The Good News Thread: I'm So Excited! And I Just Can't Hide It!

[Briar King]

17 minutes ago, officiumdefunctorum said:

Ren Faire is really more wear what you want more than cosplay. I mean, I encountered a Deadpool wearing a cape and burger king crown last year, lol. Some people go all out with period accuracy, but is my opportunity to wear a corset and contact lenses. I hear the faire in Texas is a big deal!

Yeah it's pretty big. I'm right in the middle of Houston(slightly closer) and NOLA in Lake Charles LA so nothing good ever comes directly to us here. 

[dhalagirl she/her]

I have two bits of good news. First is...I'm back slontzees!  I've been away from the shard for about 6 years so I could work on my writing career. That brings me to my second item.

My debut novel, The Moonflower, is now out! *Muppet flail* If you want to check it out I have all of the info here on my blog.

[A Budgie she/her]

3 hours ago, dhalagirl said:

I have two bits of good news. First is...I'm back slontzees!  I've been away from the shard for about 6 years so I could work on my writing career. That brings me to my second item.

My debut novel, The Moonflower, is now out! *Muppet flail* If you want to check it out I have all of the info here on my blog.

I don't know who you are, but that's amazing! Nice job on getting published!

[Erandeni he/him]

3 hours ago, dhalagirl said:

My debut novel, The Moonflower, is now out! *Muppet flail* If you want to check it out I have all of the info herCongrats!e on my blog

Congrats!

[Sunbird she/her]

FINALLY finished sorting through all my photos from Antelope Island. This post will only have pictures of birds, but I have some more of insects and the scenery if y'all are interested. I just figure this post is image-heavy enough already.

@AngelEy3, this Common Raven is for you. Sorry it's so far away! (1 photo)

Spoiler

A few seagulls (3 photos):

Spoiler

This muddy Ring-billed Gull made me chuckle. I think he had probably been sticking his face in the mud looking for stuff to eat.

Same bird about to take off.

California Gull trying to pick little bugs off the water's surface. (He was mostly unsuccessful. )

Great Horned Owls (2 photos):

Spoiler

I saw two different owls, and this one apparently didn't like my proximity, so it flew up near the ceiling to get some more distance and then sat there glaring at me. XD

Loggerhead Shrikes (2 photos):

Spoiler

Shrikes are known for catching small lizards, rodents, etc., and impaling them on thorns or barbed wire (like this fence, for example) to save for later.

Assorted shorebirds (3 photos):

Spoiler

Long-billed Curlew. Check out that ridiculous bill!

Willet with a nice reflection:

American Avocets, apparently practicing for the synchronized swimming event at the Olympics There were thousands of these guys on the Great Salt Lake when I visited, although most of them were too far away for good pictures.

Northern Mockingbird and Lark Sparrow (2 photos):

Spoiler

This mockingbird posed just for the split second it took me to get this photo before flying away.

The visitor center at Antelope Island has a viewing window with bird feeders, and a few of these pretty little Lark Sparrows were eating dropped seeds from under the feeders.

 

[AngelEy3 he/him]

Thanks for the Raven! That's interesting about the Shrikes. Pretty cool that they can use tools. 

[Steeldancer he/him]

I was not having a good day. I was tired, hungry, and work was hard. 

But work came through. Because apparently it is Hawaiian day. They're feeding all the employees Hawaiian food, and it's fantastic. 

I love Wegmans 

[Sunbird she/her]

Some more photos from Antelope Island!

I gotta tell you guys about some funny little water birds called phalaropes. (The singular form has 2 correct pronunciations: fuh-LAIR-uh-pee or FAL-uh-rope.) They're super cute for a couple of reasons: 1) They're really little and kinda hyperactive. 2) They have this unique feeding strategy where they swim in a tight, fast circle to create a mini-whirlpool that stirs up bugs and crustaceans and stuff for them to eat. The flock of 100+ that I was watching at Antelope Island had at least half of them doing that all at the same time, and it was really funny to watch. (Skip to about 00:30 in the video below--which is not mine, BTW--to see a large group of them "spinning" together.)

