SoTier

When I hunted up my old Backyard Birding thread that I started in 2020 to add a new post, I got a message that I should probably start a new thread, so here is Backyard Birding II. I thought that my original post remains a good starting point for the thread, so I included it here. A great hobby to start during this pandemic is "backyard birding" which is learning to identify the birds in and around your house and/or neighborhood. It's a great way to get yourself, your kids, your parents and/or grandparents interested in nature and science. It's inexpensive. It's not complicated. You don't even need a yard ... a neighborhood park or a cemetery or even a grassy median (like on Bidwell Parkway in Buffalo) will work. A window overlooking your neighbor's yard might even work. To get started, you need a guide to birds. I like the Audubon Society's Field Guide to North American Birds which I have been using since the 1980s. It's pocket size, comes with a plastic like cover, and has photos, maps, and info about each bird in it. Field Guide to Birds. It's less than $16. If you have a yard, you can buy a bird bath and set it up in a sunny spot that you can see from one or more windows or from a deck or porch. Even a cheap plastic one will work fine. In addition to seeing more birds, you may actually save some by providing water in dry spells. Remember to clean your bird bath regularly as when the birds use it, it will get messy. You can bring more birds into your yard -- and see more birds -- using bird feeders of various types -- and cost. Especially in the spring, migrating birds are towards the end of their travels and need ready sources of food. I feed primarily black oil sunflower seed plus suet cakes but I also feed a fruit/nut mix and peanuts. Don't buy those bird feed mixes sold in grocery stores as they have cheap filler seeds that birds won't eat and scatter all over the ground. Tractor Supply has a nice selection of feeders and bird seed. If you want some guidance, try the Wild Birds Unlimited on McKinley near the mall in Blasdell. There's also a WBU in Amherst ... on Transit I think. I have my tubular sunflower feeders out year around but that's not possible if you live in bear country. Raccoons can also be problems, especially in the summers when young ones go exploring. Many people have luck attracting hummingbirds with feeders or by hanging gaudy fuchsia pots on their porches. I haven't, probably because as a gardener, my hummers go for the hostas, bee balm, and trumpet vines planted in the yard. I also plant sunflowers -- generally by cleaning up the seeds/hulls from around the feeder poles and depositing that in a sunny spot along my side fence -- which attracts clouds of goldfinches when the sunflowers ripen. The great thing about backyard birding is that it's something you can do for the entire rest of your life, even when you are very old and not very mobile. My late step-mother, who suffered from emphysema, loved sitting on her back porch watching the hummers coming to her fuchsia plants or sitting at her kitchen table watching the chickadees and cardinals coming to her seed feeders.

Sore losers always cry foul. A Bills-Lions Super Bowl would be one of the best storylines in this century and would draw plenty of viewers, probably more than KC-San Fran. If the NFL fixed the results why have teams like Dallas, Miami and the NY Jets been absent from the Super Bowl in the last three decades?

Diggs caught 7 passes on 9 targets for 52 yards against the Steelers, with at least 2 of those passes crucial for the Bills keeping drives going. Kincaid was targeted the second most: 3 passes from 6 targets for 59 yards and 1 TD.

Tua isn't elite because he simply doesn't have the intangibles like leadership, ability to improvise, will to win, etc that separate QBs like Allen or Mahomes from other top QBs. That doesn't mean he's trash, but he's just not up there with the very best. He's a very good QB who excels when he's in the right offensive system, and obviously McDaniel's system is perfect for making Tua look like a star during the regular season. Unfortunately, McDaniel's system also almost guarantees that the Fins are going fail in the playoffs. McDaniel's system is to build an offensive juggernaut that depends on getting up on opponents early and often to mask the limitations of the talent limitations of the rest of the team. To that end, most of Miami's talent has been put into the offensive skill players. When the Fins can't get a big, early lead on opponents, they struggle which makes McDaniel's system a recipe for failure in the playoffs, especially in the AFC which is loaded with teams with smart physical defenses along with good offenses that frequently feature elite/excellent QBs and strong running games. IMO, the Fins need to change their philosophy -- and likely the people who who instituted it -- before they jettison Tua.

OP, I got your sarcasm -- and the point you were trying to make -- in your initial post of this thread. You should have quit then and acknowledged what you were trying to do. Sarcasm and/or irony frequently doesn't work well in a written format since both depend upon verbal and/or visual cues in the delivery plus many people are simply very literal in their interpretation of the written word. Your choice to continue your sarcasm throughout this thread makes you seem ignorant and classless, which from numerous other posts of yours I've read, I know isn't so.

The Chargers find new ways to lose -- and invent new ones when they need them. I think it's part of their DNA. They've spent most of the 21st century disappointing their fans. They wasted Phillip Rivers' prime years as a pro QB with their incompetence. They appear ready to waste Justin Herbert's best years as well.

Holy crap! Pick six!!!! Go Pack!

Maybe. The Phins are going to face a some serious cap problems next season which is going to limit just how much they can actually improve the team. There is also the very real prospect that the Jests will be much more competitive next seasons with a functional offense under Rodgers.

I don't think defensive injuries were an excuse. The Fins' defense didn't lose that game for them. They forced the Chiefs to kick 4 FGs! The Fins' offense scored only 1 TD. After Hill caught his TD pass, he never made another big play thanks to the Chiefs' DB -- McDuffie, I think. I think Waddle had one chunk pass play, and Wilson had another one. The Fins' run game was ineffective. The Fins didn't convert a third down until late into the third quarter, or maybe even into the fourth quarter. The Fins offense has disappeared in the second half against the Cowboys, the Ravens, the Bills twice, and the Chiefs yesterday.

