Saturday March 10, 2007 5:30 am Lethbridge Sunrise 6:56 Sunset 18:27 Hours of daylight: 11:31

A. Morning Musings

5:30 am It is +3 C at the moment with a high of +13 C forecast.

Here are the news.

CBC Headline: Harper Announces $1B in Farm Aid

Harper announces a large aid package for farmers, but indicates that the budget must first pass parliament before the money becomes available. The aid is definitely needed but it is also a clever move to put pressue on the opposition parties to support the budget later this spring.

Canadian Headline: see above

Australian Headline: (from The Australian): Mokbel Link Rocks labour

This is a continuation of the report from yesterday.

My weight is 194, down 1 one more due to a combination of less eating and an hour long morning walk.

B. Plan

Immediate
Technology	Edit images from Mexico trip	2 hr
	View area near Merida on GoogleEarth	1 hr
	Attach turntable to MacBook Pro	1 hr
Birds	Begin reading "Birds in Place" by Radd Icenoggle	1 hr
	Create birding notes for trip to coulee	2 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Runaway" by Alice Munro	1 hr
History	Begin reading "Maya"	1 hr
Later
Technology	Read manual for cell phone
	Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac"
	Burn backup of images onto DVD
Mathematics	Make notes for "Mathematics: A Human Endeavor" ch 1
	Read "Fearless Symmetry" chap 9: Elliptic Curves
Model Trains	Add ground cover to oil refinery diorama
	Continue assembly of coaling tower
	Follow tutorial for version 8 of 3rd PlanIt
	Purchase DCC system
History	Read Watson "Ideas"
Philosophy	Read & make notes for "Breaking the Spell"
GO	Complete reading "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go"
Puzzles	The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #10
Major Goals
Learning	Review week's pages each Sunday
	Review all pages for the month at the end of each month
Technology	Review & edit iPhoto files for 2006
	Become proficient with cell phone
Model Trains	Become proficient with 3rd PlanIt software
	Install DCC on model train layout
GO	Learn to play GO at something better than a beginner level
Drawing	Learn to draw!! (I keep saying this, yet I have yet to put a pencil to paper).
Mathematics	Continue to play with mathematics.
Literature	Continue to read Literature
Bird Watching	Continue to engage in bird watching activities.

C. Actual/Note

6:05 am As I begin to establish a daily routine, it occurs to me that an early morning continuation of my musings might be a good idea. This would give me a place to explicitly make a few comments about the coming day.

I made a large pot of chili yesterday but will have to be careful to not eat too much today and ruin my early efforts to lose some weight. We will freeze most of the chili, so we can take some up to mom when we next visit her. Writing this reminds me that I want to continue my cooking efforts with a new recipe each week.

7:00 am I have just finished reading the descriptions and reviews of the cooking books by Diana Kennedy. These look like incredible books, but they may be more than I want at the moment. I then looked at the one book we have on Mexican cooking. It seems like a good place to begin. However I will postpone this for a few days as we presently have the chili to enjoy.

Now to relax for a bit and view Google Earth to see if I can retrace some of the trips we took.

8:05 am I am fairly confident that I have located the place we stayed. I placed a virtual thumbtack at the spot. I also blundered onto a log of a trip that a person took to Dzemul (a small town near us). She can certainly write a fascinating journal. I would like to learn to write something similar, particularly for the various birding trips that we will take. I also need to remind myself to take more photos, particularly of everyday things.

10:00 am I forced myself to go for a morning walk in the coulee, even though the wind was up. This would both give me a semi-strenuous walk as well as an opportunity to see if there were any birds appearing. There was quite a racket from the spruce trees in Lafayette park (I assume they were sparrows) on the way to the coulee. I took a number of photos, primarily of the coulee as there was almost no bird activity. I did see a couple of magpies, four Canada geese flying up the river, and a few nds (non-descript) sparrow-like birds. That was the extent of the bird life. There was no sign of any blackbirds (either Red-wing or Yellow-headed) in the cat tails near the university. There were more people than birds on the trail - joggers as well as walkers, and one mountain biker. The wind was quite strong from the west but the sun was shining, the sky was a bright blue, and the temperature was about +8 C, so it was a fine time to be out. The ice was off the Oldman river and the water relatively clear as the spring runnoff has yet to begin. I managed to work up a sweat coming back up the coulee which should help me with my fitness. I must make these coulee jaunts a regular part of my routine.

Reviewing my photos, one of the nds turned out to be a Cassin's Finch. I must learn to take binoculars with me when I go out birding! That would have alerted me to the fact that this was more than just another nds.

In an attempt to identify a couple of sparrows, I created the following table of sparrows found in southern Alberta. The information refers to the book "Sparrows of the United States and Canada" by David Beadle and James Rising (2002).

I am fairly certain that I have a photo of a Clay-colored Sparrow.

1:40 PM Here is my first attempt at creating a bird watching journal:

	Birding 01 March 10
Birding Notes
1:30 PM I went for a morning walk in the coulee this morning and am trying out my "note making" format to provide a log of the trip from the perspective of a bird watcher. Our recent trip to Mexico has motivated me to do a better job of documenting our birding activities. I forced myself to go for a morning walk in the coulee, even though the wind was up. This would both give me a semi-strenuous walk as well as an opportunity to see if there were any birds appearing. There was quite a racket from the spruce trees in Lafayette park (I assume they were sparrows) on the way to the coulee. I took a number of photos, primarily of the coulee as there was almost no bird activity. I did see a couple of magpies, four Canada geese flying up the river, and a few nds (non-descript) sparrow-like birds. That was the extent of the bird life. There was no sign of any blackbirds (either Red-wing or Yellow-headed) in the cat tails near the university. There were more people than birds on the trail - joggers as well as walkers, and one mountain biker. The wind was quite strong from the west but the sun was shining, the sky was a bright blue, and the temperature was about +8 C, so it was a fine time to be out. The ice was off the Oldman river and the water relatively clear as the spring runnoff has yet to begin. I managed to work up a sweat coming back up the coulee which should help me with my fitness. I must make these coulee jaunts a regular part of my routine. Start of the trail into the coulee. (15 min walk from home) Weir on the Oldman river. Trail along the bottom of the coulee. Black-billed Magpie Trail heading up out of the coulee. Looking down on another trail. Grassland at top of coulee. Clay-colored Sparrow University wind gauges. Cassin's Finch near O'Donnell's house.   SUMMARY of the session: I took photos of three birds: Black-billed Magpie (very common), Clay-colored Sparrow & Cassin's Finch. From a birding perspective this is a low count. But from an enjoyment perspective it was a success. The coulee literally sparkled in the sunshine and I obtained a good look at the vegetation with the snow gone but the spring budding still in the future.

D. Reflection