More pictures to share from the Aerie

So, yesterday I was shooting pictures like crazy off the back deck as I tried to get used to the new camera. Some of them were terrible as the subjects (birds, chipmunks, squirrels and bunnies twitched or fluttered at the wrong moment. Others I could crop and otherwise alter to make semi-decent photos.

And what’s the point of taking photos if you’re not going to show them to anyone!

After a hiatus of several weeks, the gray squirrels have started to reappear at the feeders. During the last week, only one has been a regular visitor and it has plenty of brown highlights. (A second, grayer, squirrel was here with this one this morning.)



With all the tall weeds (bergamont, goldenrod, multiflora rose, etc.) around the edge of the lawn area and with all the clover in the lawn we have our share of Eastern Cottontails. This young fella showed up the beginning of the week. He’s really tiny compared to the adults. This is likely his first full week away from his momma.



Chipping Sparrows are among the smallest of the sparrow world. And among the noisiest. Usually they will feed on the ground or on the platform feeders and leave the perches on the other feeders for the larger birds. This one just couldn’t wait for someone to knock seed to the ground.
 


Over on the tray feeder we had a female Purple Finch.



And over in the “garden” atop one of the poles supporting the Climatis we had this little guy:



When a flycatcher keeps its mouth shut, it can be difficult to ID correctly. With no eye ring visible, no tail flick as it sat there, no shading of pale yellow or rouge of brown along the flanks and no crest atop its head, and based upon its small size, I’m calling this one an Eastern Wood-Peewee. (Although, with the light breast and returning to the same perch after catching a fly, it could be an Alder Flycatcher.)

(Flycatchers and sparrows are the bane of my existence! Oh and some of the small shorebirds. The devil is in the details.)

Embroidery by Terry

So, while I was out hauling a ton of flat stones out of the woods, Terry was baking zucchini bread and sittin’ and stitchin’. Here’s the piece she was working on:



It’s an embroidery piece of Cinderella seeking comfort from her friend the cat. (Of course bribery in the form of a saucer of milk is involved. Come on! It’s a cat!)

Everything you see against the white background is stitched on the fabric. None of it is printed there. Terry said the hair was the most difficult part to do.
 


I’ll take her word for it.

Sitemeter problems.

Feeling down and out this morning because you keep getting these messages while trying to visit your favorite sites?

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://.com. Operation aborted.

Seems Sitemeter changed its code yesterday and it is not compatible with IE7. As a result, if you’re using a Windows machine and aren’t using Firefox or Safari, you’ll be seeing the above error message until Sitemeter gets its act together. Or until the person running the website you’re visiting either ditches Sitemeter or makes the switch away from the Javascript encoding to HTML or something.

(As far as I can tell--and I've tested my site using AOL, Firefox, and Safari on the Windows machine as well as AOL and Safari on the MAC--Compass Points is not affected. If this is untrue would someone please let me know.)

Lots of folks have been noticing and posting about this problem.
Hot Air
And Flopping Aces (Who points to a comment at Hot Air that would be the easiest work around I’ve seen so far.)

It’s still a good idea to have more than one browser available to you so go get Firefox now.

Apparently, if you have Sitemeter on the sidebar it's a problem. If it's at the bottom of your page, it's not. Mine is at the bottom of the page.

Friday Birding

I went out with the new camera this morning to both bird and photograph. Got a lot of the birding done at two separate locations but not a whole lot of bird pictures to go with it.

