They DO exist!

I met some real live other knitters tonight! YIPPPEEEE!!

As much as I love my new home, I was starting to get, you know, a little lonely. I've been in New York State for two months now and I'm ready to make some friends, please! I've always been kinda shy and it's not that easy for me to make friends, and I miss the really great ones that I left behind in Maryland. So imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon a knitting group that meets in the library a few towns over. (OK, 40 minutes drive away, but close enough.)

It's a very informal group that meets once a week to just "stitch and bitch", which translates to: tell a lot of juicy gossip while either knitting or crocheting, occasionally using the "s" word in a scandalous tone and then shushing each other. If only they knew that I curse like a sailor and was only yesterday lamenting that the "f" word is way too tame and I need a more shocking word to use in dire circumstances. (Feel free to share any ideas.) I really liked everybody and I can't wait to go back next week. Yay!

OK, so on Sunday I alluded to a "baby bird incident" in the woods. Well damn, damn, damn, the pictures didn't come out at ALL. I think I was having beginner's luck with this camera. All of a sudden, I am incapable of taking a good picture. And no, I didn't drop this one. (I didn't!)

I'm going to force you to look at some blurry pics though, because I desperately need to know what it is? Why can't I find any references online for fledgling birds? Don't other birders have these dilemmas? He had no field markings at all (great), except that he had a dark back and a lovely, creamy tummy. And he had no tail. I don't mean, "oh his tail was so short that he looked like he had no tail." I mean, this bird looked like he had his entire ass chopped off. Very, very, unbearably, painfully cute. He actually looked a lot like a penguin. Oh, and he had creamy rings around his eyes, much like a nice teddy bear. And a yellow beak. Is this helping???


He was peeping away, all by himself, on a dead branch a foot off the ground and right next to the stream. Where is your Mom?! I feared he would flop right into the water and get carried away, but he never moved, just peeped a lot. I could hear similar peeps elsewhere in the woods, maybe siblings smart enough to stay higher up in the trees.

He's about the size of a phoebe, and there are pics online of a fledgling kingbird that is similar, but not quite right. The kingbird doesn't have the matching eyerings.

Sorry, are these pictures making you sea-sick? Don't throw up on my blog!