It was five degrees when I woke up Saturday morning. I think that it later climbed to a balmy ten. Needless to say Saturday was not a bike day. It was a great day at the bird feeders. If pigs had wings, we would just call them birds anyway. In addition to the regulars, various sparrows, Juncos and Goldfinches, we saw a Red-Bellied Sapsucker and I saw a Red-Tailed Hawk. As I walked into the bedroom it was sitting on the porch railing not ten feet away. It had all of the feeders to itself, making it a pretty effective squirrel control. Well maybe too effective.
On Friday, Anne and I watched the movie Julie & Julia. It was directed by Nora Ephron and stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell. It is a lovely film. Meryl Streep nails her performance as Julia Child and has already been nominated for a Golden Globe and will likely also be nominated for an Oscar. As Julie Powell, Amy Adams plays an aspiring but failing writer who decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year and (drumroll please) to blog about it. These stories intertwine of two women learning to cook and finding success, Julia in 1949 France and Julie in 2002 Queens. Sympathetic, loving husbands support them both, and friendships, too, add zest. I especially like the blogging references, like when Julie gets her first comment, only to realize that it is from her mom, who continues to question why is she doing this blogging thing. The movie is out on video now. I highly recommend it.
[odeo=http://odeo.com/episodes/673024-Great-Horned-Owl-Duet]
BirdNote is a Seattle NPR radio and podcast series. With over thirteen-hundred episodes, it has been on air since 2005. It is created by the Seattle Audubon Society. It should be no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I am featuring a podcast about Great Horned Owls, but the medium is of as much interest to me as is the material. Bird Notes brought to this post via a new widget, the Odeo Audio Player. Click on the pink button, if you want to listen to it. I love new widgets. In yesterday’s post I used a different widget, the SoundCloud Audio Player, to feature the call of a Bald Eagle that I had recorded. Odeo appears to be oriented towards more professional feeds, while SoundCloud is willing to accept my stuff. 🙄
You are right it is cold. Global Warming is going to freeze us to death.
We were happy to see BirdNote mentioned here. Thanks! One small correction: The radio show ~was~ created under the auspices of Seattle Audubon, but has been a nonprofit in its own right for the last 2+ years. Neither NPR nor local NPR affiliates pay for the program. BirdNote is totally independently produced and funded, mostly with small grants from foundations and donations from happy listeners. We’re heard from Seattle to Connecticut, from Detroit to California, and from southern Texas to Juneau and Sitka.
We’d love to have more public radio stations carry the show, so if you can’t hear it in your neck of the woods, please email the program director and the general manager of your local station and ask them to carry BirdNote. There’s even a *For Program Directors* section on our website, http://www.birdnote.org you can point them to.
In the meantime, I invite you to search for your favorite bird on our website.
Thanks for “listening!”
Ellen Blackstone, BirdNote
Ellen, thanks for the heads-up.