I walked the old railroad bed adjacent to Crooked Creek from the bridge at the Ive’s Run entrance to Hammond Lake west ward to the cultivated fields for the Game Management Unit #37 this morning. Here’s what I saw in terms of birds in two and a half hours:


Location: Ive's Run-Crooked Creek
Observation date: 8/1/08
Notes: Cool, clear morning with a starting temperature of 60 degrees (it got up to 70 before I moved on). Very little wind.
Number of species: 35

Wood Duck X
Great Blue Heron X
Turkey Vulture X
Osprey X
Bald Eagle X
Red-tailed Hawk X
Killdeer X
Mourning Dove X
Ruby-throated Hummingbird X
Belted Kingfisher X
Hairy Woodpecker X
Blue-headed Vireo X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Tree Swallow X
Black-capped Chickadee X
Tufted Titmouse X
White-breasted Nuthatch X
Eastern Bluebird X
American Robin X
Gray Catbird X
European Starling X
Cedar Waxwing X
Yellow Warbler X
American Redstart X
Common Yellowthroat X
Eastern Towhee X
Savannah Sparrow X
Song Sparrow X
Northern Cardinal X
Rose-breasted Grosbeak X
Indigo Bunting X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Common Grackle X
American Goldfinch X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

Then I drove south on Rt. 287 to the Muck for another short stint.

An hour at the Muck off Rt. 287 west of Wellsboro produced the following:

Location: Marsh Creek/The Muck IBA
Observation date: 8/1/08
Notes: Mid-day but lots of Green Herons about--at least 6 rose from the grass as I walked out to the blind. Two belted kingfishers fished by hovering and then rested on the wires across the marsh.

Number of species: 16

Wood Duck X
Blue-winged Teal X
Great Blue Heron X
Green Heron X
Turkey Vulture X
American Kestrel X
Mourning Dove X
Belted Kingfisher X
Northern Flicker X
Least Flycatcher X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Gray Catbird X
Swamp Sparrow X
Red-winged Blackbird X
American Goldfinch X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)


Not too shabby a morning.

Three flowers from today's walk

Just a few of the flowers I came across today while walking the abandoned railroad grade (now a dirt road) along Crooked Creek from the bridge at the Ive’s Run entrance and at the Muck.

First is the gorgeously rich looking Turk’s-cap Lily.



Its bright orange stands out from the mundane whites, yellows and pale blues of the standard wildflowers. (Queen Anne’s Lace, Cone flowers, bergamont, etc.)

Then in the cultivated fields on the Game Management Area we had the Sunflowers all turned to face the rising sun.



They haven’t gone to seed yet, but already they’re being visited by flocks of red-winged blackbirds and grackles. (Apparently, the blue jays know enough not to waste their time down amongst the stalks. They were up in the trees where the cherries and wild grapes are starting to ripen.)

Finally, over at the Muck, the cattails have grown nice and plump. Unfortunately, purple loosestrife has made vast inroads in the marsh and threaten to choke out some of the native plants.

Birding with the new toys

The lenses for the new camera arrived around 7 PM yesterday. (The UPS man in this neck of the woods really earns his pay!) I immediately checked and found that the camera battery was charged, the memory card was installed and with the shorter zoom lens (28-70 mm) in place I went outside to play a little before it got too dark.

I've a lot to learn and I’ll need to break out my uni-pod for support of the longer lens (75-300 mm) but this should be fun. At least I can go through a bunch of shots and know as soon as I download them to the computer whether I did things correctly. With 35 mm film, it could take a week before a roll of film got sent out and returned and I’d have to shoot the entire roll before processing it. (Or I would have to make a special trip to Wal-Mart to have them do it on their machine while I shopped. Still too time consuming.)

Today I went up to Ive’s Run/Crooked Creek to do a little birding and try out the camera some more. As luck would have it, there were few cooperative birds (those that would stay still long enough in the open) for me to photograph. But there were lots of wildflowers. More on those later.

Around 10:30 AM I headed down Route 287 to The Muck and the short boardwalk to the blind. There I again found few birds willing to stay out in the open but did get to play some more with the long lens.

(Double click to enlarge all photos.)

There are three ducks in this shot:



That was taken from the blind using the 300 mm setting on the zoom lens. The furthest duck is about 200-250 yards.



Can you see them now? (I used a program called Picasa2 to crop the photo.) There’s a female wood duck in the grass to the left, an immature wood duck in the foreground to the right and what I believe to be a blue-winged teal in the background to the right.



