Yesterday, there was a brief break from more urgent tasks (just kidding – I wanted to take a break and do something fun), so started checking my latest video clips for something interesting to post.
My original target was a set of ants in flower(s) clips, but before those were three hummingbird clips taken 2026, October 15th, that might make something viewable. Poststabilized, trimmed, cropped and with fade through black transitions.
Hummingbird feeding in red flowers
It was a sunny day, and I had been neglecting my flower walks, when I saw a hummingbird that was intent on feeding from red flowers. A couple of times she flew aside when pedestrians walked past, but returned to feed nearly instantly after they had passed. She must have been hungry.
And she was most likely she because of her muted colors – male hummingbirds have brilliant, iridescent coloration, females are better camouflaged. Although spotting a bright green, leaf-shaped male hummingbird singing in a tree can be very challenging, and often I just walk away knowing that he was there but I could not see the bird from the leaves.
An ant in a flower. Some of the ant clips taken were not very happening ones, the ant kept on feeding(?), not walking much.
Hummingbirds were very active about a month ago, and they are still conspicuously around.
I spotted this individual September 3rd, 2026 and got a couple of clips of it singing, edited here for a different view of a hummingbird.
There are many videos of a bright hummingbird hovering around flowers. This video is about a small dark bird sitting on a tree branch like a dry leaf, except for bopping while singing its shrill song (barely audible in this recording), before departing in the end.
Enjoy! (There was no lightning, it is just a strange illusion caused by poorly chosen transition between the two segments. It also sounds like there is one or few coughs / throat clearings / unspecified sounds mixed with the birdsong, my apologies.)
Hummingbird singing on a tree.
Tomorrow, September 22nd, is the 2026 Autumn Equinox. After that the days will be shorter than nights until Spring Equinox 2027.
That’s what the debt clock is now, 2026 August 20th claiming. According to the Department of Treasury Debt to the Penny, the 40 trillion threshold was crossed on August 18th. I was expecting the limit to be broken in the autumn, but then, also the honking geese have flying south over northern California since July, which to me seems a bit early. I’m not a goose expert, maybe they are supposed to start migrating in summer, or maybe they are reacting to some environmental change. The pastures have withered under the drought and geese eat grass so maybe they are trying to find food. Or maybe the winter is coming early. The the geese are going south already in the summer, and so are US finances.
If the interest rates on US treasuries rise too much, we cannot sell enough paper to pay the interest on existing paper and USA will become insolvent. I’m sure the US government will invent new, outrageous ways to cook the books for some while still, but USA is not Japan, and even Japan is faltering as eventually what is unsustainable will not be sustained.
Flower(s), I don’t know what species, 2026 August 18th
2026, August 07, small birds in a bush. The video is a bit dark but at least the closest bird seems like a chickadee and I assume the others are the same (though other tit birds have been known to mingle with other species when feeding.) I kept the sound for bird song, though I cut the clip short when the traffic noises got loud.
I don’t have very much topical or important to post as of this morning today, so how about a couple of clips of small woodpecker(s)?
(For those who are interested, here is a link to a selection of topical verses but for TLDR, Pentecost commemorates the event when the Church got upleveled.)
However, a few days earlier (May 22nd), I was walking around looking for pretty plants to photograph, when I heard a racket from the trees, sounded like multiple small birds. I searched for a while and discovered the source of the sound – holes high up in the tree where a small woodpecker was fussing about. A nest of woodpecker chicks plus a parent. Somewhere further away a woodpecker was drumming, as noted by a passerby while I was trying to video.
After some cutting and editing last night, here are the highlights:
This video is silent, commentary removed.
And here is some birdsong. And drumming.
Other than that, I have been selecting and editing photos for POD and tinkering with my writing.
I wonder if I should some day post some of my fiction in this blog? On one hand I am tempted, on the other hand, I am still shy. It took me a long time to start even a blog.
A selection of clips showing types of views of different types of trees taken February 21st, 2026, in Berkeley, CA, silent and stabilized post filming (with the known artefacts).
