sheftali52

Baldur, your taste in music is indeed eclectic. Billy Ocean--loved him--his Caribbean Queen gets me up and dancing every time. Sheftali's taste runs the gamut from Creed and Journey to Billy Ocean to Johnny Mathis to Keiko Matsui, and so many more. Sadly, my iPod music needs to be reloaded, so Sheftali has a lot of work to do to regain her music library. Enjoyed the two music videos you just posted, Baldur.

marius

Finally marius knows one adult with an ipod. Surely there must be others, but have not met them. Hands clapping for Sheftali!

Baldur unfaithful? Wandering off to other sites enhances Channel Baldur ... or Baldur Radio ... or Rockin' Robin Radio ... so does not seem unfaithful! Loved that quirkly rap and NEVER thought to hear love and rap in sentence coming from my mouth. What is the world coming to?

Had to youtube most all the artists mentioned. The only one whose music have definitely heard before is Patti Page. Very nice. Have not got through the whole list, but so far liked all. Especially blues.

marius

marius greatly admires Baldur's eclectic tastes and if ever visiting would probably zone out in sheer delight were Baldur to entertain with his treasured tunes. However, for sensory reasons listed elsewhere, I do not often listen to music. Love it, but find it difficult to listen while doing other things. It's odd, I know.

Two days ago there was a nice steady breeze so marius went to hear one of her favorites of all music's in the world. Think it belongs in Earth Music category. Got settled on the trail, laid down, closed eyes to sun and ahhhhh. Grass music!

For reasons unknown, the sound of wind moving through grasses that are 9-12' tall moves me to ecstasy. Have never heard "music" like this anywhere, except at other tall-grass prairies. And you can only hear it in Autumn, when grasses are drying and the wind fiddles her way through, around and across seeds, stems and leaves. Have thought if there are no tall-grass prairies in heaven, I do not want to go.

marius

Oh, cannot stop with grass music. There is another Earth Music which will arrive to these parts soon. It is the annual geese (particularly snow geese) migration. About mid-November marius will head out to Squaw Creek National Wildlife refuge, where at peak migration there can be as many as 350,000 geese. If grace is present, it will be a mildly coolish day.

We hike a half mile out on the dike, sit on the grass and listen. The sound of 350,000 geese honking about is truly a force, but it is nothing compared to the sound of all those wings flying up in unison when something (generally a hungry eagle) spooks geese to the air.

The sound made with the wings is a tremendous roar. First time marius took spouse to hear and see this, the geese decided to rise up directly above our heads. Not only is it too loud to speak to each other, but the entire sky is filled with black and white and there is nothing else to see, or hear. Marius looked at spouse to see his reaction and it was as hers ... tears streaming down the face. After the geese settled back into the water, there was no talk for quite a while. Finally spouse said, "I thought you were a bit crazed about bringing me to see a bunch of geese. Now I know."

It makes me cry every year. Cannot explain it. Maybe 300,000+ pairs of wings makes the heart soar and it's so beautiful you can't help but cry? Don't know.

If interested, the first site below is a few good pics. The second site has a video. You have to scroll down the page to access video. It is of spring migration (over a million geese). The best parts of the video are half way through to the end. Enjoy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1213918/Snow-geese-stopover-wildlife-refuge-en- route-wintering-grounds.html

http://www.extremeinstability.com/09squawcreek.htm

matthew

Quite a video... I can not really fathom what it might be like to be up close to such a sight... Thanks for sharing Marius...

Login

Thanks for the links, marius ... there's some fantstic stuff on there. I'm going back for more.

Dragon

The BBC's Planet Earth series had Snow Goose migration in it as well. The video they had was amazing and some was taken from above the flock. The image of a neverending blanket of flying geese was astounding. If you haven't seen that series it is absolutely amazing and well worth renting (if not buying).

maddyjean08

That sounds amazing. They are white, no? A blanket of white over the always gloomy, cloudy skies. The wind ruffling there snowball white feathers.... What I'd give to be a bird......

