BIRD BLOG #10 - THE WEEKLY PERCH TAVERN AND PUB

 The learning curve on this video editor is almost complete, at least for me. I'm sure there are a million feartures in it that I have no intention on getting to. It was the making of this 10th video where I figured out how to use the subtitles and lose the rendering red bar - quality issues that were so apparent in the earlier attempts. This one was also 10 minutes long -  a little too long for most folks to watch some dudes random birds. I will say there are some actual funny moments interspersed with filler birds. The birds that get startled by another incoming bird to the point where they go upside down on the perch bar. I should save those and do a video of just bird pranks and prat falls. 

Any who, it's Halloween. I'm going to leave the house dark and put police tape across the walkway to my front door in case there is any question we aren't home. The wife and I are going trick-or-treating with the grandkids for about an hour. They are busy and have plans in a friend's neighborhood also, so we are coming home at that time. Had to pick up a bag of candy for the stragglers, since we will get home for them. $30 bucks for a bag of candy? 

Have a great day, y'all.

Jerry 

DESCRIPTION

The skies are getting dark and so is the bird feeder. 

"Where do they go?," I wonder.

I cover myself in leaves for warmth. I take a pull 

from a bottle and start to nod off. Zzzzzz.... 

I have a macabre dream that I decorated the trees 

with tea pots. Maybe a toaster.. 

and maybe other odd kitchen accoutrements? 

I AM UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY MAD!

(The dream continues) What if the Humbirdy feeder was 

actually a bird bar serving drinks instead of seed? 

It's Friday night and the birds begin to line up

at THE WEEKLY PERCH TAVERN AND PUB...

Bird Blog #9 - A Man and his Black-eyed Junco (A love story)

 Dear Diary,

It's been a month since I've been home... Okay, maybe just a few hours, but it seems like months. I've been living off the land in my backyard. "Have I slipped completely into madness?" I inquire meekly to myself. "DON'T ANSWER THAT!," I scold myself out loud, hoping I didn't rouse the neighbor's dog. I catch my reflection in a human's house window. My hair and beard is unkempt and littered with grass and straw. My eyes are bloodshot red. 

It all started with a phone alert from my Humbirdy bird feeder camera that a Black-eyed Junco had been spotted. This was a few weeks back when I was still living in the house. Getting a visit from a unique bird species is getting rarer - it's been a little over a month since I set it up, so most Michigan birds for this season have made appearances - though I have a few yet still to score. Some are quite ubiquitous while others have been just a one-and-done, like the Carolina Wren - who, like me - had wandered far from home. Any way, back to my story... I lose my train of thought more and more these days as the temperature continues to drop. Speaking of trains... I like trains. Oh yah, so the Black-eyed Junco! It is a small black-and-white sparrow. They are ground-foraging birds that naturally prefer eating on the ground rather than the opulence of my elevated feeder. I learned this when I still had access to book learnin. I may have to record my memories by scratching on the barks of trees... or use these... WHAT are they called again?... LEAVES! Use leaves as a type of papyrus before I lose them completely. Any way, these birds may not be as flamboyant and colorful as some of those loud show birds... but the black & white reminds me of a simpler time of black & white tvs and Leave it to Beaver. "Gee, Wally, I hope I don't have to fight any beaver," I mumbled. But after that camera appearance... NOTHING. Until I spotted them BENEATH the feeder. Hopping and scratching on the ground. They seemed... happier than the birds receiving their seed welfare at the trough. That's when I decided that I too would live out my remaining days foraging for grubs and leftovers... Sometimes I score a half-buried nut left by one of them... WHAT are they called again?... SQUIRRELS! "Stupid rodents!," I state, while right side chewing the nut -, since that's the only tooth I have left. A breeze blows and I get a whiff of myself. Oh well... the birds don't mind. I twitch my head to the side thinking I heard something. I wonder how cold it will get tonight, as I cover myself with fallen leaves...

THE END

Bird Blog #8 - MOVIE QUOTES FOR THE BIRDS

 The Chattering Beak Avian Players perform iconic movie quotes from their favorite movies - Four movies featured. How many can you guess correctly?

