I was taking pics today, (after doing laundry and a whole bunch of other stuff) and when I uploaded my shots I realized that I had two almost identical shots, one of a male cardinal and one of a female, both on the same branch, both with the same pose, just positioned slightly differently on the branch, what are the odds of that? I really wish that NC had a lottery right now cause I fancy my chances:)

A Grackle is for the most part considered a "junk" bird, like a starling or a sparrow it is a bird that you really don't want at your feeder but you just have to put up with. But, have you really ever looked at a Grackle, in the sunlight, with the light bouncing off its feathers just so? It is a beautiful bird, while it looks black from a distance once you get it in the right light, with the right sunlight, it has accents of blue, gold, bronze, green, you name it, it is spectacular in its coloring... its metalic coloring is just wonderful and it does not deserve its caption of "junk bird"

This evening, as the spirits moved me, I have been listening to (and watching) the press release videos of the announcement of the discovery of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Now I know that for the majority of the population that news passed as no more than a blip on the headlines, whereas for me, a) a birder and b) an environmentalist it was the greatest news that anyone could have ever announced. As far as I am concerned the only greater announcement would have been that they had found a living dodo on an undiscovered island somewhere. What a joyous announcement, from extinct due to deforestation and womens completely irrational desire to wear their feathers in hats, to living, it LIVES, it lives and obviously due to the fact that there is at least one, it breeds (or at least it did a couple of years ago). I am one of those people who take an extinction personally, I believe that when an animal or bird or insect becomes extinct then we are simply, and yet again, screwing up the balance of nature. Mother nature put all these creatures on the planet for a reason, and you know even I can't figure out why mother nature chose to place earwigs on the planet but who am I to question her? I cannot stand earwigs, to me earwigs have no purpose other than to creep me out, but I trust mother nature to have some sort of purpose for them. Same deal with cockroaches, there appears to be no real purpose for cockroaches other than to invade my kitchen and force me to use pesticides which then completely screw up my sinuses. However, I am willing to go along with the fact that mother nature had a plan for them, and I am guessing that it is the same plan that she had for ants, maggots, vultures, and dung beatles, I am assuming that she created them for the sole purpose of disposing of the waste created by the other inhabitants of the planet. Anyhoo where was I before I went off on the earwig tangent? Oh yes the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, it should come as a lesson to us, many birds are becoming more and more rare because their habitats are being destroyed, one, as I have told you before is the brown headed nuthatch, granted it is not as spectacular as the Ivory Billed, but just cause it's small does that mean it is less important? There is no reason whatsoever that we should allow this little guy to go extinct, as smart as we are today, back in the 1930s we didn't think about what we were allowing to go extinct, these days we are smarter, we are wiser, and we realize that every species is precious... every animal, bird, bug and plant that we allow to go extinct is a failure on our part, as stewards of the planet, to do our job. Did you know that the Venus Fly Trap grows wild only in a 75 mile radius of Wilmington NC, in the Holly Shelter area, think about that, a plant that is almost universally known, grows only in a 75 square mile area ON THE PLANET, kind of makes you shiver doesn't it. Anyhoo, here is my favorite shot of the brown headed nuthatch, he hangs out with the chickadees (both the carolina chickadee and the tufted titmouse) and on a regular basis they divebomb the feeders in gangs to grab sunflower seeds. Hope I am doing my little bit to keep these babies alive.

Perhaps I am an idiot, perhaps I am uniformed, perhaps I am just naive, BUT I don't think any of the above apply. It appears to me that this entire knee jerk reaction against Dubai Ports World operating some of the ports in the US is a purely racist reaction. And I mean that most sincerely, there was no outcry when a British owned company ran the same operation. Oh, but the critics cry, that was not a government owned operation, okay so there was no outcry when a Singapore government owned operation operated some of the ports, Oh they say but they are not a problem, there was no outcry when a Communist Chinese company operated the ports, Oh but they say, ????????? This is racial profiling at its worst. What is laughable is that according to government policy you are not allowed to "profile" an arab male as he goes through airport security (instead you have to search a 65 year old white grandmother) and YET and YET you are allowed to profile a company owned by a government who has steadfastly since 911 stood on the side of this country on the war on terror. It has been stated that the British senior officials who have always been in control will continue to be in control, that things will not change, that security will continue to be in control of the US Coastguard, that the workers who are currently employed will continue to be employed, but for some insane reason everyone has a problem that the letterhead of the company that sends out correspondence and the paychecks have a different name? This is utterly utterly ridiculous, and more is the point it highlights a sad fact of the current state of affairs, that the US as a people are becoming more and more xenophobic, particularly when it comes to muslim countries. Muslims are not the problem people, terrorists are, and while the terrorists happen to be muslims it does not equate that muslims are terrorists. I never hated a catholic in my life, despite the fact that the IRA would have just loved to have killed me in my days in the RN, you have to be able to separate the radicals from the religion. If you do not then there is no hope for peace in this fragile world. The United Arab Emirates has done nothing to deserve this, it is shameful that they are now subject to this kind of racism.