Birds and books

This morning I managed to put my glasses on without disturbing the bird at the feeder, and it was indeed an Indigo Bunting. For other blue, I have Blue Jays.

The cardinal was here today, and the Rosebreasted Grosbeak and both of them seemed to have young ones (the cardinal might have been a female, but the grosbeak was definitely a growing child). Scarlet Tanagers were around a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't seen them again. I love my allegedly Red-Breasted Nuthatches very much, but the coloring is subtle and more of a rose than a red. Or maybe a rosy ochre. Red-bellied woodpeckers, heard but not seen.

For yellow I have Evening Grosbeaks and Goldfinches.

I haven't seen any Baltimore Orioles, who would do for orange and maybe green, or female Scarlet Tanagers, who are definitely green. I do have Purple Finches but they are a color I would call Pahnk.

And lots of very pleasant less-distinctively colored birds, like Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Chipping Sparrows, some kind of flycatchers, the sounds of Great-Horned and Barred Owls and Pileated Woodpeckers, and Ovenbirds and Woodthrushes and a Veery at the lower end of the driveway (which is a nice sound to hear as I leave for work), and the hummingbirds shooting past the deck. It is really really nice.

The bear has not been in evidence lately. The raccoon is still trying to get in and eat the birdseed. The tadpoles are huge, and there are two newts in the puddle with them. The frogs are much thinner on the ground and shyer than last year's. I hope the chickens have not been eating them.

We are looking for someone to take our roosters. To eat them would be just fine. Spike crows _all_ the time and keeps attacking us, which is unwise of him. Faith isn't as obnoxious to us but the feather-picked appearance of the hens is upsetting, though the hens don't seem to mind much.

There was a delightful article on a Harry Potter convention in New Orleans in Salon. I am not alone in having the mixed feelings in my anticipation of the next book, because it will be the last book, at least as far as I know, in that universe. I still don't quite understand why I like them so much; the silly names bother me a bit (I mean, was poor Remus Lupin doomed to be a werewolf from his birth, or did he change his name when he got infected?)but they are a great place to go, even if lately Harry feels lousy most of the time. So I am going to have a small in-advance-of-publication J.K. Rowling festival. In September the fourth Temeraire book is coming out, which will give me something to live for (other than the inauguration of a different occupant of the White House), and I have gone insane and ordered a copy of the first one (les Dragons de sa majeste) in French. I know it's feeble to read only stuff in translation, but it does practice my French and I know it well enough to actually figure out the words I don't know, and I like it enough to put up with the slowness of reading another language. Which all impel me not to try to read anything I don't already know I like a lot. You can never tell when you might have to go back to Quebec and get a chance to speak in foreign.