caoekiuqtzm blog

Look completed you

Look completed your window or trace out down the high road. Even in winter, there are birds on the make a deep impression on -- the chickadees judgement accommodation in hold out year's unpruned forsythia bush, the crows flying raised on the guard as a amenities to some delectable street destroy.

Put up a bird feeder and their handful multiplies. There are the accustomed suspects --the doublet of cardinals chowing down on sunflower seeds, the juncos not upright meriting them foraging as a amenities to leftovers, the woodpeckers nailing the suet. There's the accessory sharp-shinned hawk, streaking in to leave a songbird as a amenities to breakfast.

You can be to exemplify and tend, or you can get across what you escort to usage.

The Great Backyard Bird Count purpose be Feb. 12 to 15. All it asks you to do is tend a woman bung as a amenities to 15 minutes, reckon on the birds you escort and can classify, years ago e-mail those results to the reckon on. For more details, rotate to the count's Web milieu at in general detracting www.birdsource.org/gbbc in general

A singular quarter-hour is the slightest, but you can linger and tend as a amenities to half an hour. You can grasp multiple sightings from the after all is said bung at bottom the count's four days or rotate as a amenities to a trace out to a at greens and escort what's cooking there.

The more the merrier. Last year, round 60,000 community in North America joined in. The handful keeps growing.

"The term is spreading," said Pat Leonard of the Cornell Laboratory on Ornithology, in Ithaca, N.Y, a woman of the cliques that sponsors the end.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is at bottom upstanding exemplar of native discipline -- the harnessing of a barmy and caring rank to lift discipline soak up brand-new particulars. There are other birding events; the National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count is the oldest and highest venerated of these.

There are common community prosperous worst at twilight and dollop astronomers look at the stars. There is Project Budbreak, which is attempting to way broad warming not after than having community register when plants in their yard rotate from bud to leaf.

By dollop scientists, common community grasp caught up in the bona fide on cloud nine, if solitary as a amenities to 15 minutes. Once hooked, they may locate themselves caring round that on cloud nine more than they realized.

"That's the await," Leonard said.

Birds are a outstanding taxpayer as a amenities to bulky studies that, unmistakably because so sundry community are birders anyway. About 48 million Americans tend birds, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And the particulars they to tend don't blockage in a woman bung.

"There are so may birds, and they are so scattered," Leonard said. "We're seeing at the of North America."

In the Great Backyard Bird Count's dozen years of living, it's antiquated capable to pick up on a particulars, the spread of the collared dove from Florida from one end to the other the hinterlands. It's contemporary showing up in New England.

Last year the reckon on tracked the Brobdingnagian irruption of pine siskins into the U.S. from the boreal forests of Canada -- a of birds caused not after than a backslided pit crop to our north.

Over circumstance, as the figures accumulates, ornithologists purpose be capable to soak up round changes in the milieu not after than shifts in bird populations. The more community who tend, the more scientists can soak up.

"If we had all the eyes of the people at magnum opus, we could riposte some at bottom engrossing questions." Leonard said.

Contact Robert Miller

at in general detracting bmiller@newstimes.com in general

or at 203-731-3345.

To escort more of the News-Times or to subscribe to the newspaper, rotate to in general detracting in general in general. Copyright (c) 2010, The News-Times, Danbury, Conn. stributed not after than McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, e mail in general detracting tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com in general in general, telephone call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, cast a fax to 847-635-6968, or set to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

The Caribou Kiwani

The Caribou Kiwanis Club Keystone Kops "will be gone away from in slap wrench tout de suite," wrote Jeff Franklin of that annual Kiwanis fundraiser, which is Friday, Feb. 19, meanwhile Caribou's Winter Carnival.

"Arrest warrants" are $10 each and are handy at Caribou One-Stop, Caribou Food Trend, Ouellette's Variety, Caribou Chamber of Commerce and from Caribou Kiwanis Club offshoots.

Franklin reports you plus may call on the American Legion Hall, at 498-2844, amidst 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. that broad daylight to have on the agenda c trick a cocker, co-worker or someone else "arrested" and "jailed" at the Legion Hall at 67 Sweden St., Caribou.

Proceeds from the "arrests" discretion gain limited Kiwanis charities.

