Bella Dia

Snoveling Show

Lately my days have been starting out exactly the same: wake up,
have breakfast, get dressed, shovel snow. The shoveling keeps you
pretty warm but when you come inside you realize the tip of your nose
doesn't have any feeling and your lips feel like they've been given a
dose of novacaine thus the title of my post: a slip up I've made on
more than one occasion. The bird is a Steller's Jay. They're related to
the Blue Jay but we don't see many of those here. I think the Steller's
Jay is gorgeous; the head and upper body are black and the
rest is midnight blue.


My solar lanterns have been covered up with snow. I like
how they are like little windows in a snow wall.


A view of one of the mountains behind our house.


Aren't these pretty ice crystals on our back deck?


Another mountain view. And now back to show snoveling...

Monday Morning Greetings

One chilly morning before soccer,
I got to enjoy a whole flock of these little girls preening themselves in the sun on the boughs of a blue spruce.

On my bedside table:
Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich
The China Study by T.Colin Campbell
To See Every Bird on Earth by Dan Koeppel
Stikky Trees: Learning to Recognize at a Glance the 15 Most Common Trees in the United States
Superfoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life

On board from Netflix:
Pollyanna
Spellbound
All the President's Men

Latest interests:
birding
a raw food diet
creating the perfect breakfast smoothie

On my mind:
a Halloween birthday party for my youngest
things I want to make for Christmas gifts

Learning:
Excel
Quickbooks for Construction
how to use my new camera

Making:
pincushions
purse organizers
something new!

Looking forward to:
weekend trip to Yellowstone
going to the World Center for Birds of Prey
receiving my first installment of Amy's Mailorder
(I can't wait to make the earflap hat!)

Enjoying:
watching the leaves change colors
cheering for my boys at their soccer games
seeing my daughter advance so quickly in karate
the new season of CSI

Birds of Idaho

Great American Pelican

One of the books I’m reading right now is called To See Every Bird on Earth. I have to admit that the first thing that attracted me to it was the cover, very cool. It’s written by a son, Dan Koeppel, about his father’s obsession with birding and "listing," where you document every bird that you see (or in some cases, hear). According to the book, there are currently about 9600 different bird species in the world and there are some people who have dedicated their lives to try and see as many as they can. A select few have seen more than 8000! I had no idea that anyone did this sort of thing but I find it really intriguing; I have no plans to pursue all the birds in the world but I did think it would be fun to see how many of Idaho’s birds we could see. The U.S. has over 800 species of birds and Idaho has close to 400. I printed off a list of all the birds in Idaho and started a photo album, instead of a list, here on my blog to document it. I’d like to use all my own photographs too. This is a long-range goal but I’m hoping that by having it here on my blog it will help to keep me motivated.

Bird Watching

As spring slowly creeps in, I love to see
the birds coming back from a long winter. I'm going to start a list of all the birds we see through the fall and I'll try to photograph them but my camera doesn't have a great zoom on it so I know they won't be the best. First on my list is the Dark-eyed Junco, the Oregon Race. They are similar in size to chickadees but have a solid dark brownish black head. If you want to see some really nice photographs then look here. I would love to see other bloggers do this so I could watch the birds coming back all over the U.S. Wouldn't that be fun? Let me know if you do and I'll link you up!