Ben & Tina's World

Redhead Duck in Prescott

bnwilson6624 — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:39:07 +0000

A bit of driving today trying to see my first Harlequin Duck ever. I finally was able to see him using another birders scope, but no chance of a photo. I couldn’t even see him in the binoculars.

The good news is I also added 4 other new birds to my life list… a Redhead, a Gadwall, Thayer’s Gull and an American Tree Sparrow. Here is a shot of the Redhead next to a couple of Mallards.

Aziza’s world view changes

bnwilson6624 — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:21:56 +0000

At Christmas this year, we met Aziza, a young lady from Kyrgyzstan. Phaedra’s folks host one or 2 foreign exchange students each year and Aziza is their 18th so far. Aziza is an exceptional young lady and we really enjoyed having her as part of our Christmas celebration. Her only ‘flaw’ that we could find, was that she is legally blind.

Last week, Aziza underwent eye surgery, the first of several, to hopefully correct her vision and allow her to see the world around her. Here is a small news clip from Kansas City…
[See post to watch Flash video]

3 Pileated

bnwilson6624 — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:36:35 +0000

Friday, the male Pileated Woodpecker stopped by to eat and this was the 1st time we had seen him since 12-15-08.

Saturday, we had our first sighting of all 3 Pileated Woodpeckers ever. A large male and 2 females (1 a bit smaller) were in and out of the back yard for most of the day. This is a first time we have ever seen 3 at the same time. Great fun but they sure go thru the suet.

We didn’t want to scare them off, so I don’t have any good pictures of all three.

Visit to the MN Raptor Center

bnwilson6624 — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Woke up to a bright sunny day but cold temps, so we decided to try something new. We picked up Zander (our 4 yr old grandson), and drove to the St. Paul U of Mn campus to visit the Minnesota Raptor Center.

The center was founded back in 1974 and has grown into a rehab center handling up to 800 birds annually. Some birds have some chronic condition and cannot be released back into the wild and 30 raptors and one Turkey Vulture are on display.

After a tour of the facility, we watched a raptor program including the feeding of a Great Horned Owl. She swallowed a mouse in about 1.5 seconds.

Images from the visit are posted at RaptorCenter

Building an R2-D2

bnwilson6624 — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:19:43 +0000

Zander and his R2D2

Yesterday, Zander and I spent 3-4 hours building a R2-D2 model out of legos. The unit contains a battery driven motor and actually walked/spun around when we were finished.

[See post to watch Flash video]