Spring is for the birds-literally!

Finally it is beginning to feel warmer! Bird watching is a daily event at our house with bird feeders outside the front room window and kitchen window at the back. A friend of mine makes Chubby Chirps (little knitted birds) for friends and I decided to try one also. I wanted to make a bluebird for my sister and thought this would be a challenge, so I began with a male cardinal-- all red should be easy.

Then I made a baby chick, next a female cardinal--you see where this is going. The bluebird was an interesting challenge to incorporate the different colors. Baby chick isn't in the picture, he went to live with a former student, who just happens to have chickens who were once chicks. Now they make the most marvelous eggs--which are great for baking brioche! That is another story.

Here, from left to right are the bluebird, male cardinal,
female cardinal and a red-bellied woodpecker!

Male and female cardinal.

My sister loves bluebirds. Her bird houses have seen many families of bluebirds over the years. This one is the second bluebird I made. In the first I used 'duplicate stitch' to overlay the colors on top of the blue body. On this one, I knitted the colors in as I created the body. I like that process better. None of these birds came with color directions. For that I rely on my copy of Peterson's Field Guide to Birds of Eastern  and Central North America and the internet.

The red-bellied woodpecker has just a tinge of pinkish-red on the underbelly, rarely seen. The female may not have any red at all on the belly, but the males have the most fabulous red on the back of the head and a zebra-stripped back.

The red-headed woodpecker is solid black on the back, not zebra-stripped. The bald eagle used up some chunkier yarn knit on larger needles, so he is enormous by comparison to his little buddies.

OK, who's next?

Beaks, feathers and claws - amazing birds

Volunteers from Amicalola Falls State Park in north Georgia were sharing their knowledge of these amazing birds: a red tail hawk, a black American vulture, a great horned owl, a barred owl and a pair of screech owls. Educational programs are conducted in the park. Go to the link above for dates. All of these birds were rescued and rehabilitated. Because of their injuries they could not be released into the wild and became part of the park's educational program. They are protected species, but not endangered ones. They are accustomed to being handled by these volunteers.

 Zeus is a great horned owl.

Goliath is a grey screech owl and Gizmo is a rust colored screech owl. Goliath is a little larger and is a female. Gizmo is the smaller male.

Owl Capone is a barred owl.
His feet are large and powerful and he could pick up a small bobcat.

Fabio is a Black American Vulture. He was found as a very young bird and became imprinted on humans.

Scirocco is a red tailed hawk. His eyes were injured when a group of crows attacked him. He was found in a sand trap at a golf course and hence the name Scirocco which means a desert wind.

Watching these birds was fascinating! The Carolina Raptor Center in North Carolina, has lots of information and an interesting program about these amazing birds.

Stargazing at its best!

Recently I was able to observe stars, a galaxy and a planet at Three College Observatory near Greensboro. We had an incredibly clear night for observation and it was a new moon which meant no light interference from our near neighbor.

We saw Jupiter and four of the moons. These are the Galilean moons; Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa.  We could see the cream and brown colored stripes in Jupiter and these 4 of over 60 moons that revolve around the largest planet in our solar system. If you can hold your binoculars very still or even have just a small telescope at home, you can see these moons. Jupiter is high overhead now, found in the constellation Gemini, just beside Orion. Since Jupiter is a planet, a wanderer, its position in months to come will change and it will be associated with a different constellation. This link shows Jupiter's path from 2012 - July 2014. You can see that its motion through the constellations has changed.

There was a supernova that was recently observed and is now fading.  It is in a galaxy that is seen on edge, M82, and has a star in it that recently exploded. Here is more information about how the galaxy looked before and after the supernova.

A star cluster, NGC 2539 On this link you can see this star cluster and many more. Clusters contain hundreds of millions of stars.

Cassiopeia was beautiful when we went outside to look at constellations. Tonight it looked like a backwards 3. Depending on what part of the year you are observing in the early evening, it may be below Polaris and look like a W, or if east of Polaris will look like a 3, and if above Polaris will look like an M. It is a circumpolar constellation, so we see it all year. One of the stars in Cassiopeia also exploded in a supernova in the 1660's. The images of Cassiopeia a from the Spitzer Space Telescope are beautiful.

Orion shines brilliantly in winter. The name of one of his stars was well known as a character in the Harry Potter books, Bellatrix. Orion is a large constellation and the three stars in the belt are readily recognized. With binoculars you can see a really beautiful nebula in the sword below the belt.

This is an image of the Trapezium, a group of stars in the nebula in Orion's sword below his belt. The three stars you see to the right are not Orion's belt, it would be above this.











Every season brings new sights to see in the sky. Take a moment to look up and you'll be amazed at what you see! Even better, take a drive away from the city lights--you'll see even more!