Sunday, October 16, 2016

I am traveling with my son on this Sunday night.

I've left incredible pictures of American birds. The American people value their lives and they add strong cultural values to our country and a heritage to pass to our children.

An additional note is the east coast flooding after Hurricane Matthew. The river are still rising because of the flow of flood waters down stream. Dead people are still being found as the water recedes.

Bermuda was hit by Hurricane Nicole on it's way northern Atlantic Ocean. (click here) Nicole's water vapor system is the length of the entire east coast of North America.

Thank you for your interest.

Until later.

A very particular bird, (click here) white-faced ibises change their nesting place from year to year based on local water levels. Throughout the west, white-faced ibises wander up the western states, taking advantage of temporary foraging grounds like flooded pastures and fresh marshes. Feeding on insects and worms, they pick through water and wet soil with their long, curved beaks. Their glossy coloration -- feathers of purple, crimson, teal and gold -- help them blend into dark waters. Despite their regal appearance, their rough calls are strange, grunting croaks. Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming is a good place to observe them in the summer.

The horned owl is a haunting bird. Their feather colors perfectly blend with it's habitat. It has vision that affords it an intense visual picture.

...An owl's eyes (click here) are large in order to improve their efficiency, especially under low light conditions. In fact, the eyes are so well developed, that they are not eye balls as such, but elongated tubes. They are held in place by bony structures in the skull called Sclerotic rings. For this reason, an owl cannot "roll" or move its eyes - that is, it can only look straight ahead!
The owl more than makes up for this by being able to turn its head up to 270 degrees left or right from the forward facing position, and almost upside down....

Widespread across North America, you never know when an owl might be watching you. Difficult to spot during the day, great horned owls blend into their environment, given away only by their bright yellow eyes and deep hooting calls. Like most owls, great horned owls hunt at night, using good eyesight and excellent hearing. Once their prey has been located, they will silently swoop down, using their sharp talons to quickly grasp and kill it. Their diet consists of mammals such as mice, voles, weasels, rabbits, squirrels and rats, but they will often take larger prey including skunks and other owls.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan salutes the crowd of supporters in his hometown of Rize, on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016. Erdogan said Saturday that Turkey is moving into Dabiq, Syria, and will declare a "terror-free safe zone" in the region. ((Yasmin Bulul, Presidential Press Service, Pool photo via AP)

October 15, 2016
By Bassen Moure

Beirut (AP) — Syrian opposition fighters (click here) backed by Turkish airstrikes launched an offensive Saturday to try to capture Dabiq from the Islamic State group, which assigns special status to the northern Syrian town in its ideology and propaganda.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack was preceded by intense shelling. It said that Turkey-backed opposition fighters captured three nearby villages, encircling Dabiq and cutting off all supply routes.
Turkey sent troops and tanks into northern Syria in August to help opposition forces recapture IS strongholds and curb the advance of a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara views as an extension of Turkey's outlawed Kurdish separatists.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in Rize on the Black Sea coast, said "we entered Jarablus, and then al-Rai, and now we are moving where? To Dabiq. We will declare a terror-free safe zone of 5,000 (square) kilometers." He was referring to areas in Syria already captured by Turkish troops and Turkey-backed opposition forces....