Ruddy Ducks and Chicken Spaghetti

Today we slept in since now we have the house to ourselves. Mikey and Greg left yesterday and Josh and Leetha went back home to west Texas today. We went to breakfast at IHOP then later went for a walk at the Arlington Veteran's Park. We have not been there before and it turned out to be a nice city park with trails in the woods, a concrete path all around the perimeter and an 8 hole disc golf course. There was also a small duck pond that was ful of the usual white tame ducks and mallards but we also noticed quite a few ruddy ducks that come to Texas in the winter only. After our walk we went to Walmart and bought the fixin's for making our "'famous" chicken spaghetti. All in all another very good day. It is nice to be able to do things like normal people without a daily visit to the cancer center! When we got back to the house I dug out my birding guide book to look up the ducks we have seen to make sure they were in fact ruddy ducks and it made me think about another poem I wrote about the apparent new discovery of  the long thought extinct Ivory Bill Woodpecker. All the famous Orthinoligists around  the world got all in a lather about the many reports from a remote part of Arkansas of sightings of the Ivory Bill. The news accounts showed all these yahoos in canoes and kayaks, all camouflaged setting out to be the first one to catch an Ivory Bill on video! It reminded me of the scene from the movie Jaws when all thoses yokals set out in anything that would float to catch the killer shark. Anyways as far as I have heard no one to this day has really seen an Ivory Bill and if anything they are spotting Piliated Woodpeckers that look almost the same and Sheila and I have seen them all over Caddo Lake and other places. Unfortunatley the Ivory Bill or the GRAIL BIRD as they call it now....people are still trying to find one...is still EXTINCT!

The Grail Bird

I heard they found the Ivory Bill

Once thought extinct it lives here still

They found it in the woods so deep

A secret life it tried to keep

Far from man in old growth wood

But it’s call was heard and understood

They came in boats and some on foot            

All camouflaged, on faces soot

Decoys spread so that they might
Track it down and film it’s flight
So now it’s found and made the news
The world all kneels on birder’s pews
The Grail Bird’s out and on display
I’m glad it’s safe but don’t hurray
For sixty years it hid about
It’s secret safe, but now it’s out
So this must be it’s second chance
Can we not spare the song and dance?
Just stay away and let it think
That we’re the ones who went extinct
-yfp-

Link to full story here--->    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory-billed_Woodpecker


Sufjan Stevens song .....Great God Bird:    http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/archives/asc88/#stevens


Pic today is of Sheila coming ashore at Cheecat Cove in the Misty Fjords of Alaska. Snow on top of the mountains, grizzlies in the surrounding woods, killer whales in the 1000 foot deep waters and the nearest towns at least 40 air miles away.......it just cannot get any better than that!!!