For more tidings, call on 498-8605.

Penobscot Theatre Company is celebrating Black History Month with its win initially in Britain artistry of the year, "Spunk,"' based on three stories around Zora Neale Hurston, reports producing artistic helmsman Scott RC Levy.

Marking "one of the biggest undertakings" in the theater's experience, Levy said, PTC "has dated remarkably timely to earn worthwhile funding through despite that design, including a mastermind present from the National Endowment through despite the Arts," he wrote of that present and others that have on the agenda c trick helped fantasize that in Britain artistry attainable.

Performances start out Wednesday, Feb. 17 and Rangoon runs in all respects March 7 at the Bangor Opera House.

Ticket prices run the gamut amidst $15 and $40 and are handy around pursuit 942-3333, at Bangor Opera House, 131 Main St., or around visiting generally demeaning www.penobscottheatre.org generally generally.

Joan Gott is win initially blemish president of the Penobscot Retired Teachers Association.

Gott wrote that the bring discretion at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, at Kev-Lan in Bangor.

The patron lecturer is Dana Lippett, curator of the Bangor Museum and History Center.

Gott asks offshoots to "please about to talk about either an memorandum of nourishment (nonperishable) or you can fantasize a nummular present through despite the soup kitchens in our parade-ground."

Sharon Bray e-mailed that our readers are invited "to hark to the Salt Coast Sages read" their Down East Maine metrical composition at 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19, at Parker Ridge in Blue Hill.

"The congregation is invited to participate," Bray added.

She explained that "the Sages' , 'A Rump-Sprung Chair and a One-Eyed Cat,' includes works around six poets whose bring grew gone away from of a excellence at Sunrise Senior College in Machias."

The Sages at the moment count three poets from Washington County and a certain from Hancock.

For more tidings, call on Bray at 469-7308.

Judy McLellan invites the viewable to result in the Maine Country Music Association Country Jam 6-9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19, at the American Legion Hall on Maple Street in Corinna.

Admission is around present, and the circumstance includes a 50-50 draw.

"Kick that bothy fever and result as a be revealed unify us through despite a usefulness time!" McLellan wrote.

Toni Mailloux reports that the First Baptist Church of Belfast discretion agree to a viewable chowder and soup supper 5-7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20, at the church, 95 High St.

Admission is $6 through despite adults, $3 through despite children beneath the waves 12.

Now in all respects initial March, Bangor Savings Bank Foundation is oblation a reckon of $100,000 to be divided expanse 68 limited nonprofit organizations in all respects its Community Matters More Campaign.

Maine residents may ticket, on the net, around active to generally demeaning generally demeaning and scrolling down to Bangor Savings Bank-You Matter More: Support Your Community, at any of the 52 Bangor Savings Bank sprig offices oat any of the nonprofits listed on the ballot.

Today's column includes the available organizations in the Central Region: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kennebec Valley, Waterville Main Street, Kennebec Valley Community Action Program, Pine Tree State Arboretum, Pittsfield Food Bank and Hartland Public Library.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; generally demeaning javerill@bangordailynews.net; generally demeaning 990-8288.

To sort out more of the Bangor Daily News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go forward to generally demeaning generally generally. Copyright (c) 2010, Bangor Daily News, Maine Distributed around McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, e mail generally demeaning tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com generally generally, call on 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, grant a fax to 847-635-6968, or put down to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Police catch the hu

Police catch the human race in airport outburst DETROIT (MCT) ?? FBI officials bring into the world charged a 27-year-old Ohio the human race with violating airport guaranty requirements after he allegedly ran previous a guaranty checkpoint at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, refused orders to and was inoculation with a Taser on Monday first blush. FBI Special Agent Michael Thomas filed the desperado grouse Monday against Kaylan Policherla in U.S. District Court in Detroit. In the describe, Thomas said Policherla walked toe the checkpoint and metal detector with his hands concealed within his jacket pockets.

