This afternoon, I saw a great-tailed grackle on the hood of a car in the Trader Joe's parking lot...
Whenever I see one, I am instantly transported back to living in Nicaragua, where, like clockwork at 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., the trees across the street would roar to life with the birds, waking and returning...
Quiscali mexicani are called zanates (sah-NAH-tehs) in Central America...
And so, it is a bird that has inspired me to post my first video-clip to a blog--taken when I was still learning to use my digital camera in Central America--zanates at sunset, León, Nicaragua, a year-and-a-half ago:
Earlier in the afternoon, since we both had the day off work, my wife and I decided to go for a short hike--we drove to the eastern edge of the city--strip-malls peter out into ranches tucked into mesquite woods and finally you hit the boundary of national park wilderness-land...A perfect winter-in-the-desert-day: 69 degrees in the sun, after a frosty morning...The view below is taken from the Rincon foothills, looking to the NW, towards the Santa Catalinas and the Tucson mountains...
(Which version shows the textures of the 'teddy-bear' cholla cactus better--the black-and-white or the sepia? S. prefers the b&w...I like the 'old-west'-feel of the sepia...)
Further up the trail, you climb up a ridge that lets you see the snowy forested summit, 8000 feet up...
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...and today's word-of-the-day, gleaned from this morning's local paper:
Guatemexicoestadounidenses
Huh? Here's the link to the article, if you're curious...
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