Bird Blog #7

 Maybe I need to slow down and start to ween myself from these backyard birds. Yesterday, I heard the strangest bird call from the screen room, originating from the overhead tree. It was a very distinct "shave and a haircut." I wish I was making this up trying to be funny (see every blog I ever did since 2008 below) but I am being honest.  Amazingly, the call even included the "two bits" conclusion. I have no idea what bird could do that, but I was fairly certain Charles Hale was not climbing my tree. I've read that Blue Jays are excellent at mimicry, but it seems like they would have to be hearing this from somewhere in order to mimic it, but I haven't been watching  vaudeville on the the backroom tv. I haven't heard it since, and the calls have been mostly the "chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dees" and the Blue Jay squawks. I used to get the chattering and chirping of the trolling squirrels. Not so much any more. Squirrel update in a day or two...    

In other bird new:

A Red-bellied woodpecker paid a visit for the first time to my feeder. The only problem is that he is a little camera-shy. He wouldn't stand up straight on the perch and allow the camera's internal AI species identifier get a good look at him. He thought he was incognito, but big brother is always watching... (Oh, and I am figuring out a few of the features of this video editor, so sorry in advance.)

Match Game 2026 - France Edition

 Match these children's playground taunts, ryhmes & jump rope chants with  photos of the mostly-peaceful protests (below). 

1 - "I see London, I see France, I see infidels underpants!"

2 - "liar liar pants on fire hanging from a telephone wire" -

3 - "[Name] and [Name] sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage".

4 - "Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah" 

5 - "I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

6 - "Cinderella dressed in yellow, went downstairs to kiss a fellow..."

7 - "Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black..." 

8 - "Olly olly oxen free" 

9 - "Beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot..." 

10 -"Brick wall, waterfall, green grass, cannons blast..." 

11  -"Order in the court, the monkey's taking a snort." 

12 - "Apple on a stick, makes me sick, makes my heart go 2-4-6-8"."

Bird Blog #6 (Yes, another one)

 I swear I will not post a 5 minute video every day from the previous day's visitors... Starting after this one. I use the PowerDirector 365. for compiling and editing these video clips. I purchased a one-year license for this video editor last December after reading reviews on various ones. I was in need of an editor for all of the home movies I finally had digitized through Legacybox (after 40 or so years of sitting in a box as Mini-DVs, Hi-8s and VHS tapes).

I am a Boomer, so I didn't want any editor too complicated or with a long learning curve, as I assumed the home movie project would be a "one-and-done". I didn't do the deep dive, but I did have to do some cursory reading. The movies came out ok, clipping and snipping and joining various clips where required. 

Fast forward to now, I assumed I would cancel this editor subscription, and I still might. In the meantime - while I still have it - I am trying a few basic features (like adding titles and/or text bubbles) to various bird clips. 

So here is the compilation from select visitors on 10/21/2026 (AND what they were thinking)...

Backyard bird update

 whether you want it or not... 

Just a sampling. The birds were frequenting the feeder all day long. No squirrel (or Bigfoot) sightings all day. The Downy woodpecker (Zsa Zsa) started things off. Then a House Sparrow made an appearance. They sure are prettier up close (as opposed to flying overhead and dropping cargo on your windshield). The White-breasted nuthatch (cyrano de bergerac) holds a seed high overhead as it appears to be listening to the neighbor's dog barking. Black-capped chicadees are on the light weight division billing, and they stick and move like Sugar Ray Leonard, hitting the feeder and zipping away in a blink . A Blue Jay (I've named Elwood) checks in again. The Tufted titice (Johnny Bravos) like to stay awhile, showing off their backside feathers to the camera (or maybe self conscious chewers?) At some point, a smaller red colored House Finch (Opie) waits patiently on the front rail for the nuthatch to finish its meal. How nice! The bigger finch is such a messy eater - like a prisoner not worried about ettiquette. The Northern cardinal (Red Skelton) finishes the day's festivities. What is he clicking about? I believe he also started off the day around dawn but I didn't include here (too dark). That's it! I've already had a few new species hits this morning as I upload this video. Until then...

French Kitchen Nightmares with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay

Welcome to another exciting edition of Kitchen Nightmares with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. The episode opens with a voiceover from Chef Ramsay, as the camera pans the exterior of the inn. In this episode, I visit a troubled Inn and restaurant called the Boar Door. It was once a flourishing inn with a rich French history, culture and cuisine where people once wanted to travel. However, since the french owner Emmanuel Macron decided to leave the inn open and unguarded during the evening hours because he was a compassionate restauranteur, many now refer to this establishment as the Open Boar Door. The inn has been over-run with illegal third world middle-east muslims and a sprinkle of their leftist college punk apologists.

