Equal Rites

By: Terry Pratchett

Grade: A

A dying wizard passes along his magic staff to the chosen eighth son of an eighth son. Only whoops- someone really should have checked on that first cause the son number eight happens to be a daughter and well, girls can’t become wizards!

Which after reading about the (not so) braintrusts of the wizarding world in the first two books you’d think gender shouldn’t be an issue.

The Witches of New York

By: Ami McKay

Grade: B-/C+

Beatrice Dunn arrives in New York for the first time and immediately begins seeing ghosts and experiencing strange happenings. Luckily she gets a job at a tea shop run by Eleanor St. Clair and Adelaide Thom, who are more than capable of helping Beatrice, if they can get past their own problems, the accusations of witchcraft, and the strange things happening in New York.

The Price Guide to the Occult

By: Leslye Walton

Grade: A

Okay, this is definitely more witchy. Nor Blackburn lives with her grandmother on Anathema Island in the Pacific Northwest. Family roots on the island run deep and her great (many times) grandmother was the first witch on the island. When the locals burned down her home- she cursed the place.

Yet grandma Rona is actually pretty sweet compared to our main protagonist Nor’s mother Fern.

A Discovery of Witches

Powerful witches, libraries, ancient books, Matthew Goode, non sparkling vampires… some of my favorite things right there.

I read A Discovery of Witches ages ago and but enjoyed it enough to want to watch the show. The sequel as well though I don’t think I ever finished the series.

Number of pages: 496

Number of times read (including the time before this review): 1

Rating (out of five stars): 4.75

Release Date: February 12^th, 2019

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy in exchange for a review. My opinions are honest and my own.

I wished for this one on Netgalley because I had been hearing good things about it. I didn’t really know what to expect from it. As the same thing happened with Sky in the Deep, maybe this is new strategy that’s working for me. Maybe I need to go into more books just having heard good things. There was also the added bonus here of the author being Canadian *aggressively sings O Canada*, so I’m glad I liked it as much as I did because now I can pre-order a physical copy for my shelf.

This book is…

Now you have!

The hummingbirds are now landing on my hand when I change the feeder. I have ordered a hand-held feeder, but have yet to determine how I will feed them and take pics at the same time! They tend to look at me quite directly as you can see in this and the next post’s photos!

Hummingbirds are one of the most aggressive bird species. They will attack jays, ravens and even some hawks. They climb to great heights and dive bomb each other at up to 60 mph!

The hummingbird above right is flying backwards away from another bird. Hummers are the only birds that can fly backwards. They can also fly upside down!

I have purchased a second hanging feeder to lessen the competition between the birds. I have heard and seen the impacts, but so far no bird has been injured, and they even co-operate…

The Holler Red Tails are being besieged by the Ravens. As soon as they take flight they are surrounded by flocks of harassing ravens. (Please click photos to enlarge).

They are usually outnumbered at least twenty to one, and you can see the missing flight feathers from their aerial battles. The raven population seems bloated and out of control. I’ve seen this so many places where I travel.

They fight continuously. The hawks hold their own for the most part, despite the disparity in numbers. I wonder how they get time to hunt though, since so much of their time is spent fending off attacks from the ravens.

The ravens are relentless.

Here is an actual attack shot into the sun so it’s not a good photo, but you can see the hawk reeling from the raven’s slam and you can see the raven screaming!

The hawks strategy seems to…

(You really need to click to enlarge these photos to see these beauties close up!) I’ve been busy the last few days taking pics of hawks.

I got to be up close and personal with Harris and Red Tail Hawks, hold, fly them, and photograph them.

In other words, I was in heaven!

Check out the pics of the red tail. Beautiful isn’t he! Next post I’ll introduce you to the Harris Hawks and show you them flying and hunting in tandem. Amazing!

I took these pics at West Coast Falconery which is run by Kirk Selinger a licensed falconer and his apprentice Denise Disharoon. Kirk is a former National Geographic videographer, who now spends his time raising hawks, owls and vultures. He lives in a place just about as remote as The Holler, and we drove down a rutted dirt road to spend some time with him and his…

Meet the Harris Hawks! Click to enlarge. Please stay tuned to my next post (pt. III and maybe IV) to watch all the hawks in flight, what a sight!

Here’s a sneak preview of them launching off! It was amazing to call them back to glove!

We flew two Harris Hawks who usually hunt cooperatively in groups of 2-6, enabling them to catch larger prey like jack-rabbits.

Harris Hawks are native to the southwestern United States, Chile and Argentina. The silver device you see on the hawks leg is a telemetric tracker in case the hawk were to get lost while flying.

They are a highly social bird and are frequently trained by falconers.

These hawks are working hawks who chase seagulls away from posh beachfront hotels in San Diego. Their presence alone is enough to scare the seagulls away.

We flew them, watched them search, and called them back…