Hello, Geezer coming back to this forum. Paul B

[Paul B]

This morning was one of my best beach walks in the 7 years I have been living here. I can't believe I never see anyone at that time watching the sunrise. You can't do it at 2:00 PM.

I get that many people have to work, I also did that for over 50 years but the retired people should really get out and see this at least once when the sea is angry.

There is a big storm off the east coast now and it is bringing in a lot of flotsam and jetson which is garbage and stuff that washes off boats. I am on the North Shore but the south shore is getting hit very hard.

I think this is a paddle boat under the sand

 

[Paul B]

After the big storm yesterday, the beach was loaded with all kinds of seaweeds. I found this huge piece of Codium and it had a holdfast. That is important because normally I find it just floating and it is hard to glue to anything because the glue kills that area and the stuff floats around.

I didn't have anything to put it in so I placed it in a hole in this thing which I have no idea what it is but probably an alien artifact.

It will probably wash away by tomorrow but I was 2 miles from home and I didn't want it to dry out by the time I got home.

Luckily, at the stairs I take back I found another, smaller one with a holdfast so I dipped that one in the surf and brought it home and threw it in my tank. I will take a picture when the lights come on.

 

[Paul B]

Does anyone know what this "Chicken" looking thing is? I know there are some farmers here.

Yesterday afternoon we went to a Pizza party behind a farm stand where this Italian "girl" maybe 40ish who is a chef invited us for brick oven, wood fired pizza. They had a couple of singers and maybe 50 people showed up. It was a nice time but there were peacocks, goats and this bird walking around.

What is it? Maybe a grouse, but I have no idea what a grouse is unless it has fins and gills.

 

[wvned]

Guinea fowl (/ˈɡɪnifaʊl/) (or guineahen) are birds of the family Numididae in the order Galliformes. They are endemic to Africa and rank among the oldest of the gallinaceous birds. Phylogenetically, they branched off from the core Galliformes after the Cracidae (chachalacas, guans, and curassows) and before the Odontophoridae (New World quail). An Eocene fossil lineage Telecrex has been associated with guinea fowl; Telecrex inhabited Mongolia, and may have given rise to the oldest of the true phasianids, such as blood pheasants and eared pheasants, which evolved into high-altitude, montane-adapted species with the rise of the Tibetan Plateau. While modern guinea fowl species are endemic to Africa, the helmeted guinea fowl has been introducedas a domesticated bird widely elsewhere

Here they are just called guineas.

 

[kfisc]

I love guinea fowl! Farmers (my uncle in Illinois, anyway) kept flocks of them around for bug control and as watch dogs. We had one hanging around our house here over one summer after it outran a bobcat and it was a hoot. They eat ticks and man! Are they loud. We nicknamed it Maria Callas.

 

[Paul B]

Thank you. That is good to know, not that I will ever see another one. They must be good swimmers to get here from Africa.

 

[wvned]

Most places that have chickens running loose have some guineas. They are the watch dogs of the flock.