Signifying nothing

The robin chicks have all fledged. One was seen hopping about on the busy street out front, and some neighborhood girls rescued it. I am uncertain if the parent robins continued to feed it, however, given the human scent I'm sure it carried. One would hope that birds would not be so snobby.

Magpie Originally uploaded by Theorris For Counterintuitive. Magpies are one of my favorite birds. Sure I like eagles and robins and pine finches and whatnot, but the western magpie is an awesomely cool native bird*. Unlike others, I like their interesting sounds and their propensity to dive-bomb any threat to their nest--cat--dog--human--volkswagen. I once had a colleague decry the horrible nature of magpies (not you Counterintuitive). I had to restrain myself from laying into her and her rather parochial views of nature. Apparently you can train magpies to talk, if you are heartless enough to remove them from the wild (which is our suburban/urban/rural environment.) *The western magpie differs from the eastern magpie (or European magpie, I think.) I am not completely sure that they are native to the western North American continent, but I think they are. Update: The American Magpie ( Pica hudsonia ) is indeed an American native. It has been in the West of the United States for ar...

I commute via mass transit and walk daily to the bus stop. The following recording is just 30 seconds of a 5 minute walk:

Editor's note:  this entry was originally published by Snyder on a now defunct "Silence Project" blog.  I post it here for archival purposes. Here are two failed attempts. Bah, car ruined it. Bah, Birds. It is hard to escape noise. So I gave up for today, I'll try again later. ... As long as I've given up for the day, here is some of tonight's rain. That is all.

And I can imagine the British voice overs: "Hello hello hello! What's going on here then!" It does look much more like a Cops episode, however. I do like how Officer Cluck in the back kicked the perp after he and offer Scratch broke up the fight. Note, as well, How officer Scratch intercedes himself between the two miscreants while his partner takes the rear guard. It really is nice to know that cop maneuvers and football and basketball plays are commonly shared in all us critters.