American robin

This week's bird is a cheery fellow.

It's a red red robin just bob-bob-bobbin' along.  These birds are ubiquitous at the moment, but they only turn up at the start of spring.  From something I saw on the local news the people hereabouts view their arrival as an indicator that spring has really sprung.

American robins are actually thrushes, just with fancy coats on.  The red breast is a deeper red in the males than the females, which makes it fairly easy to tell them apart and identify pairs.  They like to scour our back lawn for worms.

As you can see the red breast is balanced by quite a dull grey-brown back and a black head, but the overall coloration does make them stand out, even in the trees - as long as they aren't facing away from you, when it can be quite tricky to tell if you're looking a a robin or perhaps something more exotic.

They don't make a lot of noise during the day but they do have a complicated song which is part of the dawn chorus. Mrs Walles and I have also heard them singing in the evening.  One quite surprised us by starting up just outside our open front door recently, not least because we seldom actually see them as they sing.  We weren't sure what kind of bird was making the noise but when I poked my head out the door I saw it was a robin sitting on the lawn singing his little heart out.  I didn't notice any of the throbbin' mentioned in the song...but I guess that was just to make the rhyme work, anyway.

Thunder and lightning

Sorry posts have been scarce this week, Mrs Walles and I have been away. More on that in upcoming posts.  Right now, though, I'm distracted by the dirty great thunderstorm headed my way.  It shouldn't be a surprise, thunderstorms have been forecast for our neck of the woods today just like they have most days for the last two weeks.  But it's been a lovely sunny day until now and I thought I would be able to get away with nipping out to the shops for ingredients for tomorrow's dinner.

And of course as I closed the door I heard a crack of thunder and looked up to see half the sky consumed by dark and brooding clouds.  I retreated uncertainly and now, having checked the weather, find that the storm is predicted to be severe with possible hail and gales.  So I think I'll give the shops a miss for the moment, at least until it has passed.  To be honest I'm not too worried about postponing my jaunt - it is very hot and muggy out right now.


A storm passed over us on Monday accompanied by something I had never heard before, a constant loud and low rumble.  At first I took it to be thunder and but it was so unfamiliar that I actually began to wonder if it really was thunder, or if it was some weather phenomenon hitherto unknown to me.  In a moment of panic it occurred to me that a tornado might make a sound like that (we aren't at much risk of tornadoes here - but it can happen).  Fortunately I was mistaken: it was rolling thunder after all, and a few minutes later the torrents of rain and wind arrived.  It wasn't a twister but it was dramatic all the same.

And now that I've finished this I'll stick my head out the door and see if it's all clear.  Well, I'll look out the window first - otherwise, if I'm not careful, I'll end up with a spiky hairdo and a shocked expression.

Northern flicker

As I write this a rather impressive thunderstorm is approaching, so if this entry stops abrubptly you'll know why.

Anyway, the bird this week is the northern flicker, which Mrs Walles and I have been hearing more than seeing recently.  Until just recently hardly a day would go by without a couple of these astonishing birds perusing the grass out the back.

I haven't seen one for quite some time.  Mrs Walles saw one today, though, which reminded me that I'd been meaning to blog about them.

If they look a little like woodpeckers, that's because they are.  Unlike a typical woodpecker, though, they don't peck trees to eat, only to nest.  Most of the time you see them on the ground looking for tasty morsels in the grass.  But it's spring, and nesting season, so I expect the flickers are busy doing other things.  They'll be back, though.  I remember they were around a lot in the summer last year - then it was little flicker families being shepherded around by the mother.

I like them because they look like an artist has gone to town decorating them, with spots and dots and gold and a bib and a swoosh and a little red thing here and...well you get the picture - literally.  A total contrast to the minimalist crows from last week, these birds are baroque and then some.  And that decoration tends to make them look like they're smiling, like a clown's makeup, whether they're in a good mood or not.

So I look forward to their return, though the wik wik wik call we keep hearing suggests they aren't far away anyway.  Out of sight, maybe, but not out of hearing.

Who's the boss?

We had a power cut this morning, for about an hour.  One of our neighbours knocked on the door to check if the power was off here, too, which saved me wondering if it was just something wrong with our wiring (which wouldn't surprise me, given the way things are set up in this house, but maybe that's an American thing...).  He was annoyed because he'd just put a load of laundry in the drier, I was annoyed because I'd just started cleaning the bathrooms and there is no natural light in either of them.

See anything odd about this picture?  Fifty years ago I doubt it would be two men stuck with the domestics to do and no electricity to do them with.

Anyway, this inversion of gender stereotypes pleased Mrs Walles very much when I told her about it.  And not surprisingly because there are (especially in conservative places like this) expectations about men and women.  Case in point: the bill in restaurants.

