Shake it off, buddy!

I decided to take a drive to some of the other local AOG venues to see how the various other competitors were getting on.  As we get closer to the Opening Ceremonies, nerves are running high and tempers are flaring.  

As I watched two Fish Crows practicing their fish-call song, I could see the nerves building.  With a little encouragement, this member of Team Fish Crow shook off the nerves and got back to business, performing and excellent nasal version of the Fish Call.  They are hoping to represent New Jersey in the opening ceremonies...we'll have to see about that.

In other AOG news, Team Goldfinch showed up with 10 of their best athletes today. They headed to the cafeteria to grab some breakfast and before you could say "yellow" a fight had broken out.  You can see one of them talking smack to his team mates in Extra.  Then, once they'd settled down, they headed to the arena to practice their gymnastics routine ... which went rather poorly and left Goldie hanging upside down (see Extra).   Very embarrassing for the whole team.  

It's been thrilling to read reports from around the world about the AOG athletes preparing for the Games.  Remember to tag your pre-AOG reports with #2018AOG so we can all find them.  

Some mundane facts about Fish Crows...they look virtually identical to the common American Crow and can best be distinquished by their distinctive nasal call.  The ranges of the two species overlap in much of the eastern United States, so recognizing their vocalizations can be a big help.  Also, in my experience, they are much less skittish of humans than the American Crows.  This image is only very slightly cropped and taken with a 300 mm lens on a full frame body ... gives you an idea how close he/she was to me.

And in 48 hours, weather willing, we'll be warming ourselves in Florida!

xo
Debbi

And for those of you who watched the Super Bowl last night - wow, what a game!!  Definitely one of the better Super Bowls I've ever seen - a nail-biter right to the finish.