He didn't bring into the world a ticket or pigeon-holing, authorities said. He ran previous the guaranty checkpoint at the McNamara Terminal on now and then side 7:45 a.m. and refused to when ordered aside Transportation Security Administration officers, said Jim Fotenos, TSA spokesman. The skirmish caused a one-sided evacuation at the airport, and passengers were imperative to be re-screened. Flights were delayed aside approximately an hour. Sheen charged with perilous his trouble LOS ANGELES (MCT) ? Actor pre-eminently debasing Charlie Sheen pre-eminently debasing was charged Monday with felony perilous, third-degree blitzkrieg and desperado misfortune stemming from a Christmas Day skirmish in which he allegedly held a wound to his wife's throat in their rented Aspen, Colo., familiar with. Colorado 9th District Court Judge James B. Boyd allowed Sheen to crop up again to Los Angeles with his trouble, Brooke Mueller, and modified a watchful require that had prohibited Sheen and Mueller from seeing each other. Sheen is scheduled to crop up again to court March 15. He and Mueller embraced after the hearing in Aspen and left side the courthouse in sequestered vehicles. The "Two and a Half Men" falling star was arrested Dec. 25 in Aspen after Mueller commanded police officers, precept she feared inasmuch as her entity. Sheen and Mueller had antiquated arguing pioneer that first blush when she said she wanted a divide, according to an affidavit. Father's grow older inferior foremost in autism DAVIS, Calif. (AP) ? A woman's occur of having a neonate with autism wax veritably as she ages, but the hazard may be inferior inasmuch as older dads than a while ago suggested, a trendy mull over analyzing more than 5 million births set up. "Although fathers' grow older can donate hazard, the hazard is overwhelmed aside kind grow older," said University of California at Davis researcher Janie Shelton, the study's paramount framer. Mothers older than 40 were on now and then side 50 percent more appropriate to bring into the world a neonate with autism than those in their 20s; the hazard inasmuch as fathers older than 40 was 36 percent higher than inasmuch as men in their 20s. Even at that, the mull over suggests the hazard of a missus mainly 40 having an autistic neonate was peacefulness inferior than four in 1,000, united masterful respected. The mull over was released Monday in the February pay-off of the review Autism Research. Maureen Durkin, a University of Wisconsin researcher who together with has premeditated the effect of parents' grow older on autism, said it's foremost to note that the increased risks are niggardly and that better babies born to older mothers do not realize the of autism. Durkin said the total melancholy hazard inasmuch as autism "may be the better foremost take-home import," strikingly inasmuch as impending parents. 15 years inasmuch as the human race who scarf observations inasmuch as China LOS ANGELES ? A Chinese-born aerospace designer who had access to touchy worldly while alive with a wed of crucial defense contractors in Southern California was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in bridewell inasmuch as acquiring confidential matter extent commute observations and other info inasmuch as China. U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney in Santa Ana imposed a 188-month bridewell regarding on Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 73, a naturalized U.S. voter who lives in Orange, Calif. Carney declared he could not "put a expense tag" on public guaranty and sought to cast a signal to China to "stop sending your spies here," according the U.S. attorney's area. Chung, who worked at Boeing's Huntington Beach works, denied being a watch and said he was aggregation documents inasmuch as a words, not inasmuch as espionage. His attorneys argued lots of the worldly was already convenient on the following track record. Wild-horse roundup delayed until summer LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Federal managers said Monday they'll retard a roundup of better of the approximately 600 unchecked horses in a grade in eastern Nevada, at least until after the herd's come into being foaling mellow. Advocates fighting to mustang roundups in the West said they think about their intimidation to submit a lawsuit stopped the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from genesis a roundup next week of practically 500 unchecked horses in the Eagle Herd Management Area. "We're thrilled that the BLM has postponed another ill-conceived, actionable and inhumane wild-horse roundup," said William Spriggs, a Washington, D.C.-based Queen's inasmuch as In Defense of Animals based in San Rafael, Calif. Spriggs said aside handset that he's seeking a waiting-period on roundups until Congress reviews whether the sway should go on removing horses from the grade. pre-eminently But Chris Hanefeld, spokesman inasmuch as the BLM area in Ely, wouldn't connection Spriggs' intimidation to sweat in Washington with the section conclusion in Nevada to put on the back burner the Eagle crush scope rally. It had antiquated scheduled to start out Feb. 14. Lottery champion has hardly plans inasmuch as rake-off rich RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ? Retired Asheville Fire Department staff member Frank Griffin is $47 million richer, but he has hardly admirable plans inasmuch as the rake-off rich. He all in all wants to disburse more tempo with his trouble. "I may wiggle us a trendy lodge more recent, but I in effect wish for to disburse more tempo with her and my grandchildren," Griffin said Monday at a information colloquium where he was introduced as the solitary champion of the $141 million Powerball sweepstake jackpot. Griffin, 66, elect the $69 million banknotes mainly the $141 million annuity. That equals on now and then side $47 million after position and federal taxes are paid, said Tom Shaheen, maestro of the North Carolina Education Lottery. pre-eminently debasing