When you ask for the bill (or check - ooh, look at me) it comes to the table and invariably it will be placed in front of me.  Because I'm the man.  Even though we live in supposedly enlightened times and it's usually Mrs Walles doing the honours at the moment, it still comes to me.  And not just in little ma and pa places, big chains, too, where you might think some carefully thought out company policy would make them put it in the middle of the table or something.  Maybe they tried that and all the men felt insulted and emasculated.  Or maybe nobody really thinks about it - except they do, because Mrs Walles does and I don't imagine she's alone.  It's just strange.

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and fold some clothes.  A fella's work is never done!

The Beeb

Having come from New Zealand to the US, I suppose it is a little odd that I distract myself from the culture shock by seeking out programmes produced in a third country which I have never visited.  But I'm hooked on the BBC (and, to be fair, other British stuff, but let's not get sidetracked).  I'm especially keen on the radio, ever since I discovered over eight years ago that BBC radio is crazy courteous enough to put all their shows online for anyone to listen to anywhere in the world.

It's just a shame that they don't do the same thing with their TV shows.  A lot of them can be obtained on DVD over here and Mrs Walles and I have now built up quite a collection (Mrs Walles is particularly partial to the Vicar of Dibley).  But not everything can be had (alas, QI is denied me now).

There is even an entire cable channel called BBC America which, you might think, would help satisfy my cravings.  You'd be wrong.

Let's have a look at tonight's schedule, shall we?  At 8pm there's an exciting episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  That's on a lot, for some reason, even though as far as I can tell the only thing British about it is one of the actors.  Before that there's two repeats of Top Gear - at least it's British - and afterwards there's three episodes of The Tudors in a row.  And that's a good night.  They used to have the news on, but that recently shifted to public television.  You can also catch The X Files on BBC America...I guess it was popular in Britain?  Perhaps you're a fan of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - in which case BBC America is the channel for you because it plays it several times a week.  They can't get enough of it.  I mean, it's set in England, right?  Don't worry, though, there's new programming coming soon - they're particularly excited about repeating the old new Battlestar Galactica.  For some reason.

Now, to be fair, you do get Graham Norton only a week after they show it in the UK.  That's about the only upside though.  I can only assume that nobody remotely connected with the BBC, or Britain come to that, has ever watched BBC America.

Fortunately some of the other channels pick up a wider range of output from Britain, like The IT Crowd.  So all is not lost.  I wouldn't mind if BBC America were lost, though.  I wouldn't be able to watch Kevin Costner in a jerkin 24/7, but somehow I think I'd live.

American crow

This week's bird, the crow, I had previously seen only when a TV show or movie needed some dark and moody symbolism.  I'm pretty sure there's an unwritten rule that every funeral scene must include a crow.  As birds go they don't have a pleasant reputation in our culture.  And I can see why, when they hang around in skeletal trees looking all broody and Byronic like this one.

And their loud caws are pretty unpleasant, too.

So it's no surprise that the scarecrow was invented.  Nevertheless, I don't mind them.  They are quite interesting to watch as they feed in little packs of three, with two poking around on the ground and a third keeping watch from a tree, occasionally rotating jobs.  And they are big.  Some of the ones we see around here are probably about the size of a chicken, but sleeker.  There are supposed to be ravens in Pennsylvania, too, (which, partly thanks to Edgar Allan Poe, have an even creepier reputation) but I haven't seen one - they are supposed to be even bigger.

But in the end they are just birds, and their reputation is undeserved.  If you ask me it's all about colour.  The blue jay is very closely related but escapes the crow's stigma because of its bright decoration.  But it's actually the more aggressive of the two, I believe.  Setting helps, too.  Here's a crow in the spring.

 Much better, don't you agree?  Much less of the harbinger of doom about it.

Indeed in the spring and summer the crow stands out clearly, unlike a lot of other birds which blend in.  So it is showy in its own way.  Alas, I doubt my attempt to rehabilitate the crow's image will do much.  The cardinal and blue jay are always going to be the stars of tea towels and garden flags, let's face it.  But I still like the crow.

Out of order

One of the things I'm probably never going to get used to is the way Americans write dates.  I'm fine if the month is spelled out in letters - it's hard to go wrong there - but the convention that the month comes first throws me off if all numbers are used.  Today is the eleventh of May, which I would write as 11/5/11, but here it's 5/11/11.

I look at that last one and part of me thinks it's the fifth of November, and another part has to pull back on the reins and correct myself.

The really annoying thing is that in my everyday life I come across both - this is the fault of the internet,  I guess, for making both kinds of dates available.  The result is that whenever I come across a date written this way, either month-first or day-first, I have to stop and think to figure out which it is.  It's even worse if I have to write the date, which I've been doing recently on various immigration forms, because the only thing to stop me tripping up is my own brain, which is confused about the whole matter anyway. 

Maybe it will become easier with time.