A little more cropping and we have just the one in the distance. I'm calling it a blue-winged teal based solely upon that white hip patch. The distance from the blind to this bird was approximately 200-250 yards. What you see here is better than what I saw through the binoculars.

There’s not a lot of detail in this last shot, but it’s not bad for a handheld camera and a telephoto lens. (Okay, I did lean against the window frame of the blind to steady the shot but there was no tripod/hands-off-push-the-plunger to remove the shakes from ye olde heart beat.)

I hate waiting.

Call it Christmas in July one week late. (Orthodox Christmas in July?)

I got jealous of looking at the great photos of birds being posted by Richard of At The Water and Shellmo at Birding in Michigan . (Although, Shellmo has gone through a bit of a Looney period lately! You’ll have to visit to see what I mean.) My buddy Gary takes some mean photo’s too. (Go take a look at the Gallery on the Tiadaghton Audubon Society website —which Gary maintains—to see some of his pictures.

I’ve gotten a little bored with the same old birds and haven’t been hauling my digiscoping gear out to the field when we go because I find it somewhat cumbersome. I’ve two 35mm Canon cameras and lenses but instant gratification is the wave of the present and future. My small point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot S40 has been a workhorse for several years but it just can’t reach out and touch that distant (more than 10 feet away) bird. So I read back on Richard’s blog and checked a few other sources to see what equipment they were using. Then I did some homework and researched comparable models of Nikon, Canon, and Sony. These were the “preferred” camera models for some folks online and in Tiadaghton Audubon Society, the group to which I belong. (Besides the Canon PowerShot, I’ve a Nikon CoolPix P1 attached to my Nikon Fieldscope ED III-A for digiscoping.)

Turns out that the Sony Alpha 350 with a pair of Tamron lenses, some filters, an extra battery and a memory card were the best buy and had far better features (thanks Richard!). I didn’t order right away. I sat on the information and pondered the economics (NOT cheap!) and finally broke down and ordered everything through Amazon.

There were five separate orders and three arrived in today’s mail. The post office had the camera, battery, and memory card. UPS is supposed to deliver the lenses this afternoon and the filters should be arriving via the post office either Saturday or Monday.

While I’m waiting for the lenses to arrive, I’m charging up the battery and reading the manual.

My daughter would tell you that last is a lie—I never read the manual! But that was when she was living in the house. New car? Jess what’s the manual say? New computer? Jess, how does this thing work; what can it do? And she would know because she would have read and memorized he darn thing on the way home from the seller! Come to think about it, the Tundra is nearly a year old and I still haven’t read its owner’s manual. Jess, when you coming to visit?

Have I mentioned I HATE WAITING! (That's why DSLR was the only option!)

Mets/Pelfry fall to Marlins, 7-5

Mike Pelfrey hadn’t lost in his previous 11 outing (the Mets were 10-1 in those games), so you’d feel comfortable sending him to the mound against the Marlins. Unfortunately Pelfrey had one bad inning last night. He surrendered two triples, two doubles and a single in the fourth when the Marlins scored 5 runs to take a 5-1 lead.

Pinch-hitter Damion Easley would bring the Mets to within a run with a three-run shot in the seventh inning to make it 5-4 but Dan Uggla increase the Marlins’ margin with a two-run dinger of his own in the bottom of the 8th off Joe Smith. The Mets would lose 7-5 and fall out of first place in the NL East ½ game back of the Phillies who topped the Nationals 8-5.

Pedro Martinez (3-2) will take the mound for the Mets in Houston on Friday night. He will be on a tight—and low—pitch count to protect his arm and groin strains and will be leaving the game early. Let’s hope the bullpen is up to the task.

Right-hander Brandon Backe (6-10) will start for the Astros.

Aerie Chores

The weather quack's forecast this morning called for overcast skies and a chance of some heavy thunder boomers late in the afternoon and on through the night. As a rsult, I figured I had better get out there and get some things done this morning and right after lunch.