Gordon Ramsay arrives and sits on a well-worn tree stump pulled up to a filthy wooden table. The waitress arrives, as she is no French Maid. Instead, she is sporting full black burqa, and barks for Chef's order. It's breakfast time, so he looks into her eye slit and orders the classic omelette au fromage, a Croissant and a hot cup of Café au Lait. She leaves to submit his order, giving chef Ramsey time to look around and take in the rowdy ambience. There is shouting, cursing and clinking of tankards and swinging of swords. Chef backs against the wall in an attempt to keep his pristine chef's coat unblemished by flying debris and blood.

Just then, the burqa clad waitress returned and placed a gnarled and smoldering unidentifiable hunk in front of Ramsay. He takes a nibble and spits it back onto the plate. He grabbed what he thought was his Café au Lait to wash the awful taste from his mouth, but instead was warm goat's milk with specks of beard hair floating on top. "C'MON," he yells. 

Ramsay launches from his stump and storms toward the kitchen for an inspection to discover what could possible be happening at the back of the house. What he saw when he arrived stopped him cold. There must have been 30 or more muslim men of military age crowded shoulder-to-scintar in the small kitchen, shouting a mixture of unintelligible arabic & farsi. Ramsay looks at the ticket rail and an untold number of yet unfilled orders hanging there. "C'MON," he yells again. 

Just then, plates of 'food' begin sliding through the pass ON FIRE! "What the (beep) is going on!? What is this? French toast... french dip on french baguette and french fries smothered in french dressing!? ALL ON FIRE!?" "No quiche or even a crepe?," asks Ramsay. 

"Those no have the word 'french' in their name," answers a bearded wild-eyed cook in a thick persian accent.

"C'MON," Chef Ramsay yells for the last time. "GET OUT! ALL OF YOU!," he yells in his thickly accented King’s English. "I'd call the French Guard, but the entire army has already surrendered."

Known for his sharp knife skills, Ramsay unsheaths his 8-inch Wüsthof Classic Chef's Knife and points it at the unkempt horde. They exit post haste, with the occasional "Allahu Akbar!"

The Redecoration and Menu Overhaul segment of the show is accomplished with fire exstinguishers and a large padlock on the front door at night.

It's common sense that you can't have an Open Boar Door. 

SQUIRREL (AND BIGFOOT) UPDATE

 I had one squirrel visit the feeder yesterday, after having filled it with Cole's Hot Meats - made from "whole-kernel sunflower meats infused with food-grade liquid habanero chili peppers and safflower oil" meant to deter them. Every other time before when I would get a squirrel and I wasn't home to chase it away (after getting the SQUIRREL! alert on my phone) I had about 2 dozen 20 second videos of a closeup of the rodent's tail as it backed up into the camera and chowed down until it's cheeks were at max capacity. When I got home later, the seed would be gone.

So I was a little skeptical as to whether the Cole's seed would work as advertised.  I got the SQUIRREL! alert yesterday morning. I made my way to the back door to investigate, but the pest was already gone. I checked the phone app's "Event" tab, and I had just ONE 20 second max video - this time showing a confused and agitated squirrel on the feeder, eyes bulging as it smelled and sweated and danced around. I am convinced that squirrel's can communicate to each other, since I did not get even one more squirrel visit (and I know I had several different ones taking turns before). 

And the birds loved it. Stay tuned for further updates as this story develops... 

Bigfoot sighting at my Bird Feeder!(?)

 It's been a couple of weeks now since I installed the bird feeder with the spy camera, and so far I have been visited by Black-capped chicadees, Blue jays, Downey woodpeckers, finch, sparrows, Northern cardinals, Tufted titmouses (titmice?), and White-breasted nuthatches. I am still hoping to score an elusive Eastern bluebird. The built-in AI used to identify the species is only about 95% accurate, and I catch the mis-identifications. Yesterday, I had a shocking hit on the camera, as the AI alerted me to the presence of a Bigfoot! 

OK, after careful analysis, I realized the camera caught me at the feeder, as I was trying a new birdseed. Cole's Hot Meats is made from "whole-kernel sunflower meats infused with food-grade liquid habanero chili peppers and safflower oil," and is advertised as discouraging squirrels from eating this spicy fare. It states that birds don't have the receptors to "perceive capsaicin or chili heat," but the squirrels (and Bigfoot) "taste and feel the burn". We shall see. 

I didn't have any squirrels visiting after I filled the feeder around 5pm last evening, but that is not really when they swarm. Yesterday afternoon, we traveled an hour away to watch our 10-year-old grandchild (Charlotte) play in her travel softball game. The squirrels were like gypsies in the palace, as they blew up my phone alert to their presence. They had their fill, as they didn't seem to mind the screeching sounds emitted from the feeder that was meant as a deterrent. Either that, or they are deaf. The more I think about it, I don't think I would be deterred from consuming a plate of smash burgers - even with a screeching horn in my ear.  

