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🍁「 楓蔦黄 」🍂 
Lying down on a clear, windy day in October to enjoy the vibrant leaves' final dance of the year. The oaks are already looking winter-ready.
こんいちは!
In addition to being Bandcamp Friday (you can peruse our Hummingtunes 五 list here), today marks the end of the traditional Japanese 'microseason' (kō) of 楓蔦黄 (when frost descends, and maple & ivy leaves turn yellow). Soon we'll have an update about our trip, but first we thought we'd squeeze in a few irregular updates from October (十月) about various goings on both around the Hill and beyond.
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🔥 Pyrography Experiments: Hum Hill & Junco Grove 🌲 🐦
This past month I've been experimenting a bit with woodburning—AKA pyrography—and it's been an interesting learning curve so far. Basically, it's drawing on wood with a heat-pen. I was drawn to it because I was looking for more environmentally friendly ways to make signage.
The ironic thing is that I had to wait to start until the smoke from the wildfires cleared before I could open the windows & doors for air circulation while burning...
🔥💨💨

The first woodburned sign I made is a SENĆOŦEN translation of Hummingbird Hill. He had help translating it to SENĆOŦEN in the early 80s; Seán found the translation and pronunciation guides in his grandfather's notes.
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Catching Some Rays
On a particularly hot, sunny day earlier this summer, I was out identifying plants in the garden when, rounding a bend, I was met with this sight on a mossy mound of rock near the bird bath:

They were absolutely still, frozen in their respective poses:
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Little Paintings: Robin in the Bath
Seán and I have recently been scheming new ways to creatively capture scenes around the Hill, so I halved some card-paper offcuts I got from an art store. Now we have a nice stack of 3x3.5'' pieces that we're gradually making into tiny paintings.
One of my first attempts is a common sight around here: a fluffed-up, staring robin soaking in the bath:

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Bewick's Bird Card + Farewell-to-Spring 
Wren by Seán, environment by Kate
We're so happy and honoured to have had the opportunity to join a community of artists and naturalists from around our region once again in highlighting 36 of our avian neighbors for the latest set of Art Bird Cards. This was a great opportunity for us to continue honing our digital art skills and we learned a lot in the process of collaborating on this illustration of a Bewick's wren (Thryomanes bewickii)—a year-round resident here atop Humm Hill.
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...Who Calls? 
Last week, as we were working in the garden, we suddenly heard a loud, spooky & exasperated-sounding voice ask, “Who, who, who, WHO COOKS FOR YOOOOUUU?!”*
“We cook for each other, actually...” we replied, timidly. “Who, who, who's asking?”
The answer to this question was perched upon the branch of a nearby Douglas-fir:
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Encounter with Sleepy Young Ravens 
The other day, while taking a stretch break from the anti-ergonomic act of photographing tiny lichens on a rocky slope, I looked up to find I was being silently watched:

I could tell it was a juvenile raven because of the fleshy pink “gape flange” at the base of its beak.

I watched as it rested there: quietly preening, yawning and occasionally blinking its spooky nictitating membrane at me.
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#Meanwhile
A Dark-eyed junco finds some eats amongst the grass & moss in the late-afternoon sun.
May 17, '09: rufous in kitchen
#spring #birds #meanwhile-spring