...and type in Let it snow

"But don’t worry if you get caught in a complete virtual whiteout, because Google has provided a Defrost button, which replaces the usual blue magnifying glass search button (if you click the Defrost button, the flakes will continue to fall, but without any accumulation). You can also click and hold your mouse to manually brush off some of the white stuff." Search Engine Watch

Very fun!  Thanks...and sorry to the Carols.

I can probably still help out, but not until after the first of the year -- the holidays have me overwhelmed!

I'm still trying to get my photographic life under control!  I finally finished weeding through hundreds of hummingbird photos I took this summer.  Many were just bad; many were near duplicates because of the undisciplined use of burst mode on the camera.

I think the album is now down to a reasonable number of photos (two pages of thumbnails).  Mostly hummingbirds, with an odd critter or two from the backyard thrown in.  This was one of my set of photos I took with my new camera, so the flower shots were mostly practice, but I thought some were pretty enough to include.

http://photos.bellhanley.com/Birds-Bats-Butterflies/Backyard-Birds/Hummingbirds-and-Flowers-2011

Note that you can click on the large photo to get to an ever larger version...

Lou, I ordered a wad of the "draft" calendars, and my order already says "shipped".  Given that I don't want to spend that much money a second time, what errors am I likely to see?

Hmmm...a scene from one of those videos was featured in Science Friday's video pick of the week some time ago...it's rare that a video from Science Friday goes viral, but that one did (or perhaps I just have geeky friends, but more than one of my facebook friends posted it).

Here's the Science Friday version:
http://sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10397

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6474

(and a video of an octopus crawling out of the water and taking a stroll
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/video-octopus-crawls-water-walks-dry-land-150510810.html)

I pulled the article to a new tab that I can read when I am unrushed (after Thanksgiving dinner number 2 today)...but the video was way cool.

That was a nice article...I learned something new (well, a couple of things, including that Mozart had a pet starling that might have helped him compose).  The main thing -- I didn't realize that the starling's winter/summer plumage differences were the result of feather wear; I had assumed they molted twice a year.

I'm trying to catch up on photo albums (this makes me only five months behind)...

Here's a link to some photos Jeane and I took during our annual Memorial Day visit to the Smokies: http://photos.bellhanley.com/Weekend-Fun/Smokies-2011

There's only one bird, but there are several nice wildflowers.  We have a favorite trail there that we hike on almost every trip; a bonus is that there is a cliffside Peregrine scrape.  We heard those lovely Peregrine voices for much of our hike, and got several nice air shows by a newly fledged juvenile sailing out to meet an incoming adult.  No photos, however.  The nest isn't visible from the trail (it's way up on a cliff that is blocked by a rock overhang, and I was too busy gawking during the air shows to get my camera out.

No snacks necessary; this is a fairly short album by my standards.

That's a really good picture!  For those of you who have not been to the Model Boat Pond, the sight lines to the nest are not good and the nest is quite far away.  It's very hard to photograph.  I felt that Pale Male's light coloring was much more distinctive in person than in photographs -- did you have the same reaction?

Paul

That's true; I think the photograph tends to emphasize the contrast rather than the absolute coloring.  However, even in the photograph you can see that his belly band is not very apparent, his head is blondish, and he's got that white streak down the front of his face.  If you look at photos of him next to Lima (like this one: http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/palemale-store_2182_373216685), you can see she's got a very dark belly band, and very dark head.  After we'd left the guys with the scopes and were heading out of the park, we saw a hawk in the air who landed on a building even further away...but based on the coloring (very bad light again), we're pretty sure she is Lima (note the much darker head and belly band).

So in answer to Donna, I think we did see the missus!

My sisters and I (and Jeane and brother-in-law Lane) traveled to NYC in early November to watch Laura (middle sister) run the New York Marathon.  This adventure included a wander through Central Park, ending at the model boat pond where we got to see Pale Male atop his nest!  The usual suspects were there with scopes, so we took advantage of that.  This photo was taken with our normal camera at high zoom...he's still pretty far away, and it doesn't help that he's on the shady side of the building.  Full photo album to come some day -- I'm about 7 months and 2.5 trips behind...

I finally managed to identify my bird, and have submitted the information to the Bird Banding Laboratory!  .......
 This one, V/0 (black/green), also a female, was banded at Mt Horrid in central VT in 2002.  Also, as of 2009, 9/C's sister 8/Y was nesting in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

Paul

Nice that you were finally able to get an ID.  And I love the name Mt. Horrid.  Having hiked in Vermont I can easily imagine how a mountain would be called that, however.  There are several Vermont mountains I would nominate for that name.

Those were great videos!  I always watch wildlife videos with trepidation because too often you have to watch the full "circle of life", if you know what I mean...I was very much living in fear that one of the gulls or ravens was gonna make off with a chick!  I ended up unable to watch one series (maybe Planet Earth?).  It was kinda too bad for the pigeons in this video but nice that the peregrines came to no bad end.

You mean like when you click on the "calendar" link below the last post on a page and it doesn't take you anywhere and says error?

Yeah, like that.

And out of date means?

Takes you to an old version of a page or a page that redirects you to a moved page

Out of date can mean that the content itself needs to be updated -- for example (not real examples...just hypothetical) a history page that talks about Mariah and Kaver being the occupants of this nest, or a family tree that doesn't include the most recent generation(s).

I know this isn't a laughing matter, but I giggled in spite of myself at the way this sentence was worded:
"He wouldn't say how Thompson died but said several aggressive animals were near his body when deputies arrived and had to be shot." 

That sentence could have used some editing.

Barnacle Geese grace our shores every winter - mostly in the NW, around Donegal. And we have long been familiar with the goslings' "running of the gauntlet". WHAT was Mother Nature thinking when she made the decision to have them do THIS? Yet many make it. They are a lovely little goose. (Must admit I did not watch the film...)

Bobbie, have you ever read Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"?  She's an amazing essayist...here's a quote:

If an aphid lays a million eggs, several might survive.  Now, my right hand, in all its human cunning, could not make one aphid in a thousand years.  But these aphid eggs--which run less than a dime a dozen, which run absolutely free--can make aphids as effortlessly as the sea makes waves.  Wonderful things, wasted.  It's a wretched system.  ...

"Say you are the manager of Southern Railroad.  You figure that you need three engines for a stretch of track between Lynchburg and Danville.  It's a mighty steep grade.  So at fantastic effort and expense you have your shops make nine thousand engines.  Each engine must be fashioned just so, every rivet and bolt secure, every wire twisted and wrapped, every needle on every indicator sensitive and accurate.

"You send all nine thousand of them out on the runs.  Although there are engineers at the throttles, no one is manning the switches.  The engines crash, collide, derail, jam, burn... At the end of the massacre you have three engines, which is what the run could support in the first place.  There are few enough of them that they can stay out of each others' paths.

"You go to your board of directors and show them what you've done.  And what are they going to say?  They're going to say: It's a hell of a way to run a railroad.

"Is it a better way to run a universe?


--Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1974