My photos of the phalaropes from Antelope Island (3 pictures):

Spoiler

A small segment of the flock of 100+ birds:

Male Red-necked Phalarope in the middle of his "spinning" routine. Fun fact: Phalaropes are oddballs in the bird world for their gender role reversal. With most birds, it's the males that are more colorful and the females that take most of the responsibility for nest and baby care. With phalaropes, it's the opposite: Females are prettier, and males raise the young.

Wilson's Phalarope in nonbreeding colors:

Next up, a few "creepy crawlies." A dragonfly and a grasshopper (2 photos):

Spoiler

This grasshopper blended right into the asphalt when it held still, but when it flew, its wings were striking black and yellow.

WARNING: Spider pictures under this next spoiler! (2 photos)

Spoiler

Big orbweaver spiders like these were extremely abundant on Antelope Island when I visited. Seriously, there wasn't a bush in sight without at least one, if not half a dozen, of these guys visible in the top.

 

[Briar King]

Do Wolf spiders crawl up houses? I had a huge almost 4in giant up the other day that looked like one but I've only seen them in grass so idk what it was.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

On 7/30/2017 at 5:25 AM, Delightful said:

Ohai. Also, its been closer to 8 months. *hugs*

And Im visiting family and it is nice.  

First, I didn't realize you two were related, that's cool. Second, I accidentally downvoted you, sorry about that. But I upvoted you to make up for it.

Also, I'm back! I disappeared for the past week or so because of summer band and I got in trouble so my parents took my iPad, but I have it again, so yay! 

But I'm really excited about both band camp and being back on this site again. Band camp is awesome, even though I live in Texas so it's hot and it's hard work, and I absolutely love our show music this year. 

Sadly, I probably won't be as active as I was before for another few months because of band/school. It's gonna be rough with all the AP classes I'm taking, a PSAT prep class, and marching season all at the same time. 

[Sunbird she/her]

@Briar King I've found wolf spiders in my basement before, so yes, it happens.

[Hemalurgic Headshot he/him]

1 hour ago, Briar King said:

Do Wolf spiders crawl up houses? I had a huge almost 4in giant up the other day that looked like one but I've only seen them in grass so idk what it was.

I think so. I had a fun experience at camp a few years back involving a few wolf spiders of that size...

[Briar King]

Weird! I had never seen one on a wall before! I see them sticking out of holes in the ground with the front 4 legs out to catch prey that passes by. This fella was up by the porch light and enormous! Freaked my daughter and niece out.

[Briar King]

I also have these really cool ones that only stay on our Satsuma tree. They are to small for my phone camera but they are dark bodied black/grayish with neon orange and green markings on abdomen.

[Silverblade5 he/him]

My mom got married, so that was nice. Also, I got payed today.

[Sunbird she/her]

I drove up to the top of a mountain to look for birds yesterday and was very happy with my trip. The weather was GLORIOUS. Still sorting through my 250 photos, but here is a suuuuuper cropped picture of a Golden Eagle for y'all:

Funny story: When I saw the eagle, I thought it was a Red-tailed Hawk, until I got home and blew up my photos on the larger screen of my PC. That's what I call a pleasant surprise!

[Sunbird she/her]

Finished sorting my photos from Saturday!

In case any of you were unaware, Utah's mountains are stunningly beautiful. I took lots of scenery pictures, which is unusual for me; I'm usually so occupied with the birds and the flowers and the butterflies that the landscape doesn't catch my eye enough to spend time photographing it. Not this time!

Mountain scenery (5 photos):

Spoiler

Berries and wildflowers (4 photos):

Spoiler

These purple ones were definitely my favorite flowers from this trip!

Two butterflies and a grasshopper (3 photos):

Spoiler

These grasshoppers were EVERYWHERE and actually got pretty annoying because they were such noisy fliers... I had a hard time listening for birds!

This little guy is called a Purplish Copper. (Yeah, I know, it's a bit of an oxymoron. I didn't name it.)

