Turkey Trot

It's been an interesting day. I was waiting for the bus in front of Beth Israel. I was just sitting there spacing out gazing into the traffic when I thought I was beginning to hallucinate. Walking across Brookline Ave. was a wild turkey! He was pretty unfazed by people or traffic and made a rather majestic progress, stopping traffic.

Once he gained the other side he surveyed the situation, strutted across the sidewalk and hopped up into one of the planting beds and began foraging.









Now I have city eyes and can ignore just about anything when I am walking down the street. But a 3 foot tall turkey, that must have weighed 30 lbs was kind of hard to ignore. However, my guess is that a good 80% of the people walking down the street didn't even notice him.

Lest this turn into the all bird, all the time blog, I did get some other pictures of springtime Boston.






College kids out crewing on the Charles.










Trees starting to bud and even blossom out, along the river.







And Magnolias starting to do their thing. It's finally starting to look like spring is really here. The weather is suppose to not absolutely suck for the next few days and I am almost moved to be optimistic that winter is finally over. Of course now that I've said that, we'll get 2 feet of snow. This is New England after all.

Oh, what a thrill...

Our own Doralong has been doing some posts on under appreciated performers. This has inspired me to do a quick entry on one of my favorite under appreciated artists.

About 15 years ago, I got hipped to this fairly new C&W group called The Mavericks. They had this incredible lead singer named Raul Malo. Coming out of Miami, they didn't fit into the mold of country and western, but did record some great music, including some great interpretations of country standards.

Mr. Malo has moved on to a solo career and has been recording latin, jazz, standards and just about anything else you can imagine.

Malo has been compared to Roy Orbison, but you could also compare him to Tony Bennett. Personally, I think any comparisons are pallid, he has a unique voice that is like slow sex. There is just something incredibly romantic about his voice. In the first offering, he takes what has to be the corniest song ever perpetrated by Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald and makes you want to fall in love. (Willym, I thought you might get a kick out of this, since I am sure you were watching Nelson and Jeanette on the Saturday matinees on TV)



This second one is for my favorite telenovella fans, Nurse Dave. 'Cause, hell. It's just funny.



I have no idea what he's up to, but I'm really looking forward to the next album.

Close encounters of the bird kind

It has turned out to be a nicer weekend than anyone anticipated. Yesterday was sunny and warm. Today, not as sunny but at least warmer than it has been.

Yesterday was suppose to be cold and pissing down rain all day, so I had made plans and decided to stick with them. These plans did not include gardening, since it was suppose to be pissing down rain. I did however get out the old pasta machine and made a batch of fettucine and a pot of sauce bolognese. I also had a delightful lunch at C's house. He had made fresh pea soup and it was the perfect spring day lunch.

Today, I dragged over to the garden to start a rather late clean up and was amazed at the number and variety of the birds that were out.

These handsome fellows are every where at the moment.


People think that grackles are a type of crow, but they are in fact icterids not corvids. Which means that they are relatives of blackbirds and orioles.



These guys were also singing their hearts out.



I was working away when there was a huge commotion in the big magnolia a couple of gardens over. At first I thought it was some robins fighting over territory. They are vicious bastards during nesting season and I have seen them get into fights to the death.

Looking up at the tree I saw that there were a large variety of birds in the tree, all agitated. Something had upset the neighbors. It was this guy. This one had obviously seen some form of rodent life in one of the neighboring gardens and was very intent on lunch.






This brave soul was actually attacking the hawk.



Better him than me. It seems like a bad idea to me.



A really bad idea.

I'm so glad I bought the new camera. I might not be much of a wildlife photographer, but hopefully as I learn the camera the pictures will get better. Even if the garden doesn't turn out that well this year, it looks like there will be plenty to take pictures of this summer.