Thursday, February 05, 2009

Birds of note

While in Kyoto last week with my father and the butterfly lady, we visited the Gold Pavilion (Kinkakuji), which is notable for its, um, pavilion clad in gold and - now, to me - for its pond, which when we were there had about a half-dozen Baikal teals swimming around. Here's what they look like (someone else's video, alas):

What a treat! Not a bird I ever expected to see, for sure.

Yesterday, I caught wind of another oddball bird, a great gray owl, that is hanging around the local Corps of Engineers flood-control project, and I met up with a couple of in-the-know bird people who showed me its haunt. A half-hour of snooping around in the cold river bottom and presto! Here's a for instance, so you can see how cool it was:

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