brown pelican eggs

I don't know if the oil can get directly INTO their nests (except in the case of a hurricane - in which case, they're doomed anyway) but if Mom and Dad Pelican are hanging out in oil all day long, you know they bring it home with them.
It reminds me of the workers at Chernobyl somehow.

(the finished bird page from the last few days)

it's not really "sun tea"

I love to make sun tea 

on my front porch

but today it's more like "cloud tea"

the sun is trying hard to break through the marine layer

and my tea is just taking a little bit longer to brew

some things take a little while to "brew" don't they?

I've been obsessing over the "oil spill animals"

and in the back of my mind wondering 

"where am I going with this?"

so far, it's just a sketchbook at home:

for my kids,

my family,

my friends who know me.

I have one more page to do and it's full

- but is it?

one of my blogger friends (Freebird) turned me onto a special blog:

ripple

it's someplace to go with this obsession

it's just atc's

but they're special atc's

each one raises $10

for

The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies

and

The International Bird Rescue Center

maybe it's something you'd like to do?

I know you guys and how creative you are

it's just a thought

a thought to let brew for a bit

***
please visit the lovely tea blogs in my sidebar ....
and Meadowlark Days is joining us again :)
welcome!

red knot bird

The red knot is a shore bird and makes one of the longest migrations of any other animal on the planet.

Over 9,000 miles from it's Arctic breeding grounds to Tierra del Fuego in southern South America.

Like many other migratory birds, the Gulf of Mexico is an important stop along the way.

Click HERE and you can hear it's birdsong.

go see this:

my blogger friend Dianne made a beautiful oil pastel of the salt marshes the seaside sparrow calls home.

go see it HERE.

seaside sparrow

This is literally a seaside bird; few other sparrows have so restricted a habitat. Favoring the wetter sections of salt marshes, it feeds much less on seeds than other sparrows do, but eats tiny young crabs, snails, and other small marine animals along the tidal creeks of salt meadows. Like all birds living near the ground in grass, the Seaside Sparrow is difficult to detect until it is almost underfoot, whereupon it flushes, flies for a short distance, drops down into the thick grass, and runs along like a mouse. The best opportunity to view one is when it is singing atop a grass stem or small shrub.

- enature.com

brown pelican

The poster child of this disaster

here he is ...

 not floating in oil

... it's just his shadow in the rippled water.

Read this story about 62 rehabilitated Brown Pelicans released into the wild on the Texas coast.

It's a hopeful tale in the midst of what IS a WCS (worst case scenario).

tea and roses

Today's tea is a Siberian Rose tea from the Vital Tea Leaf in Seattle

I had the pleasure of wandering into their shop last week where I enjoyed an informal tea tasting.

This rose tea was my favorite .... they had a wonderful ginger tea too.

It was really fun - if you're ever in Seattle it's in the south end of the Public Market on Pike Place.

***

Below, is a picture of rose petals I've laid out to dry.

I wish you could smell them!

The roses were:

Jude the Obscure

Abraham Darby 

and Evelyn.

I think of Evelyn as "the other woman."

Sometimes The Sweet Husband comes in from the garden saying,

"Oh, Evelyn, she smells so good today!"

***

Please also visit the tea blogs listed in the sidebar to see what they are up to "tea-wise"