Bird Blogging

One of the delights of living in the chaparral is the abundant bird life — dozens of species, ten or so of which are very common here. For instance, we have around a hundred hummingbirds visiting our feeders regularly, and about the same number of California quail.

I took these two pictures this afternoon, with two of our most common visitors. At far right is a female hummingbird on one of our feeders. I believe it’s an Anna’s Hummingbird, though it’s missing the red throat patch they usually have — perhaps it’s a juvenile. In any case, it sat unusually still for a moment, and I was able to get this quite clear photo. We have dozens and dozens of Anna’s here; they are the most common hummingbird around in the area.

The other bird is a male Lesser Goldfinch, one of a hundred or more that regularly visit our large thistle seed feeders. These little fellows aren’t much bigger than the hummingbirds, and are almost as brave (the hummers will feed happily while you’re a foot from the feeder, and with care you can get them to land on you). I can go outside while the goldfinches are feeding, and generally they’ll continue feeding if I don’t get closer than about 6 or 7 feet. This seems a little surprising in light of how hard it was to get these birds to the feeders at all — we had feeders out, full of thistle seeds, for two or three years before a single goldfinch showed up. After that, it was just days before huge numbers were crowding our feeders. We’ve had as many as 16 goldfinches on a single feeder at the same time, and it’s common for us to have all four feeders chock full of them, with many others awaiting their turn in the nearby pampas, fig tree, or liquid amber tree. One theory we have is that the goldfinches weren’t reticent to use the feeders — they simply didn’t know how they worked. And that could be, I suppose — but they certainly know now!

As usual, click on the small photos for a larger view…

The Last Helicopter

This morning’s Wall Street Journal (and its free Opinion Journal site) carries a column by Amir Taheri. Mr. Taheri describes in vivid prose the man driving foriegn policy of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The piece describes my fears about Islamic extremism, more beautifully and more precisely than I could ever do myself. It’s well worth your time to read the whole thing.

But here I want to discuss just one thing that passed through my little grey cells as I read this piece: this is what keeps me a supporter of President George W. Bush, despite all his other failings in my eyes:

From the Opinion Journal:

To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of “the last helicopter.” It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the bodies of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein’s generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton’s helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd.

According to this theory, President George W. Bush is an “aberration,” a leader out of sync with his nation’s character and no more than a brief nightmare for those who oppose the creation of an “American Middle East.” Messrs. Abbasi and Ahmadinejad have concluded that there will be no helicopter as long as George W. Bush is in the White House. But they believe that whoever succeeds him, Democrat or Republican, will revive the helicopter image to extricate the U.S. from a complex situation that few Americans appear to understand.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s defiant rhetoric is based on a strategy known in Middle Eastern capitals as “waiting Bush out.” “We are sure the U.S. will return to saner policies,” says Manuchehr Motakki, Iran’s new Foreign Minister.

President George W. Bush is not an aberration out of sync with this man’s character — nor that of most other Americans I know, on this specific issue. There will be no last helicopter on W’s watch — I do believe that, because I believe that W is truly acting on principle (a notion that most politicians wouldn’t even recognize) when it comes to the global war on terror.

Here’s the really frightening part for me: there are no other players on the national stage known to be interested in a 2008 run for president for whom I hold the same belief. Sexy Hillary? Puh-lease! She’d fly that last helicopter herself if she thought that would buy her a few votes. John (me-me-me!) McCain? Surely you jest! Bill Frist? I think not, and the same for the rest of the bunch… In fact, the only person I’ve heard even mentioned who gives me a W-like confidence that there would be no last helicopter is Condileeza Rice — and she swears she’s not running.

This is problematic for me, because at the moment the global war on terror is for me the overriding issue, swamping all other issues, foreign or domestic. Yes, I care about immigration, taxes, health care, and all the rest — but I’d gladly put them all off for a decade if I could be assured that doing so would help win the global war on terror. That sense of priorities is what will drive my vote in 2008, barring some miraculous victory between now and then.

And I don’t see anyone running whom I’d want to vote for…