Laundry soldiers

Company of dryers, 'ten hut!

Look out, Long Island turkeys!

They're after you!

Brant

Setauket Harbor 2:30 this afternoon. Between 40 and 50 Brant all over the harbor. Skittish and wild. Quickly swam over to the other side when I approached the shore. Wish I had a telephoto lens. Never saw Brant here before. Click on picture to enlarge.

Change

I have made a change on this blog and on the other one, Stony Brook Daily Photo, in who is allowed to post comments. No longer is it limited to users with Google accounts. "Anyone" may now post a comment, including "Anonymous".

Naturally I want to keep some control--will the sky fall in?--so I am now moderating comments that come in and will post those that are acceptable.

Ta-dah! Welcome World!

This blog's title

A friend asked recently about the title of this blog. Why "Winged Words? Well, it is a sort of pun combining two lifelong interests of mine, BIRDS and THE CLASSICS.

Birds/winged. That's obvious. My first post in Feb 2008 was prompted by a sighting of the rare (on Long Island) Pink-footed Goose.

But Classics?

The phrase ἔπεα πτερόεντα (epea pteroenta) is used 124 times in the works of Homer. Some scholars think it was just metrical filler, others that it indicated intensity of speech, others speech that is rapid, sharp, or rough. My guess: high-pitched speech in a singing tone for important utterances. Nobody really knows what it meant. Isn't it nice to have some mystery in things?

In this blog I post about birds or classical subjects or any ole thing that happens to strike my fancy. There.

Article on Winged Words

Another article, rather challenging

Hot Spot

Here's that dang cat of Simon's again.

And Simon's sister's dog, Fed Up

And now there's a book out of Simon's Cat cartoons.

Forty year old legs

I couldn't resist copying today's delightful Google doodle, since it won't be there tomorrow. It celebrates the 40th birthday of Sesame Street, the children's TV program that teaches important things like letters and numbers. In today's library orientation class I asked the students (mostly 18-year olds) offhand how many of them had watched Sesame Street when they were young. Almost every hand went up. Long live Big Bird!