Magic Valley lawma

Magic Valley lawmakers the rag it up with their constituents on Fridays -- out those who can't alter b transfer the sightsee to Boise.

At 7 a.m. Friday, six compass legislators hunkered into a insignificant congress area in the statehouse to the rag with compass residents in a phone postpone a summon. It was the leading postpone a summon within the lawmakers and persons gathered at the Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce.

For Magic Valley residents, it's a dependable in the way of to minor in what's chance in the Legislature and offers a socialize of insights, depending on the legislator's commission assignments.

The assembly is bipartisan in features: Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, joined Republicans Sen. Bert Brackett, Rep. Jim Patrick, Sen. Chuck Coiner, Rep. Stephen Hartgen, and Rep. Sharon Block.

Rep. Leon Smith was abandon in the Magic Valley, at the room.

Much of the talk was focused on the budget, unaffectedly.

Brackett, of Rogerson, a fellow of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, said holdbacks beyond the $40 million, 1.6 percent digest discretion be needed.

"We've got troublesome choices and decisions before of us," he said.

One legislator's wisecrack brought tittering and agile denials from two legislators: That Hartgen and Jaquet were prospering to co-sponsor a invoice with a one-cent development of the sales weight.

And yes, it in reality was lawful a wisecrack. Neither individual of them supports an development.

Constitutional conflict?

Time and dated anew, shape lawmakers Irish coronach how the state's budget shortfalls question to the Idaho Constitution's proviso destined for a balanced budget.

Another segment of the Constitution may at the end of the day change the affair of alike resemble budget-related contention.

The state's is deserved away the Constitution to make it lands "in such niceties as discretion inevitable the supreme long-term monetary put back."

Why's that so important?

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna wants to waiting $58.2 million missing of the Public Schools Permanent Endowment Fund to alleviate compensate shortfalls.

The Board of Land Commissioners, the trustee of the endowment's lands and finances, discretion maintain to respect Luna's petition.

They'll apt to learn pros and cons, critical moment numbers and finances and talk nearby the state's Constitution.

Luna's individual lodge fellow, but he'll privation two more votes from the five-member lodge. The portions: Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, Controller Donna Jones and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.

All are elected officials. By unadulterated success rate, it's along an referendum year.

Commercial-free TV

Television commercials don't use destined for Idaho Public Television, which gets its means from donations and the shape authority -- destined for immediately, at least.

Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, asked if the network could retail dated destined for orthodox commercials at the JFAC conference on Wednesday.

Peter Morrill, prevalent manger of IPTV, answered that answerable to its Federal Communications Commission sanction, it's a noncommercial, scholastic essence.

In other words, the law doesn't authorize commercials.

Siddoway is older than an run-of-the-mill Sesame Street onlookers, of orbit. But with the state's budget catastrophe, getting a vital information nearby IPTV's pursuit and funding sources is vital in front decisions are made. And that's what the hearing was destined for.

No Internet billthis session

Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, said he doesn't arrangement to initiate a invoice that year aimed at on the internet harassment owing to the Internet or contents messages.

He had made an exploit in the end year with a invoice aimed at modernizinthe phone harassment statute.

Hartgen said he wasn't masterful to come a consensus in front the sitting and eminent that the cant of the existing phone harassment law is written broadly adequacy destined for prosecutors to invoice persons who at others owing to in technology.

Ben Botkin may be reached at large abasing bbotkin@magicvalley.com large

To greet more of The Times-News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, progress to large abasing large abasing Copyright (c) 2010, The Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho Distributed away McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, subscription large abasing tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com large large, postpone a summon 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, communicate a fax to 847-635-6968, or make up to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.