First I went up the power line and onto the upper portion of our property to haul out some flatties, i.e. large flat rocks for use in making some stone walls and walkways. We actually have two parcels of land on the hillside. The one upon which the house sits is pretty rectangular and contains 10.4 acres. The other is shaped like a key with a long narrow section from the road and parallel to the 10.4 acre parcel and then a wide back end. It measures 6.9 acres and abuts the 10.4 acres on the south and slightly up hill. It has it's own driveway so I took the Explorer up there to haul the rocks back to the Aerie.

I pissed off a lot of ants of many varieties by picking up the rocks that formed the roof to their nests. There were little brown ants with little white eggs. There were little golden ants with little cream colored eggs. There were medium sized black ants with opal like eggs. And, when I kicked up a decaying log or two, there were large red and black ants whom I knew to be biters so I left them alone. They aren't as bad a s fire ants but they can really put a damper on your day.

Between 9 AM and noon I made four trips back and forth with about two dozen rocks at a time. I figure it came to a little over a ton of stone. Now I just have to make the same number of trips to have enough for the raised beds I will want for vegetables and perennials next year.

After an hour break for lunch (and some recuperation) I went out a angered a bunch of honey bees and bumble bees that were feeding on the flowers of the clover we have in the yard. It takes about a week for the clover flowers to really mature and the bees were hard at work gathering all the nectar they could until I came along with the lawn mower and put an end to their activities. There were the bumble bees with their black bodies and bright yellow vests, regular honey bees that must have become feral as I know of no one in the area with any working hives, and a bee that looks like the honey bee but with a rust colored vest. There were dozens of them at work and with every pass of the lawn mower, their working area got smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely. Now they will have to settle for the bergamont, Queen Ann's lace and goldenrod until the clover sprouts new flowers.

I finished up at three in the afternoon and the rains didn't appear until after five. Even then they were considerably less than anticipated. At noon there was a line of pretty violent thunderstorms stretching from Buffalo to Pittsburgh and they were heading our way. By four they had broken up and when the front reached here there was a little drizzle but not much else. At least with the sun staying hidden behind the clouds the temperature never got much above 75 degrees and the little rain we did get held off until I was done with the grass.

Mets 4, Marlins 1

The Mets defeated the Marlins 4-1 in a game that allowed them to remain a 1/2 game ahead of the Phillies (2-1 winners over Washington) in 1st place of the NL East.

Oliver Perez (now 7-6) pitched okay (6 innings, 1 run, 5 hits, 3 walk) as did Aaron Heilman (2 innings, no runs, 1 hit, 2 walks). Billy Wagner was...well, Billy Wagner (1 inning, 0 hits, 0 walks, 2 Ks, for save # 27).

Nick Evans was 2 for 4 and scored twice early and then Carlos Delgado smacked a two-run homer to ice the deal. Although Jose Reyes neither scored nor had an RBI, he was 3 for 5 with two doubles (one where he got thrown out at third attempting to stretch it).

Delgado may want July to never end. When play started on July 1 he was batting a mere .228. His average is now up to .263. After the four game series against the Yankees that ended June 29, in which he hit three homers, Delgado had a total of 14 dingers and 45 RBI. He now has 23 and 69, respectively. The man is in The Zone.

Tonight, Mike Pelfrey (9-6) faces Josh Johnson (0-0) in the rubber game of the series.

Meanwhile, John Maine's shoulder problem has been diagnosed as a mild rotator cuff strain. He'll be rejoining the team in Houston and is listed as day to day.

Mets fall to Fish, 7-3

The Mets bullpen cost them another game last night. When John Maine left the game in the fifth inning (after pitching just 4 1/3) due to shoulder stiffness, the Mets were winning 2-1. The bullpen would chisel away at that first allowing it to become 2-2 and then 3-3 after the Mets regained the lead, but finally they right down to it and just poured gasoline on the fire. Joe Smith (blown save and the loss) and Scott Schoenweiss were the main culprits. Between them they allowed five runs on six hits—all in the eighth inning—as the Mets lost 7-3.

New York’s loss allowed the Phils (idle) to move to within ½ a game of first with the Marlins now 1 game back.

