A telephone pole goes up the middle of the picture, with wires and other things on either side. A small black and white woodpecker (a Downy woodpecker) stands on one of the wires. She has no red on her head (thus is female) and shows black spots along her white tail feather (and thus is a Downy, not the similar Hairy woodpecker).

Our neighbourhood Downy woodpecker spent a few minutes poking her bill into nooks and crannies in our back yard this morning. Some were on trees, and some on the telephone pole.

A half dozen white blooms (each about a cm in length) droop from the bright green leaves of snowdrops, on a dark bed of last year's leaves. ------------- 26422-633-1a OM-1 f/5, 1/500, 82mm (40-150 zoom), ISO250

Here it is the twelfth of April and today these snowdrops on our front lawn showed themselves again. They were out for a day a month ago, but got covered in snow right after. Finally that snow has melted back a bit. More are still covered; who knows when they'll appear.

#spring
#photography

The Factory Was Always the Target Yesterday’s strikes on Iranian steel plants are being covered as news.

North American liberal pundits keep saying that Trump has no plan for Iran.

Certainly he does have a plan: the destruction of a unified nation and the pulverising of its economic supports.

It will do both Trump and the capital system that he oversees very well.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Four American goldfinches, two Pine siskins and a Common redpoll eating (or perhaps not eating) at a bright-yellow Nyjer-seed feeder.

Goldies, siskins and a redpoll, if not getting fat at the little seed, then more or less getting along at the feeder.

A small bird feeder is hanging in the picture, and a red-breasted nuthatch is clinging to it upside-down, pulling a seed out.

I'm reading Eduardo Galeano's Upside Down which has nothing about some birds happily engorging tail up.

Nearly thirty years after Galeano's book was published, the human world is even more upside-down than he accounted for.

And our neighbourhood nuthatch, tail up, is refreshingly right-side-up.

US Influence in Latin America Grows: Nazi-tied, Pro-Israel, Anti-China Candidate Wins Chile Election 38 minutes | The winner of Chile's presidential election, José Antonio Kast, is the son of a German Nazi official. He is a US-backed far-right extremist who loves Donald Trump, Israel, and fascist for...

www.filmsforaction.org/watch/us-inf...

TRUMP [after spending 5 minutes with Zohran]: surplus value, it’s a very wonderful thing, very wonderful, and they’re stealing it. Can you believe that?

We’re going to be looking very strongly at the bourgeoisie, what they’re up to

We had a Baltimore oriole a couple of years ago at an orange like this. I live in hopes. --------- 25N32-337-1b

It was warm enough in the sun this morning that the neighbourhood house flies were woken up and called to service. The orange is there in hopes of drawing in some fruit-eating birds. None has been seen yet this year but my fingers are crossed. Meantime, I am amused by the Musca.

#flies #Insects

The UN Embraces Colonialism: Unpacking the Security Council’s mandate for the U.S. colonial administration of Gaza The Security Council’s backing of the Trump plan for Gaza ignores international law, punishes the Palestinians, and rewards those responsible for genocide.

What kind of half- or full-Nelson has Trump pulled on Russia and China, neither of whom exercised their perfectly legal right to veto his Evil Plan for Gaza this week?

mondoweiss.net/2025/11/the-...

After about a half-hour the chickadees and goldfinches had been out a while and, finally, our nuthatch ventured out. He sat in this bush by the back deck for a few minutes before he went to the feeder.

What I think was a merlin came darting around our yard this morning and all the smaller birds went to ground. The merlin stayed less than five seconds and was gone, looking for better pickings. Our place stayed quiet for a while and slowly the little birds re-appeared.

#Birds #BirdPhotography

We've had a lot of dirty, dark, wet weather the past week or two. And this morning was one of those seven-or-eight-stops-down-from-sunny days. The kind that make you turn on all the lights in the house even at eleven a.m. Dark dark. So when, mid-afternoon, the sun burst out and made a brilliant double rainbow across the city, everyone was taken by it. Rapt. I was driving and when we stopped at a traffic light I took a couple of grab shots. I was lucky; it was gone in five minutes. But as we drove home from shopping we saw at least a dozen people pointing, staring, or taking pictures of it. When we got home, I put a picture on my social media page. In a few minutes I saw about fifty more pictures. All hands saying it was the best rainbow they'd ever seen. Small things make us all happier. ---------------- 25N27-341-1a

Everyone noticed. . .