Baldur

Baldur would definitely be carrying a disposable umbrella while viewing such natural splendor
We do get mallard ducks here at Primrose Pond, and right now the noisy Canada Geese are passing through.
Most of the year there is a Blue Heron who was trying to use our small fishpond as his own sushi bar, We ended up covering the pond with netting. He doesn't much care for that idea.
We have since seen him stalking in the flowerbeds several time. Baldur couldn't imagine what he was after until I saw him strike forward in the daylilies with his beak. He grabbed a chipmunk and swallowed it whole.
Heavens.
It was both fascinating and horrifying.

maddyjean08

Gosh. I thought they ate fish. A whole gopher?

Baldur

Baldur should add that this bird stands as tall as I do and his long pointed beak is the length of my forearm.
He is not very social and will slowly walk away if we approach.
If we continue after him he will fly off,and rapidly too with such long wings.
He can be across the big pond in a couple seconds.

Baldur

They normall eat fish maddyjean, but chipmunks are very small and are not be a challenge for a bird this size to swallow.
Where did you get 'gopher' from? They are somewhat larger than chipmunks.
I think many birds have a wide range of things they are capable of eating, but they have preferences of what like to eat most often.
If there are no fish, chipmunks, mice or even bugs will do.

Baldur

normall +y =normally

Baldur

also -be
Baldur is distracted trying to get dinner ready while he types.

Robindcr8l

All of this wildlife talk is makes today's Radio Baldur session one of Robin's favorites of all time! How exciting to see a heron eat a poor little chipmunk in your own backyard! I mean, I hope the chippie wasn't someone's mother, but still, those big beautiful birds! I had no idea they hunted mammals as well as fish.

And Marius, unfortunately thisold computer with it's cookies or pies or cupcakes problems just wouldn't play that video for me, darn it all! But those pictures were just spectacular! I could never have envisioned the sheer NUMBER of geese you spoke of! We get Canadian gees in droves around here, but nothing at all that compares to that! I must think just like Baldur, because I was envisioning you and your husband getting goose-poop all over your heads! Their turds are as big as dog turds, so that would possibly be a deterrent to me wanting to hear them take flight in person! LOL The umbrella, however, was the perfect solution!

We have herons here, too, and eagles, peregrine falcons, and red-tailed hawks are quite common, also. When I first moved here from NY, I saw these striking black and white birds and thought them so beautiful! I quickly learned they were magpies and they are not unlike flying RATS! They are kind of a big nuisance, very noisy and very aggresive, and, like the heron, they love to hunt small mammals. I have found a few baby squirrels (rats with bushy tails) with beak marks in their heads. Must've been too heavy for the magpies to hang onto.

For some reason, and I don't even think the environmentalists around Boise have figured it out yet, the population of our magpies has significantly reduced over the past 2 years. They are becoming more and more rare to see around here. I can't say I miss their screeching, but I don't like the thought of any animal just starting to disappear. Worries me. I think of the bees.

Dragon

Robin, your sudden loss of magpies (and I agree, they are a horrible bird) may have to do with West Nile Virus. They are part of the Corvid family along with Crows and Blue Jays and are susceptible to it. I'm not sure if you guys got it down there though, there were a few cases (mostly in birds and horses) up here a couple years ago but it seems to have subsided, I don't recall hearing of a single case this year.

Baldur, may have a solution for your Heron in the fish pond problem without having to resort to nets. There's a product called ScareCrow out there and it's quite useful. It's basically a motion sensored sprinkler. You attach it to your garden hose and turn it on (just a tiny bit will do) and place where ever you want to keep animals out. When it senses motion it does a 5 second burst that scares away the animal. I'm not sure how far above ground it must be, or if it can be hidden among plants and not detract from the surroundings. I think pet stores might sell them, I always see them online.

Robindcr8l

Dragon, I bet you're right about West Nile, because we had a huge explosion of it here a couple of years ago, and that would coincide with the disappearance of the magpies. There were only a few cases of it this year, and indeed I started seeing more magpies around this year. I don't think I saw a single magpie last year.

Robindcr8l

I reread my original post and had to laugh at all of those exclamation points! It was like I was jumping up and down and screaming! I may just do away with the period all together from now on! I like the effect! LOL!

Also, please delete the "is" in the first sentence of that post!

Baldur

I love the snow geese video too!
hat was pretty amazing though as I said, Baldur would carry protection from stray goose-poop!
Can you imagine how completely devoid of sealife that body of water must be?!
What are these birds eating when in a flock this size?!
It boggles the mind!

Robindcr8l

See what I mean, Baldur?! It's almost catharctic! (25 pts!)