I hope I've completed the final mowing of the yard for 2006. It was a good temperature today so on the spur of the moment I thought it was time to tackle the task. The yard has been a disaster this year with the falling of the tree. There are some rather large trenches and holes where the tree fell and tore up the lawn.
This morning I was able to dispose of the last of the stray branches from that episode in the weekly trash pickup. It was nice to finally finally finally get those out of here.
The mower resisted going to work today. I spent well over a half hour trying to get it started. I suspect the gasoline was losing its oomph. Finally it occurred to me to push the mower down the driveway a bit before trying one more time to get it going. That did the trick -- one more yank and it jumped to life with a backfire, but at least it was going! I'll have it serviced before next season starts. It's a good mower and just needs a little cleaning up and encouragement.
As I was finishing the back yard, I was startled by a bird that I couldn't identify. Its body was larger than a robin, shaped rather like a football -- the head and tail were similarly shaped. There were brown and yellow stripes from bill to tail. It seemed very content to go about its work next to me -- not at all fearful of the mower. It made no effort to fly off or hop away even though I was within 3 or 4 feet of it. It seems to be fond of eating bugs from the ground. Anyone have any clues? I've tried searching for it in my bird guide and online without success. It was a pretty fat bird, but I wonder if it was a juvenile because of its tameness. If so, the parents are gonna be rather large.
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4 comments:
A thrasher, maybe?
I think it may be some variety of quail! But it doesn't have the crest of Oklahoma's scaled quail. It looks more like a brown quail, but those are in Australia. The coloring is much like a chipmunk -- kind of a golden brown striped with a darker brown along the back. I think I'll go back out to the yard to see if I can spot it again, and this time I'll take my camera. This is going to drive me nuts.
I think I've about decided it was a female bobwhite quail. This is the closest I've gotten anyway, looking at photos online. I did go back out to look around, and there's no sign of her today. Based on my memory, the female bobwhite is close to the same size, shape and coloring as what I saw -- the symmetrical shape with relatively short tail similar to the length and shape of the neck/head area, the fat little football body and the buff/brown striped coloring.
Well, I'm settling on that. If I ever see it again, I'll try to get a photo. It would be so cool if it was a little local resident!
That's my Saturday, if the weather holds: Last mowing, trimming. Pull some weeds. Put down some more mulch around the front flowerbed. Oh, and take a scythe to the 10-foot-tall jungle that my rear side yard has become. I totally let it go after I realized that Ice-T spent his days sittin' on a couch arm "stalking" the birdies he saw in the tall weeds outside a window! Not, ahem, that, I let, ahem, my cat tell me, ahem, what to do ...
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