It's the law, luh. ------------------- 25N26-265aa

Today's special guest in the apple tree, a Purple finch, though not a purple one since the Fringilline Sumptuary Law allows only the adult males to wear the purple.

#Birds #BirdPhotography #PurpleFinch

-------------- 25N23-239aa

There's not much of a room, but I think the nuthatch likes the board.

#Birds #BirdPhotography #BirdsEating

In our backyard, downtown St. John's, Newfoundland. ------------------ 25N19-194a

Sunny afternoon. Goldfinch at the beach.

#Birds #BirdPhotography #AmericanGoldfinch

So, here: a picture of one of our Tom-tits. Our special Tom-tits. [If you're so inclined, you may now start singing your favourite song from The Mikado, but I've never heard one of ours singing for seeming lack of intellect nor apparent wormic indigestion.]

The lovely Chickadee, the Tom-tit as it used to be known here in Newfoundland (being a close relative to the European tits), gets fairly short shrift from me since I see and hear the neighbourhood ones every day. "Nutten special 'bout the Tom-tits. . . ."

#Birds #BirdPhotography #Names #Words

Crows. Peanuts.

#Birds! #BirdsEating

Downtown St. John's, Newfoundland, 10/11/25.

Our new friend, a Red-breasted nuthatch that showed up yesterday, is settling in to our neighbourhood. He was back and forth to the feeder today for a couple of hours, mixing well with the local chickadees.

#Birds #BirdPhotography #BirdFeeding #BirdFeeder

Red-breasted nuthatch, probably male, in St. John's, Newfoundland. ------------- 25N8-006aa

I had not seen a nuthatch in six months in our yard. But a couple of days ago a friend who lives a km up the street told me she'd seen one in her yard that day. I kept an eye out and this morning (9/11/25) this fellow came around.

#Birds #BirdPhotography

The Empire's Dogs Are Barking at Venezuela Washington is reviving the ‘War on Drugs’ to attempt to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution, threatening everything from military force to the assassination of government leaders.

What exactly are the options for the Caribbean pirates of Washington? Here are five possibilities; no doubt the pirates have one or two more. . .
thetricontinental.org/red-alert-20...

#venezuela #cuba

Sadly they are both dead. Harold's wife, Corky (Cordelia, but everyone even her children knew her as Corky) just died a couple of weeks ago in NS. That's where she and Harold moved in the early 1980s. They have left lots of family around and about though.

They thought seeds were blowing out from the shipments of Cannabis indica being used for rope products and they were growing freely there. But I think none ever survived a winter.

Harold Horwood and his poet brother Charlie Horwood were children in the area around the old "Ropewalk" in St. John's in the 1930s and early '40s. When I knew them in the late 1960s and 1970s, they would talk about plants they would find growing wild around the Ropewalk.

So true. Sometimes the resin smells and sometimes the leaves. Very aromatic either way.

For a half-dozen years, Canada has very sensibly allowed its citizens to grow cannabis. Some growers are failures (like me). But others are excellent husbanders of weed seeds.

Here is part of a friend's crop this year. I don't partake but I love the smell of it, and this sure smelt good.

#weed

------------- 25N3-722-2

Moon yesterday afternoon as the sun set nearly opposite it.

#moon #moonrise #MoonriseOverBirches

--------------------- 25O49-553-1

The flicker was hunting for peanuts hidden by the blue jays in the pot my forty-year-old pet pine grows in. The sun was shining directly on the glass of the window I was stealing views through, so there was pretty substantial flare.

#Birds #NorthernFlicker #SheBird

Three trick-or-treaters at my door; one of their adults can be seen behind the smallest of the three. ------------------- 25O53-307dsta

The first arrivals, candy-beggars at Hallowe'en 2025.

#Hallowe'en #Vampires #Halloween

Lovely picture. What kind of bird is this?

Two crows overhead in a European white poplar. One crow is picking at the other's neck. The picker is leaned right into the pickee who is leaned well back. --------- 25O46-419aa

Twa corbies. Preening. Or conspiring.

#Birds #Crows #AmericanCrows