The spring is bursting fully. On 22nd, it was tee shirt weather and small birds were very active and singing. Heard a hummingbird, saw and heard many small titmouse and sparrow sized birds, even a very small woodpecker, and a hawk and later a pair of probable hawks. And a seagull, which is sort of normal for a seaside city. I think the small birds have a mating season.
Crows, too, seem restless, but that might be them ending their winter. Back in Finland, the local crows (gray and black, not all black as in Berkeley) would form larger flocks and many migrated south during winter. The crows here seem to have some winter flocking behavior, even though they do not migrate.
The bird activity coincides with the swelling of buds and opening of young leaves in many deciduous trees. The earliest fruit trees which began to bloom weeks ago are finishing their season, as are faster magnolias. It is stressing to think of all the seasonal blooming which I am missing instead of photographing it. But there are new trees coming to bloom, though one magnolia that was among the first to start in my neighborhood is still going strong. Weird to think that spring began in February.
Dappled shadows on tree trunk, blooming fruit tree, redwood with creeping ivy.
Magnolia, February 21st, 2026 (not the one I have been following in my neighborhood)
Click the image above to open a free 48-piece jigsaw puzzle made in Jigsaw Explorer
World is changing too fast nowadays. Events that used to be the news of the month are supplanted by greater events or outrages daily. But a story from Zerohedge alerted me to a local event reported by New York Post, namely a crime in Oakland.
Somebody had stolen the SUV of the mayor of Oakland, former Congress Representative Barbara Lee. The vehicle was recovered hours later from Vallejo, which is a smallish city in Solano County, in North Bay. The mayor said in her statement that “no one in Oakland should have to worry about their car being stolen”, a sentiment which I rather agree, but still the people worry and for good reason. While my car is dented and has a stick shift, there are places in Oakland where I would not park because of bippers.
The presence of bippers is easy to detect by checking the sidewalks and gutters next to parking spots – if they are covered with glass grains from broken side windows, it means a bipper was there since the last street sweeping (which in Oakland happens often enough that the city does not stink like San Francisco used to.) If there are multiple spots with glass gravel indicating multiple cars having been hit, I’d find another street or block to park if possible.
But back to Oakland mayor’s SUV, which was recovered, improving the property crime solving numbers. It is easy for a regular citizen to complain about preferential treatment, but apparently this SUV had a tracer which made it easier to track.
What really piqued my interest was the backstory and the circumstances of the theft. The car thief had spent the Presidents Day weekend squatting in the 11th floor of the City Hall, unnoticed by the security firm hired to guard the city government buildings, and had jimmied the lock of the door to mayor’s office, swiping the keys from there. The security firm has connection with the previous mayor Sheng Thao, to whom the aforementioned SUV had been bought. The SUV had been broken into already during her term in a garage near city hall, and other city hall workers have also complained about the lack of safety for their vehicles. But a suspect in at least this car theft has been arrested, this incident being too much for even California.
And to make this post a bit prettier, I added a GIF of magnolia flowers and a bird, and a video of a couple of clips I took on February 21st of clouds and tree branches in wind, but unlike in most of my videos, I kept the sound because it was mostly birdsong.
The tree writhes strangely, the video stabilization after imaging sometimes causes weird effects.
And here is the birdsong. The clouds are also twisting strangely, but this does not indicate a dimensional portal about to open, just another stabilization artefact.
I also saw a flight of geese (based on honks and flight pattern) going north-north west, but they had disappeared by the time I had adjusted my device for photography. Weird.
The night after that, it was really windy. There was a tree branch on the sidewalk, when I was getting to my car. The morning wind came from north, soon after it turned and arrived from east. There were a few more geese, seemed to be going sort of westward (towards the Bay). The direction does not matter, I was surprised to see any, going any direction.
Pink magnolias are beginning to bloom, Dec 26th or Boxing Day in Berkeley, CA. The weather was variable, in the afternoon it began to rain again.
I also saw a bold humming bird. It initially shied away, but when it saw that I was not attacking, it returned to feed close enough to video. It must have been hungry. Once it flew away, I continued on my way.
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