Friday Night Drinking Thread. Bird Watching Edition
TGIF my fellow MGobloggers!!??
Sitting in the three seasons room drinking a Founders Solid Gold. The Baltimore Orioles are very active on their feeder with occasional visits by a couple Catbirds and a Red-bellied woodpecker. Had a group of male Rose breasted grosbeaks earlier in the week. A few hummingbirds have arrived also. Haven't seen any Indigo Buntings yet. What a beautiful spring day in West MI.
GO BLUE ?
New Belgium's Dayblazer. A 15-pack for the price of a 12-pack! I just finished my second.
Two Hearted Ale.
My cat Oliver kills birds like it’s his job.
An ice-cold gin & tonic.
My dearly-departed cat was the same way with chipmunks. He wiped them out like they had besmirched his family's honor.
Two Hearted Ale is one of my go to beverages. I have a six-pack in the refrigerator. And it gives me a chance to name drop Ernest Hemingway for writing the Big Two Hearted River which is an excellent easy read short story. And the Two Hearted river is in northern Michigan which is also fun.
For me, G&T is excellent on a summer evening.
I am allergic to cats so I will stop there.
Saw a couple chickadees on a walk earlier.
Normally I'd be sipping whiskey or PBR, but after two weeks of attempting to fix my own dishwasher I finally have a fully functional appliance again, so I'm cracking open some homemade palinka a Romanian coworker brought the last time he was here. Might have some whiskey or PBR as well.
The ole stand by miller lite.
Sitting outside at the fire pit and drinking a bourbon. I have an oriole on the feeder about 10 feet away from me just chirping away. Got a love the UP.
Sounds awesome!! I've noticed that the older male Orioles make the most noise while feeding. Very vociferous they are. What bourbon are you enjoying?
I don’t know anything about birds, but my friend searches my property for them. He claims to have identified 82 species in the past few weeks.
Sipping on some vodka from a local distillery (Three Rivers Distillery). I live in the country and have multiple feeders out. I get many types of birds. I’m watching my Bluebird family feed on mealworms right now. Love bird watching.
CUTIE MARKS FOR CUTIE MARKS!!! Sounds like a fair trade to me!
Drinking 2010 Calera de Villiers Pinot Noir. A Red Tail Hawk is patrolling my neighborhood. It's still midseason in the` mountains.
I was at a traffic light in Walker and flying above the intersection was a pileated woodpecker. What? I have only seen these birds a couple of times in my life and was quite pleased seeing one flying over the Meijer I just left. Yesterday morning on the way to work a Turkey came out into the road in front of me, then turned backed toward a parked car. I noticed someone standing defensively at that car and wondered what fun I missed as I continued on my way.
Tonight - Gin and tonic.
Founder's Solid Gold or Perrin Gold are great beers for those who are not so fond of the IPAs or any of the Bartles and Jamesy type fruity flavored "craft beers" taking up space in the beer aisle.
Had a pileated woodpecker on my little suet cake feeder the other day. He was too large to eat easily as the basket was spinning like a top. Don't see them too often but what a treat when you do. Get a lot of Red-bellied, hairy and downy woodpeckers here. Nuthatches are fun to watch too.
I used to have pileated woodpeckers quite often in taller dead trees in a wooded lot adjacent to my yard in Watervliet, you could always tell by the distinctive sound of their tapping pattern as they searched for insects or grubs in the dead wood. Never saw them on the feeder but did see red headed, red bellied, Downy and Hairy peckers in addition to frequent Yellow Flickers and an occasional Sapsucker. Also would see Rose Grosbeaks most springs and some years indigo buntings, too at our feeders. Plus all the other songbirds common to southern Michigan, as my neighborhood was mostly older homes surrounded by wooded areas on a bluff overlooking Paw Paw Lake.
Saki. Haven’t paid attention to birds, but saw a coyote 50 ft from me.
We were woken up at 4 this morning by a ? call. Sounded like a woman being murdered.
bald eagle circling out in front of the office earlier today. always like to see them.
strong possibility of some red pop in a coffee cup for me later, but just home from taking everyone to ice cream, so it'll have to wait.
Yeah, I always am thrilled to see bald eagles too, would occasionally see them soaring above Paw Paw Lake when I lived there, though the vast majority of the birds soaring overhead there are turkey vultures. Last spring I was treated early in the morning to a Bald Eagle that flew probably only about 100 yards in front of me and just above treetop level as it crossed state highway M-140 just north of Watervliet. What a treat to see!
Seeing a bald eagle is always a thrill for me. We thought they might go extinct when I was a kid. They showed up in force in the Lake Erie wetlands around the Monroe nuclear power plant some years back. Now my neice reports them eating road kill on I-75 in Toledo. I hope to see more of them.
