Amazing weather

12:40am CDT

6:00am CDT

 

7:25pm CDT

Egyptian Goose

Egyptian goose has established itself in several feral populations in Texas. I found these at Sea World at San Antonio...

 

... and then again a couple at a ranch in Bandera!

Ninja

Every year the kids celebrate the 100 days of school. One of Daniel's project at school was to create an art work with the number 100. I just received his portfolio this week and this is what I found -- a Ninja!

Daniel's Comment- " I was the only one that made a Ninja with my 100 number. Nobody else thought of it , Mommy.  I was very thinky!  (meaning very creative...I took me a few seconds to figure out what thinky meant. After a little while he continued...) I also made a Ninja on my instrument project. One can fight one half of the world and the other one can fight the other half of the world!"

The musical instruments projet has not come home yet - can't wait to see what Ninja #2 looks like.

Update: 3-28-13  And here it is...the trumpet Ninja!

 

"It was a trumpet, but now it's a Ninja and the Ninja protects the world."

 

Update: 9-6-13 To my surprise at the end of the school year I received another Ninja art!

And the Ninja theme continutes at the start of the new school year...

 

Daniel has addedAngry Birds StarWars  to his 'collection' over the summer - let's see how long that lasts...

 

Delivering the goods

http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/

NASA has a really nice program that allows you to enter a location in the world and get a report of possible satellites sightings for that area.  I realized too late today that I could've looked for the Space X Dragon capsule and the International Space Station up in the sky - oh well...  The Dragon is expected to arrive at and deliver goods to the ISS in the next couple of days.

NASA:  Updated - March 1, 2013 at 11:45 a.m. ESTThe SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifted off on the SpaceX 2 mission March 1 at 10:10 a.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

A very windy day...

A few days of winter weather are ahead of us. It started with a very windy afternoon and evening.

Wind map created by http://hint.fm/wind/ . Near-term forecast data is used to create an animated windmap with delicately swirling lines. Snapshot from February 25, 2013 at 11:59pm EST.

Update: This system delivered about 18inches of snow to the Texas Panhandle!

Screech Owl

Sweet surprise... I spotted a couple of eastern screech owls tonight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Screech_Owl

Love is in the Air

It's always fun to spot a nest.

Carolina Chickadee

Mild Winter

Winter has been great here in Houston.  The very chilly weather comes once in a while for a few days, then spring-like weather takes over again. Right now, believe it or not, we're at 77F - yes, 1pm on Jan 27th!

Birds are all around.  My urban bird list from a short walk this morning:

  Monk parakeet - 20 of them squawking *

  Red-tailed hawk - 1  *
  Bronzed cowbird - with a very red eye *
  Brown-headed cowbird
  Loggerhead shrike  *
  European starling
  Great-tailed grackle
  White-winged dove
  Mourning dove
  Eurasian-collared dove - you can hear them every morning "coo-coo-cooup"
  Blue jay
  Northern cardinal - males are a beautiful bright red  *
  Northern mockingbird - they sing year around, cheering up the neighborhood

 

Oscar Niemeyer dies at the age of 104

Brazilian arquitect.
http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/1988-niemeyer

Hurricane Season again....

Hurricane Isaac has parked itself over Louisiana for the past couple of days causing disastrous flooding. I always find the satellite images fascinating.

Hurricane Isaac on August 28, 2012 at 1:35pm CDT, true color image. NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite.                                                                  

 

 

Hurricane Isaac on August 28, 2012  at 6:46 pm CDT as the storm made landfall in Plaquemines Parish, packing winds of 80 mph. NOAA GOES-13 satellite, visible image.

 

 

 

Wind map created by http://hint.fm/wind/ . Near-term forecast data is used to create an animated windmap with delicately swirling lines. Snapshot from August 29, 2012 from 10:00pm CDT.

The biggest fish ever

Nothing more flattering to a fishernman than to draw him with the biggest fish ever on his line. K just made my Dad the happiest person yesterday.

Going on a trip in my favorite rocketship...

D made the most awesome drawing of a spaceship scene. An astronaut arrived wearing rollerblades and a dog came by shortly after. Next to the spaceship was a tall ladder and a platform connecting to the ship's door up on top.
The scene was framed with the dark night sky hiding the sun, and bringing out stars and the planet Saturn.

Marbles

Looking attentively into my eyes D says " Mommy, your eyes look like marbles, ...with me inside them." And back he goes to play with his cars.

Northern Waterthrush

Migrating through the Texas gulf coast; chillin' and eating before continuing north to its breeding grounds in Canada.

Spotted Sandpiper

A spotted sandpiper among 50+ least sandpiper.

Hurricane Irene

Over Long Island & NYC right now...

Dove and chick

Late spring chicks are the treat of my week. On Tuesday, it was a treat to spot 3 killdeer chicks running around nearby a nest I'd been observing for weeks. Today, I went back to check on a white-winged dove nest I spotted Saturday. To my surprise, there was a dove and a chick sitting calmly next to each other!

Sleep little Kaila

"Mommy, you know what? You know when I'm at school and I don't have anyone to play with I sometimes will sit like this in the swing (rocking slowly back and forth) and sing "Dorme Kailinha do meu coração ...". I'll sing it very softly, nobody can really hear me. I like it."

Dorme Kailinha is a lullaby that my mom would sing to her when she was only days, weeks old. I continued to sing it to her into her toddler years as I put her to bed. To this day, when Kaila is having a hard time falling asleep she will ask - Mommy, can you sing Dorme Kailinha? She will drift off to sleep within minutes...

What a sweet and special gift on Mother's Day.

May 08, 2011

Spring Migration

Indigo Bunting

Black-throated Green Warbler

Spring migration is still going strong in High Island, TX.

Jane Goodall

This past March I had the priviledge to meet Jane Goodall who is celebrating 50 years of research at Gombe! She was 26 years old when she first started working with the chimpanzees in Africa. Today,
Dr. Goodall travels the world inspiring people to feel responsible and to be responsible for this great planet of ours; to work and to do their part to preserve the environment for today and tomorrow.

One amazing woman.