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Happy April Eve

 The months March on. We’re having a touch of summer here.  High today, 98 degrees.  A nice warm morning, air conditioning in the afternoon; but when we do go outside, it just feels good.  It’s not entirely summer though, just a taste.  In a couple days it will cool back down into the 70s.  In the summer, it will just stay in the 90s for months. Our constant source of entertainment, Donald Trump, did it again today.  He declared, in line with his conservative values, he’s pro-life.  Abortion should be illegal.  And if he gets elected and can make it illegal, then any woman who gets an abortion should be punished.  The crowd went wild.  He not only offended the pro-choice activists, he ignited the anti-abortion activists as well.  Of course, it didn’t take long before he had “clarified” his position.  What he meant to say was that if abortions are illegal, the doctors performing them should be punished, but not the women.  Big sigh of relief.  He walked it back.  He made it right. But I’m left with a logic problem.  There is no question that women will seek abortions whether they are legal or not.  Not all women of course, but a significant number of women.  If abortions are illegal, then of course the doctors who provide them should be jailed, but shouldn’t people engaging an illegal service be jailed as well?  Don’t we already have a precedent here?  What about drug use?  There is no questions that a significant number of people seek illegal drugs.  If the suppliers of illicit drugs are caught, they are jailed. 
The consumers, people convicted of illicit drug use, are jailed as well.  It only makes sense.  If something is wrong, it’s wrong.  If you punish the people supplying the service, you should punish the people procuring the service as well. Just like with prostitution too.  Jail the prostitutes and, and, ….and let the johns go free. Oh, nevermind. 
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Little Blue Heron

 Another year-round resident. They look like this; little and blue. Except when they’re young, then they look like this; white. But as they get older, they start to turn blue, like the white with dark splotch bird, second from the right in this picture. And then sometimes when they get excited, they just look like this. 
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Migrant birds

 Start showing up here around the end of March.  It gets busy in April, then they’re mostly gone by the middle of May.  They’re on their way north to breeding grounds.  The three birds I sent out yesterday, the American golden plover, upland sandpiper, and pectoral sandpiper, they’ll soon be long-gone, not to be seen in these southern parts again until fall.  They winter well south of us in Central and South America.  They breed as far north as the tundra in Canada and Alaska.  They are just passing through. Here are the range maps: Upland Sandpiper.  A relative lightweight.  Some of them only go as far north as the U.S. Midwest to stop and breed (although some do go on to Canada and Alaska).  Pectoral Sandpiper.  A pretty serious migrant, even though some of them only go as far south as way north South America. The American Golden Plover.  A champion migrator.  All the way from way south South America to the far north tundra and back, every year.