I will update this blog as the story develops. I am concerned that the sunflowers infused with liquid habanero chili peppers will not deter the Bigfoot's return. My research indicates that, while Bigfoot do feel the burn, they seem to enjoy that spice with guac. on chips and chased by a couple of fish-bowl margarittas. 

Captain Phillips II - Some People Did Something

 THIS FALL...

From Chattering Teeth Studios 

a blogspot blog...

Captain Phillips II 

Captain Richard Phillips, now 71, comes out of retirement to protect America from Somali pirates once again.  In 2009, Somali pirates stormed his container ship looking for booty but ended up fish food at the movies conclusion. 

Now comes Ilhan Omar and her brother-husband and her band of family pirates intending to commandeer an empty container ship in order to fill it with Ilhan Omar's treasure that she has stolen from this country. Omar has to escape, as the jaws of justice are closing in on her con game!

Do you have Prince Albert in a can?

 Per this Fox News story, Las Vegas investigators say they've ID'd body found in Lake Mead barrel.

Welcome back, to the continuing adventures of Detective Pun, LVPD. The scene opens at dusk, a rusted metal barrel sits exposed from low water levels on the shore of Lake Mead. The glow of colorful neon from the Las Vegas strip alights the horizon like a macabre northern lights display for the homeless, hopeless and ill-repute.  Detective Jim Pun arrives, wearing his ill-fitting beige trench coat - hair unkempt, as his wandering good eye falls on Dr. Bones, the county coroner, who is already on the scene and singing a tune... 

"♫ Just a castaway, ♫ an island lost at sea, oh..."

Det. Pun: Hey doc, do you have Prince Albert in a can?

Dr. Bones: Let's not do this again...

Det. Pun: Well ya better let him out!

Dr. Bones: The vic. was shot twice in the back of the head sometime in the late 80's and stuffed in this barrel and dropped to the bottom of the lake where it washed ashore in 2022...

Det. Pun: You have me over a barrel, doc. Is he gonna make it?

Dr. Bones: He's dead, Jim.

Det. Pun: Well aren't you a barrel of laughs! From a cask to a casket, eh? I've been tapped to lead this investigation. I'm just gonna roll out the barrel. I don't think we are looking at a suicide. Here is my profile... We're in Vegas, so I suspect we are looking for a one-armed bandit - call him Charlie Tuna - who had just gotten canned at his soup factory, so he takes it out on our vic here like shooting so many ducks in a barrel. How am I doing?

Dr. Bones:How did you pass the police academy?

Det. Pun: Don't be so can-tankerous, doc. I'm on a roll. We need to keep a lid on this, eh doc? So I imagine you need to get this vic. on ice. Is your refridgerator running back at the distillery?

Dr. Bones: Please. I'm begging you...

Det. Pun: Well, you better go catch it! Nature calls, I gotta go to the can.

Fade scene - roll credits

In unrelated barrel news...

The Message in a bottle story reminded me of an old picture in my archives I've often wondered about. Pictured from left to right: my mother, me, brother Greg, brother Donz and my dad. My brother Rick and sister Cindy apparently had better sense than going over Niagara in a barrel. 

I am not sure what my parents were thinking, as this was a very dangerous stunt and there have only been a few documented successful attempts. Ours was successful I'm guessing, though I have no memory of it.  I know this was before the internet, but you'd think there would be some record of this feat.

Visitors to my Humbirdy feeder

 I've spent most of my life trying to ignore the birds around me. Now I am getting such a kick out of these visitors to my newly purchased feeder with the spycam. They are hilarious! There is certainly a hierarchy in the bird world - kind of like high school. The Tufted titmouse and the Black-capped chickadees (think debate clubbers) will defer to the Downy woodpecker (validictorian) but the Downys defer to the feeder-squatting House finch (think lunchroom bully). They all scatter for the Northern cardinal (prom king / queen) and the cardinal thinks he's big and bad until the Blue jay (football blu chip) checks in. Of course, the a-hole squirrel pisses in the punch bowl. There is one in every class.

OMAR & BROS SALVAGE RAID

 PICTURED: Federal agents executed a pre-dawn search warrant at the home of Representative Ilhan Omar. 

