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Blog Entry 43 of 71 River City Raconteur

rac·on·teur [rak-uhn-tur; Fr. ra-kawn-tœr]a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly. Origin: 1820–30; < F, equiv. to racont(er) to tell (OF r(e)- re- + aconter to tell, account ) + -eur -eur Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

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Stone Lake sightings

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Contributed by: Jim Miller on 2/21/2008

One of my least favorite things to do is hang out in waiting rooms, even relatively nice waiting rooms like Mike Spiller's. Mike, a classmate from the old Rider days, is a crackerjack dentist renovating Annie's smile.While she was occupying Mike's chair Wednesday afternoon, I hung out in the parking lot with my binoculars and notebook.

I'm reluctant to add that Mike's new office is on Stone Lake at Rock Creek south of the Family YMCA. Reluctant because the area is a fair to middlin' location for spotting birds, and I'm not talking about the mallards and Canada geese that hang out on the small, private Stone Lake. Rather, my attention was taken by a few (two to three) red-tailed hawks patrolling the area and a dozen or better meadowlarks feeding on the grass in front of Grace Church.

New construction is evident in the area, yet I am hopeful the neighborhood will not become tightly congested. Right now it is fairly open with wide expanses of grassland and mesquite, excellent suburban habitat for a wide variety of wildlife.
As such the Stone Lake addition is an outstanding asset for the city.

So I'm sitting in Annie's Blazer, making notes on the hawks, killdeer, starlings, ducks, geese, gulls, and meadowlarks. Mike's work is running long, and late afternoon is rolling into evening. About 6 pm I notice a widely scattered flight of robin-sized birds coming in from the south. There are more than I count, so I guesstimate the number of individuals at about 60 birds. As the leading edge passes over the Blazer I can see that they are indeed robins! Scores of them, flying from south to north.

Perhaps I had never been sitting in the right place at the right time. I don't know. But between 6 and 6:30 I counted nine distinct flights of robins several minutes apart and all heading north. Total number of birds had to be 400 or better.

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Submitted By: Beverly McClure

posted on 2/21/2008 @ 7:42:15 PM

Rated Blog Entry

Awesome. We've seen a few robins at our place. Also yesterday I counted six meadowlarks, which was neat. We used to have a lot of them, but the past few years they've been missing. A couple of mocking birds have been hanging around too. I need to buy new hummingbird feeders to be ready for the wee ones.

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Jim Miller

Wichita Falls , TX

Jim Miller has posted 71 blog entries and 141 comments since joining on 9/26/2006. Jim Miller 's average blog rating is 4.74.

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