Sunbird

My grandma is very frail and sick and her mind is going, and she's making me and Grandpa miserable. Further detail under the spoiler:

The living situation at my grandparents' house has become intolerable, but I don't know where else I can go because I doubt I can afford to pay rent to live somewhere else.

Lindsey Stirling's latest album, Brave Enough. I think it might be my favorite album from her so far.

'Kay. I'll just list some of the highlights, since my list at the end of the day was 33 species and you all probably don't want to scroll through 33 photos all in one post. (Disclaimer: most of these photos are not mine, since I didn't bring my camera on the Saturday trip.) I think the most numerous bird we saw was the American Coot; we probably saw over 100 over the course of several hours and visits to several different ponds. Some people call them mud-hens because they sorta look like black chickens. At the very first pond we visited was a pleasant surprise: a pair of Black-crowned Night-herons. They're pretty shy and secretive and usually active at night (hence the name), but very beautiful in a sleek, understated sort of way. Biggest surprise of the day IMO was a Great Egret. They're fairly easy to find in coastal areas or in the warmer months of the year, but winter in Utah is soooo not where you'd usually find one. At one pond, in addition to a bunch of ducks and coots in the water, there was a flock of Great-tailed Grackles (a kind of blackbird) hanging out in the trees and on the grass. Several of the water birds came over and climbed out of the water expecting handouts from us birdwatchers. We didn't give them anything, but I totally cracked up when one of the grackles started harassing a coot. The grackle would sneak up behind the coot and tug on its tailfeathers with his beak, and then dance away when the coot turned around and tried to snap at him. After a few repetitions of this, the coot finally got fed up enough to jump back in the water where the grackle couldn't bother it. One of my favorite birds, even though I've seen them plenty of times, is a Belted Kingfisher. Lots of times you'll hear them before you see them because their call is very distinctive; field guides and birders will often refer to it as a "machine-gun rattle." We saw and heard a few of them near various bodies of water on Saturday. I think I'd probably better end this post now before it gets too image-heavy. I don't mind posting more later if y'all are still interested, though.

I've resumed my re-read of the Skulduggery Pleasant series with book 4, Dark Days. Also working on AU and a re-read of the original Mistborn trilogy.

I saw several of these beautiful ducks today while out with a bunch of other bird enthusiasts: They're called Common Goldeneyes--male on the right, female on the left. Before today, I had never ever seen one in person! ^.^ We found a lot of other cool stuff too. (Happy to elaborate if anyone cares...)

As you wish. As you can probably tell, I had to do a bit of revising and abbreviating to cram it all into 140 characters.

@Deliiiiiightful I love the idea of a fictional character blog! @The Honor Spren Looking forward to seeing your OC fanarts! In other news, I am weird. I spent like 15 minutes writing a limerick short enough to fit in a Tweet with a 16-letter hashtag... and I feel very proud of my success.

Re: Jim Butcher, I've read Codex Alera, Dresden Files, and Aeronaut's Windlass, and I think Aeronaut is my favorite. Although I love Harry Dresden and pretty much lol and gasp my way straight through those books, I think Codex Alera is more consistently high quality, and that Aeronaut surpasses it so far.

When you're rereading TFE and lol at the mention of Ahlstrom Square in Luthadel.

Rock and roll!

Wait wait wait. Peace Talks actually has a release date, and it's this year?! *flails* Otherwise, I am super looking forward to Dragonwatch by Brandon Mull. I adored his Fablehaven series and have been wanting more for years. Also hotly anticipating A Conjuring of Light along with Faceless Mist-wraith, and the next John Cleaver book, Nothing Left to Lose.

I have now become a Radiant Squire. =)

When you see this meme on Facebook and go, WHOA. It's sort of a ketek. O_o

No rush, we all know what it's like to have IRL get in the way of Shardsurfing.

I used to climb stairs using my hands as well as feet. I don't mean holding onto a handrail; I mean like putting my hands on the steps and walking up quadripedally. Actually, I still do sometimes... really, only when I'm at my parents' house where the stairs are carpeted and probably less germ-infested than most public staircases.

Rust and Ruin!

I'm a few hours late, and I apologize for that, but happy birthday, Twi!! You are one of the irreplaceable cornerstones of the Shard. You're creative, funny, brave, kind, intelligent, and strong. It takes strength to escape a toxic environment, to stand up for yourself, to move most of the way across the continent from your family, to lay your feelings out for people you've never met face-to-face to read. I wish I could give you a real physical hug because you deserve it, so much. Maybe owl hugs are a passable substitute

XD As a bird enthusiast, I LOVE this pun. I'll have to share it with my birder friends!

Basically, this class is "learn about and obsess over birds and earn academic credit." We'll be learning to ID both by sight--with photos and taxidermied specimens--and some by sound, taking field trips, and having ID quizzes every few weeks. I'M SO STOKED.

Big balls. (I swear, it's not as dirty as it sounds.)

When you're speed-scrolling through a random article online and suddenly do a double take because you thought you saw the word Hallandren. (I scrolled back and tried to figure out what word I'd misread, but I couldn't find anything that remotely resembled it. o_0 )

@LeftVash the Hatter storyline hasn't completely played itself out yet. The Hatter himself is mostly outta the picture (Arkham) but the GCPD is still feeling the effects of his rampage. Personally I am looking forward to seeing the crem hit the fan once Jim realizes what happened to Barnes.