not a problem either.
The long hot summer here is over. No more sitting on the deck at 80 degrees for morning coffee. The coffee has moved back inside. We still get the occasional morning in the 70s, but more often morning temperatures are in the 50s and sometimes even 40s! Brrr. Brutal. Daytime highs are still mostly in the 70s though. Not so brutal.
The Americas Cup World Series begins late tonight or early tomorrow morning, depending on your time zone. 3pm New Zealand time.
Our DVR can hardly wait!