I think it's less cyclical than a reflection of societal changes. In the 1970s, malls replaced the big downtown department stores that had dominated the retail landscape since the 1880s as well as the shopping plazas that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. Now, malls are dying off and being replaced by "life style centers" (housing/retail/dining), large shopping centers (much like old style plazas), and on-line shopping.

I agree. IMO, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who killed 168 people, got off too easy. He was executed in June, 2001, just six years after the bombing. The victims' families and the survivors have lived with the horrors of McVeigh's act for almost 30 years.

I enjoyed the game. Watching the Fish get their collective butts kicked was certainly worth $5.99.

It's not the open air stadiums or bad weather that bother the Fish. It's teams with smart, tough, physical defenses that derail their offense. If they can't pass successfully, their running game becomes pretty ordinary. The Fish depend upon getting a lead early with their passing and building on it before their opponents figure things out. When they can't do that, they struggle. All of their losses this season came at the hands of teams that have tough physical defenses with smart DCs, including Tennessee which had a losing record. If the game had been in Miami, the result would have been the same.

Yawn. The refs missed a call. The league officials also missed it. Manure happens. Unless/until the NFL adopts the some kind of line monitoring system like pro tennis has, there are always going to be missed out of bounds calls.

Life is hard all over, but she's doing herself no favors with her shallow complaints. She's whining about annoyances not problems. Her husband's success has largely insulated her from the worse problems the spouses of pro athletes face, so suggesting she would face the same issues as the wife of a marginal NFL player is just bad taste. She may have some very real problems, but if she has them, she's not describing them in this article, which is fine because they may very well be personal ones that aren't anybody else's business. She just set herself up for criticism. Maybe it's the whole point of social media ... just to out there so people "talk" about you. It's like the old show business adage, "there's no such thing as bad publicity" updated for the 21st century.

That's a real possibility. Those two teams play physical on both sides of the ball, and they don't like each (division rivals), so they're both going to go all out to win this game. The winner may very well come out of this game physically hurting and mentally exhausted.

The Bills can't play Miami again unless Miami not only beats KC but also Baltimore, two teams that have already beaten them. If they get past the Chiefs, the Fish are not beating the Ravens because Miami not only has trouble beating good teams, they can't win against physical defenses, and the Ravens are notoriously physical. All their losses this year have been to teams with strong, physical defenses: the Bills twice, the Chiefs, the Eagles, the Titans, and the Ravens. The Browns have a chance to beat the Ravens, which would give the Bills home field advantage if the Bills take care of their business. The Fish don't.

Fixed that for you. 😁 I think that until the late third quarter -- or maybe even early in the fourth quarter -- the Fins only managed 1 first down in the second half. Especially when your team has been the division leader since September and was 3 games ahead of the Bills with 5 games left in the regular season. Totally agree. Winning in the playoffs usually depends upon a stout defense and a decent running game when all the opponents are good and playing conditions are frequently poor.

The Browns do NOT suck. They have an awesome defense and a great running game despite losing their best RB (Chubb) early in the season. They won games with a couple of other backup QBs before they signed Flacco, who has found the fountain of youth at age 39. Joe Flacco needs to play two more great/good games for them -- against Houston and against Baltimore -- to set up a Bills/Browns AFCCC game in HIghmark. I'm ready for that.

The Fish getting squished is always a good thing. Go, Chiefs!

Great defenses and great OLs travel better than great passing games, and that's especially true in the playoffs. It's no accident that the Browns continued to thrive despite losing their starting QB and their world-class RB because their defense and their offensive line are among the best in the NFL.

Yes, it was. I remember the pictures of the firetrucks and the firefighting equipment encased in ice.

And Chip Kelly proved once again that listening to the fans is such a smart move. // sarcasm off Revisionist history. McDermott didn't have much choice. Allen was definitely not ready to start an NFL game at the start of his rookie season. He wasn't ready to play QB in the NFL when he first replaced Peterman as a rookie. He didn't know what he was doing. After he was injured and forced to sit for a few games, he came back and played much better, but not particularly great. His leadership and running ability were his biggest assets. As somebody else posted, Allen didn't emerge as a quality NFL QB wasn't until part way through his third season (2020). More revisionist history. The Philly FO (Lurie and Roseman) fired Andy Reid and hired Chip Kelly because Reid went 4-12 in 2012 after going 8-8 in 2011 and making the playoffs in 2008-2010. They canned Kelly with one game remaining in his third season after the Eagles went 6-9 as HC.

Tonight, December 27, at 8:20 pm, the Buffalo Fire Department will mark the 40th anniversary of the death of five firemen in a massive propane explosion in a warehouse at North Division and Grosvenor Streets which was just east of downtown and just north of what is today Larkinville. At the time I lived in the Grant-Amherst neighborhood about 7 miles from downtown. The explosion shook my house. Two civilians, Al Arnold and his mom, Jessie, were also killed in the massive explosion. Al was a friend and classmate when we were at Buffalo State in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so this sad anniversary always hits me hard. Buffalo Propane Explosion

This isn't the same old Ravens. They got a new DC last season. It didn't seem to work out great because Lamar was injured a lot last season. The Ravens sent OC Greg Roman packing for this season and brought in Maunken (sp?) as OC and upgraded their WRs to improve the passing game. Lamar is no longer a running QB who can throw but a real good passing QB who can also run really well, much like Josh Allen.