Rose-breasted Grosbeak

 

 

 

Males and females.

 

 

 

A Northeastern bird.  Judy and I are Westerners.  We never heard of these birds before we came to Texas.  They pass through here on their way from wintering grounds in South and Central America.

 

A wild kingdom moment

 

 

A strangely behaving curve-billed thrasher alerted me to an issue.  Seeing him jumping around squawking and flapping, I went back inside and grabbed the camera.  Once I walked back out, the thrasher perched on the blue heron statue to watch the conclusion of the drama unfold from there.

 

The bird had already harassed the 5-foot-long indigo snake enough that he had begun leaving by the time I got there.  Here is a shot of his front end, but the head was obscured.  You can see the rest of the snake still curled up in the garden.

 

And here is the back half disappearing into a hole underneath the side of our shed.

 

Indigo snakes are beautiful and they’re beneficial too, eating rats and mice.  We’re very glad to have an indigo snake at our house, looking glorious and reducing the rat and mouse population (as well as having the neighborhood roadrunner bird who helps keep down the population of house sparrows).

 

It’s migration

 

 

We get to see birds we don’t normally see the rest of the year.

 

Like hooded warblers.

 

In the bushes.

 

In the grass.

 

Sometimes almost underfoot.

 

Or right out next to a sidewalk.

 

And sometimes female.

 

 

From: Steve Taylor
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2026 3:16 PM
To: Judy Taylor <judy@taylorroth.com>
Subject: It’s migration

 

 

We get to see birds we don’t normally see the rest of the year.

 

Like hooded warblers.

 

Sometimes almost underfoot.

 

Or right out next to a sidewalk.

 

A different garden

 

 

This one a patch of grass in a park.

 

With shaggy mane mushrooms popping up.

 

Welcome mat garden update

 

 

Still looking fine.

 

But no secondary leaves yet to I.D.

 

For years

 

 

Maybe decades.  I’ve been joking with the kids that as we get older, and it’s time to take away the car keys, we totally understand.  But caution them that, at the same time, they need to understand that it will be our job to provide a moving target.

 

Well, we’ve just added a layer of complexity to that exchange.  Now we have a car that doesn’t require a key.  No key.  No fob.  Nothing but a cellphone.  The car is linked to Judy’s cellphone and mine.  When we get close to the car, it recognizes us, and wakes up, assuming the driver configuration for whoever is closest.  Now, when the kids do track us down, there is no key to take away.  And would you take away a smartphone from an old person and deprive them of that powerful digital link to the outside world?  And not only that, what safer option for an ageing driver but to take a robotaxi everywhere they go!  Oh yeah, I like the way this is going…

 

Remember when?

 

 

When you would reach for a slice of bread from the opened loaf and find green or gray mold?  Have you noticed that hasn’t happened lately?  It hasn’t for us in years.  The bread is just always good.  We can open a loaf of supermarket bread, use some of it, go on a trip for a week, and when we come home, the bread in that ten-day-old opened loaf is still good.

 

That’s not how it used to be.