@Lookout

I'm glad you still have so many birds around to enjoy.

We are 9 1/2 hours into 2019. Enjoy yourselves however you celebrate the new year.

Our spectacular birds are not around now that winter has started, but there's something to be said for the loyalty of our resident titmouse, chickadee, nuthatch, wren, as well as the finches who have put away their colorful feathers, the mourning dove, and all our woodpeckers. Oops almost forgot to mention the hawks.

This little pine warbler hit the window and was revived, despite our cat's displeasure.

...and a hawk is on garden patrol

Love our feathered friends and their varied roles in the ecosystem. Have a lovely day and a great next year. Is it already 2019 there in NZ?

@WaterLily

Glad you're here with the other birds ; ). All the best in the new year.

[comment:body]

@magiamma

More peace and respect sure would be nice. All the best.

Peace

@NCTim

Wishing you a tuneful and promising new year.

@dystopian

Thanks for adding other interesting characteristics of the Tui. I was so surprised when we first camped on the Coromandel, about 70 miles away from home (as the Crow flies) and their calls were all slightly different, but still clearly Tui sounds. It was fascinating to me that their calls and songs were arranged in harmony with the different sounds around them.

Happy New Year to all. Janis, thanks for the post. What a great wonderful bird your Tui is. I would equate it remotely (of course not related) to our blackbirds and grackles. Very interesting about their noisy flight (and notched primary that causes the sound). And a huge bird for the honeycreeper family at a foot long. I do some bird song recording so the call aspects are really amazing to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tui_(bird)

Songs and calls
Tui have complex variety of songs and calls, much like parrots.[12] They also resemble parrots in their ability to clearly imitate human speech,[13] and were trained by Māori to replicate complex speech.[14] Tui are also known for their noisy, unusual call, different for each individual, that combine bellbird-like notes with clicks, cackles, timber-like creaks and groans, and wheezing sounds. Songbirds have two voice boxes (syrinxes) [15] and this is what enables them to perform such a myriad of vocalisations. Tui song also exhibits geographical, microgeographic, seasonal, sex and individual variation.[16][17][18][19][20]

Some of the wide range of tui sounds are beyond the human register. Watching a tui sing, one can observe gaps in the sound when the beak is agape and throat tufts throbbing. However, ongoing research has so far failed to detect ultrasound within tui vocalisations. Tui will also sing at night, especially around the full moon period.[21]

@Raggedy Ann

Wishing you and yours all the best.

I’ve been enjoying the birds this morning. I’ve had quail, mountain juncos, house finches, dove, sparrows, a thrasher, and one ladder-back woodpecker.

A peaceful new year to you and yours!

@smiley7

It's good to keep the dreams alive.

@Unabashed Liberal

Your love is always uplifting. I miss my dad too.

memory--born this day in 1905--wanted to post this uplifting song by one of my fav artists, John Robert "Joe" Cocker, whose passed away four years ago this month.

[Night of theProms Antwerpen 1992: Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warmes: Up where we belong.]

[Lyrics Credit: Up Where We Belong, LyricsMode.Com]

Who knows what tomorrow brings
In a world, few hearts survive
All I know, is the way I feel
When it’s real, I keep my pray alive

The road is long
There are mountains in our way
But we climb steps every day

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry, on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know
Up where the clear winds blow

Some hang on to “used-to-be”
Live their lives locking behind
All we have is here and now
All our lives, out there to find

The road is long
There are mountains in our way
But we climb steps every day

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry, on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know
Up where the clear winds blow

Time goes by
No time to cry
Life’s you and I, alive, baby

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry, on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know
Up where the clear winds blow

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry, on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know
Up where the clear winds blow

Thanks for posting this thread, Janis. Hope you and yours have a very lovely day, tomorrow.

[Edited: Added name, Joe.]

Blue Onyx

"Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust.

They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made."

@Daenerys

The birds here are a constant source of enjoyment.

Wishing you and your loved ones a promising new year.

Thank you for sharing one of your favorites. I have all the usual ones here in my yard today, but my red-breasted nuthatch seems to have moved on a while ago. I hope to see more new ones in 2019, especially more owls. Well here's hoping anyway.

Cheers and Happy New Year C99ers!

@lotlizard

For as long as I've known that expression I've loved it - slipping and sliding into the new year

You've prompted me to dust off the I Ching, thanks lotlizard.

[video:https://youtu.be/ZNt5FnMK2sM]

Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr !

“Tui” immediately made me think of the I Ching and hexagram 58, The Joyous.

And then, free-associating, the Joyous Lake in Woodstock, New York. When I lived in the area, I thought of it as a restaurant. Clueless me, eh? It turns out to have been actually much more well-known as a historic live-music venue or club where some big names were wont to play.