California Tortoiseshell butterfly, licking up water droplets from a patch of mud:

I think I'm going to save the bird pictures for a separate post, because this one has a dozen large photos already.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Yay! I'm feeling better today, and I got to see Spider-Man Homecoming. Which I loved. 

[Shqueeves]

3 hours ago, Flash said:

Yay! I'm feeling better today, and I got to see Spider-Man Homecoming. Which I loved. 

Did you stay to see the final scene during the credits? 

[Steeldancer he/him]

13 minutes ago, Shqueeves said:

Did you stay to see the final scene during the credits? 

Yes I did. Why would I not? They've done it in every single movie at this point. 

Spoiler

I deserved the troll I got. Patience. A true virtue. 

I laughed so much. 

[Shqueeves]

1 minute ago, Flash said:

Yes I did. Why would I not? They've done it in every single movie at this point. 

  Reveal hidden contents

I deserved the troll I got. Patience. A true virtue. 

I laughed so much. 

They're becoming self-aware

[Steeldancer he/him]

9 minutes ago, Shqueeves said:

They're becoming self-aware

Or trolls 

[Erandeni he/him]

Good things happen to me lately,the other day I had to go to a familiar reunion, which I hate, because I always end alone reading some book, but this time my uncle brought a boy from New Zealand.He is living with my uncle, it's some kind of exchage program or something alike.The point is this guy don't speak spanish, so I spent the day as his interpreter, which was fun, and taught him some tipical card games, overall it was really fun and I made a new friend.

Besides, today I have found out that three of the worst, more hateable teachers of my colleage are not going to teach anymore, at least not in my course, and even better, two of them have been subtituyed for my favourite teacher.In order to you can realize how much I like this teacher, my average marks are around 68% and in his subjects I have a 90% and a 100%.

[Sparkrunner he/him]

My mom got me the Guardians of the West for my birthday, because the library didn't have it, and I can't start in the middle of a series. SO HAPPY. I finished it because I, quite literally, I measured it, read it in under six hours. (I'm out of practice.)

I finished it and then found out it was one-thirty in the morning.

Now my head hurts a lot.

[Sunbird she/her]

As promised, birb photos from Saturday!

Red-breasted Nuthatches (2 photos and 1 short video):

Spoiler

These little guys are some of the cutest birds ever. Nuthatches as a group are funny; they like to climb headfirst down tree trunks, looking in the cracks of the bark for bugs to eat.

Red-breasted Nuthatches in particular are fun because of the noise they make. Check it out (I did not take this video, BTW):

At one point, I could hear about 6 different birds all making that silly little honking noise at once, and I had a really hard time not bursting into laughter and scaring them off. It sounded like a tiny choir of bicycle horns.

Hummingbirds (2 photos):

Spoiler

Both of these are female Rufous Hummingbirds.

^ This is probably my favorite photo from this trip. I caught her looking right at the camera!

Northern Flicker and Common Ravens (2 photos):

Spoiler

Northern Flickers are a type of woodpecker and seem to be the most common type of woodpecker in Utah, just based on my limited experience. This one's a male because he has a "mustache," the red stripe on his face. Female Flickers don't have that.

I love how easy it is to see ravens in Utah. All you really have to do is get out of the city and you're very likely to see or hear some.

Red Crossbill and Chipping Sparrow (2 photos):

Spoiler

This bird, the Red Crossbill, was definitely my most exciting find on Saturday. Not only is it just a cool bird, but I'd never seen one before, so it was a new addition to my life list. You can see in the photo that the tips of the bird's bill don't line up flat like with most birds; they cross, with the tip of the bottom half coming above the tip of the top half when the beak is completely closed. (Hence the name "crossbill" ) That's an adaptation for prying open tightly closed pine cones in order to eat the seeds inside. Also, the reason this one isn't red even though it's called a Red Crossbill is because it's a female. The males are indeed red.

This young Chipping Sparrow was pretty cooperative; he sat still in this tree for several minutes while I snapped photos. (I say "he," but I have no way of knowing if it was really a male or female.)

I have some more photos of blackbirds being silly in the McDonald's parking lot--puffing themselves up trying to intimidate each other. Y'all wanna see those too?