In the final stages of building my power rack in my basement, so no mixing power tools and alcohol. Maybe later tonight. About to mix some concrete to pour some weights so maybe I'll see a few birds while i'm out there.
Who made your power rack?
I got a great rig from Pure Strength in GA a couple of years ago, and couldn’t be happier. Better than Rogue (IMO) and cheaper.
I did, in my garage with a ton of laminated 2x6s, Baltic birch gussets, black pipe and a million bolts. It's completely overkill, but if I'm gonna make something, I'm making it right.
Do not mess with this man. He makes his own weights!
I'm a DIY'er, but I've never gone that far. I did make my own floor for power lifting with a couple of layers of plywood under a 1 inch layer of rubber mat.
Drinking: a rose' of some sort.
Birds: Hawks, man. It used to be cool to see a hawk, now they're everywhere. Rabbit guts in the lawn every other day. And owls will start hooting here pretty soon. Owls are elusive. I hear them all night but I never see them in the day.
I've got two layers of plywood down as the base so far, going to top it off with some leftover oak flooring I have laying around after I finish the lat pulldown. Going to eventually put the rubbermats on the outside for deadlifts, but i dont think deadlifts with concrete weights is a good idea so that will wait until weights are reasonably priced again.
instead of concrete, could you use sand?
Brown Thrashers Purple Martins and Bulleit Single Barrel 104 proof.
Cool, would like to try that Bulleit SB. Is it one of your favorites? I'm sipping on some Eagle Rare neat right now.?
Right now my favorite is Elijah Craig small batch barrel proof - but the Bulleit is in my top three along with Wild Turkey Rare Breed.
Have you tried Knob Creek Single Barrel and Old Forester 1920? I love Rare Breed and ECBP, and those former two are my current faves
I really like the 1920 - will check out the Knob Creek
Same here, I love ECBP. Currently have their C919 release. Great juice ?. Saw a bottle of A120 at Meijer a couple weeks ago but passed. Would like to find a bottle of Larceny Barrel Proof. Pretty scarce around here.
Uncanny... I just saw the first indigo bunting ever at my house about an hour ago.
Hummingbirds and orioles hitting the feeder hard today. First pair of rose breasted grosbeaks showed up.
Common yellowthroat and a yellow warbler, house wren, and a carolina wren continued hanging around too. Been seeing them all week during conference calls
Did some yardwork after dinner and came back in the garage to an ovenbird trying to fly out the screen window. Caught him and let him go outside
Oh and beverage of choice is a homebrew vienna lager
You will see Indigo Buntings around feeders in the spring then they move on. So beautiful!!
Yes indeed, beautiful plumage! And unlike a dead parrot, prone to moving on once the weather fully warms up each spring.
Another bird I really miss hearing right now are wrens. Used to have a nesting box on my deck, those wrens have a mighty and musical voice waaayyyyy beyond their diminutive size.
Terrapin Wake N Bake oatmeal stout
Terrapin is one of my go to brewers on the road.
I'm drinking some Solid Gold myself right now. That stuff is...
SOLID
GOLD!!
Sitting on my patio watching a Robin bouncing around my back yard. Drinking Great Lakes Nosferatu and Blackout Stout.
I enjoy the birding as well. Drinking a vodka and tonic.
Bulleit Bourbon with a frozen black cherry
I put a bird feeder out back with a dual suet cage next to it. We get all kinds of birds every day. I see this irredentist blue bird frequently and saw an all white bird the size of a cardinal. Two male cardinals were fighting near the feed one day while a little woodpecker casually pecked away at the suet. The squirrels and chipmunks clean up around the base of the feeders.
The blue bird you describe is an indigo bunting. They are starting to show up at the feeders now
The blue bird you describe is an indigo bunting. They are starting to show up at the feeders now
Side car as the drink (Copper Queen Whiskey and Grand Marnier).
Woodpeckers, several varieties, are in abundance this year is Rochester Hills.
I'm starting out with a Fulton Standard Lager (a local), then I'm going to have a Founders Dirty Bastard.
I had a pair of ducks frequently visiting my yard last week, but this week they're not here.
Enjoying a Skrewball (PB whisky) while playing Mexican train with 3 of my 4 kids. Also, listening to some Smokey Robinson.
We just recently saw a hawk sitting on a tree eating a squirrel on our property.
Wild turkey to both.
Apparently Pelicans live in Colorado (which is rather bizarre?!?!?!). I did not learn that until a few weeks ago until I saw pictures from my cousin.
So I am going to try to spot some tomorrow (out at Barr Lake, northeast of the Denver Metro). Pelicans are pretty awesome birds, I've seen them in Louisiana!
That's my bird watching story! Just drinking milk tonight.
Drinking Mumm brut prestige. There is a bald eagle circling overhead. I think he stalking my dogs