Happy In Dungeness Crab Peoples' Day

 I was exiting a Whole Foods Market empty-handed (the "W" on the sign was burned out, so it read "hole Foods", which I naturally assumed meant Donut Shop) when the store greeter - a long-haired freaky person wearing a nametage with "Skippy" on it - engaged me in a repartee...

SKIPPY: Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day.

BLADE: Deciduous Day? Like when trees lose their leaves? And people have to rake them up? It's about time we had a day for that.

SKIPPY: IN -DI- GE- NOUS! Indigenous Peoples' Day.

BLADE: Did you say, "Happy In Dungeness Peoples' Day"? Like the crabs? I loved Half-Life 2, that PC game with the parasitic alien crab creatures latch onto the human hosts to create zombies. Think CNN as the crab and the average anti-Trumper as the zombie. I must have played that game half a dozen times. Happy In Dungeness Peoples' Day to you!

SKIPPY: Crabs? No. I said INDIGENOUS. It means...

BLADE:  (interrupting) Don't tell me! I'll get it. Is it INGENUOS Day? I believe the definition means "naive or innocent". So it's naive day, where the ignorant liberal white women pretend Michigan senate candidate Abdul el-sayed is a sincere champion of catch phrases for dummies and not actually a trojan horse for jihadists and communists?

SKIPPY: It's INDIGENOUS Peoples' Day!

BLADE:  Let me check my calendar... I believe you meant to say, Happy Columbus Day! You know, "In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

SKIPPY: Nope. I meant to say "Indigenous"... You know, referring to the the native people who were here more than 20,000 years before Columbus arrived in 1492! 

BLADE: And yet, they didn't even have the wheel. I mean, the ocean goes both ways. Nothing was stopping these "native people" from building huge ships and sailing east and discovering Italy. And by "native people," do you mean the Indians? Also known as "Injuns?" That's it, right? Injun-eous peoples' day?

SKIPPY: I didn't say Injuneous! That term is a racial slur and used as a pejorative against the red skinned peoples. I said Indigenous! The first peoples!

BLADE: The first peoples were actually the crabheads. They were here before the Younger Dryas. That's science. Anyway, their time ended with the great flood. Eventually, the waters receeded and tribes of humans migrated over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska - completely bypassing the border wall I might add. These illegal alien tribes were very territorial and not very good neighbors, frequently engaging in warfare with each other long before the Europeans landed. Conquest was in their very nature. Might makes right. So had Columbus, or any Europeans not discovered this land mass, would the great plains of North America still be sparsely populated with violent spear-chucking hunter-gatherers like the Sentinelese people (google it) even today? I think, yes. Columbus was the tip of the spear for bringing civilization to a backward third-world people. 

SKIPPY: (hands shaking, as he takes a long drag from his marijuanna stick) That is NOT what my Berkeley professor told me! He said, the INDIGENOUS...

BLADE: (interrupts again) AH, I get it... You're saying INGENIOUS, which (according to Britannica) is an adjective that means very clever, original, inventive, or resourceful. What better way to describe Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who discovered America? Sorry I misunderstood originally... Yes, Columbus was Ingenious. And brave. Can you imagine sailing one-way across a vast ocean without knowing if there was even safe harbor on the other side, or if the water just cascaded over the edge of the flat Earth? So... Happy INGENIOUS Peoples' Day to you!

SKIPPY: (starts to cry) The white man was bad! The indigenous native peoples were a peaceful folk who wore loincloths and ornamental feathers while dancing around the campfire smoking peace pipes (sob)... until the white man came and did bad things or something...

BLADE: I think you're being disingenuos, which means lacking in true honesty, candor, or sincerity, often by pretending to know less about a situation than you actually do. Then again, maybe you're just high. Happy disingenuos indigenous day.

SKIPPY: AND I THINK YOU'RE A RACIST who hates the Native Americans because their skin is red! Why else could you be against honoring them with this special day!?

BLADE: Wrong again, Skippy. Just pick a different day. Heck, take the whole late Autumn... I love a good Indian summer. You are the low t self-hating white dude that hates white people, evidenced by your social media virtue signaling, parading in the racist BLM parades and tearing down statues of long dead founders and pioneers because they were white. Us christians love all people because we understand we were all created in His image. That's why we object to the attempted canceling of Columbus Day. So when I hear someone say, "Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day," I picture you with a crab on your head.

Now I need to see a man about a donut.

Pictured: In the game Half-Life 2, Dr. Kleiner made a pet of a headcrab and named it Lamarr.  Lamarr's sharp "teeth" or beak were removed so she cannot latch onto or control a human host. The same would happen with the crabs infesting The View.