Friday, June 29, 2007

It must be jersey day

As I started off today the Other Neighbor Couple Who Also Ride But Only the Male Half was outside watering his lawn. I know he rides although I am not sure I have ever actually seen him on a bicycle. We ran into each other in a local bike shop once and I am guessing he was not there for the bicycle tales so I think he rides. We exchanged pleasantries about how nice a day it was and he revealed to me that he got in a 20 miler today. I agreed with him that it was a mighty nice day for a 20 mile bicycle ride.

So I rode all the way to the "You are here" spot previously photographed for this blog. I hoped to get another angle which would still show the "You are here" stone but would show enough other details to allow identification by those familiar with the ride along the river. In fact I did get a pretty nice photo but it is going to have to wait for another day.

I was getting ready to leave when this lady rode in. Well, in recognition of the ride earlier today in Michigan by people wearing these jerseys, I asked this nice lady if I could take her picture.I told her about having been on that ride and that my sister also rode it and had recently posted a photo of the jersey. She was very nice and agreed to be photographed by a complete stranger. She asked me if I was riding TRAM this year. I pointed to her jersey and said that they killed a guy the year of that jersey and that I had not returned to the ride since. We had a nice chat about TRAMs past and then I went on my way.

At the top of the hill next to Desnoyer Park on the climb out of the river gorge I came upon this fellow. Birding is definitely not my field but I believe this is a Cooper's Hawk, immature. Adult Cooper's are quite a bit darker in color but of the hawks that I am aware of that frequent this range, immature Cooper's Hawk is the most likely.While I was looking at him I noticed that there was a ruby throated hummingbird perched on one of the adjacent wires. You rarely see a hummingbird perched upon anything so that was also interesting. The hummingbird is so tiny that there just wasn't any way that the equipment I carry on my bicycle ride could capture an image.

By the way, it didn't seem very warm but it was a three bottle ride. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

3 comments:

Santini said...

Very amusing post. It looks like she may be in training for a tour of some sort == maybe even self supported. She's packing almost as much gear as your neighbor did when she road TRAM. John was envious of Lynne's vest, because of the bright flourescent color. Very attention getting. He suggested I get one, and I had to confess that Lynne was wearing my vest. I was wearing my blue one. (So why are most bicycling jerseys so ugly?)

Jimi said...

Ruby throated hummingbird? Do they perch? I bet it was a parrot, maybe an ex-parrot, a dead Polly. Maybe a decoy.

I missed the theme of the day. I, like you, do not have a fancy TRAM biking shirt, and probably couldn't get a TRAM shirted lady to stop and pose for a photo anyhow. My bike isn't nice enough either. Nice job. Very amusing post, by the way.

Is Desnoyer Park on Pelham?

Anonymous said...

Excellent bird photo, by the way. It even posed nicely for you, good profile shot of it's head. I'm waiting for one of a bald eagle. And the lake doesn't count. SS