Tonight the Mets and Marlins go at it again with Oliver Perez (6-6) going against Scott Olsen (6-5).

Maine is on his way back to NYC to have an MRI on the shoulder to determine the severity of his injury. Meanwhile, Pedro Martinez will pitch in the bullpen today after rejoining the team in Florida after the loss of his father. The plan is for him to come off the bereavement list and start on Friday in Houston but be limited to just 80 pitches-which means the bull pen will be expected to carry a load that night, too.

Yep

Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse: TOP TEN THINGS THAT CREEP ME OUT ABOUT OBAMA

Go read them all.

America better wake the hell up. This guy is bad news.

More Zucchini Bread

Terry turned some of those zukes we had on the counter into zucchini bread today. Three (3) of the thirteen (13) that were stacked there last night got shredded to make six (6) loaves of bread. She would have made more but despite having gotten more sugar, flour and vanilla she forgot the eggs!

Well, we'll be going down tomorrow morning to get some more eggs and then there will be even more zucchini breads in the freezer. At least we'll also be able to dispose of gift one of tonight's loaves to a gall at the insurance agency when we stop by to pay a bill.

We also had two of the smaller zukes grilled alongside our venison steaks tonight. Brushed with a bit of spicy Italian salad dressing they were excellent.

Aerie Game Cam Report

So, I go out before lunch this morning to rebait the game camera, switch out the memory card and pick some raspberries on my way back.

I get to the camera and the LCD screen that indicates its status is blank--not a good sign. I crack open the case and reach to pull the memory card when I realize I don't have a replacement in my pocket--DOH!

I change the 6V battery and return the used memory card to it's place knowing I will have to return later to replace it. I dump the bait in the target area (all the bai from two days ago is gone) and then turn the camera on. It seems to be working fine.

On my way back to the house, I stop and pick a cup of mixed raspberries and blackberries to be made into sauce for ice cream.

Back at the house I have lunch and then put a memory card in my pocket and head back up the hill to retrieve the one in the camera.

I'm about 50 yards from the camera on our second driveway when I hear a deer bound away down the hill on the other side of the camera. I figure that someone else was enjoying lunch at the same time I was.

With the card back at the house and in the computer I learn that 1) the camera did not function between Saturday and today (I'm not surprised--remember the blank screen?) and 2) it worked fine between the time I switched the battery and the time I got there to switch the card and, yes, there was a deer there for lunch.



This doe had arrived not long after I left and stayed around for half an hour. It was she that spooked when I came back for the memory card. In this shot she is looking up the hill toward the driveway I was on. Notice the upright ears also focused in my direction. A few minutes later and she was gone.

I never did see her but she made lots of noise goinog down the hill.

Not a "Fail" in my eyes

Nor for those like my buddy Bill who believe youth soccer to be the ruination of American sport, I don't think this is a "Fail" but rather an opportunity.


see more pwn and owned pictures

Ma Nature's Garden

Gardening is a chore--and a joy when it works. But sometimes Ole Ma Nature does all the hard work for you. Last year we had tons of white daisies growing around the yard. They were back again this year. We also had a lovely patch of milkweed that had such sweet, sweet smelling flowers about this time of year and which attracted scads of butterflies. Unfortunately, I think the dang groundhogs got the milkweed. There are only one or two plants far from where they were last year.

We do get a few plants from the sunflower seeds the birds dropand that the chipmunks and mice miss.



This one got itself chomped on by the bear when the bear couldn't find the feeders. The flower head was just starting to swell at the time and looked like a big lollipop. It must not have tasted too good, however, because the bear only took one bite and then left it alone. I think it looks pretty cool like this. Sort of like one of those singing flowers you used to see in the old time musical cartoons of the thirties and forties. A young damsel with a bonnet just waiting to burst into song.

As if to make up for the milkweed, this year we have lots of wild bergamot.



And I mean LOTS!



It's not as sweet smelling to me, but then my sense of smell isn't the greatest. The butterflies like it as well as the bees and other insects.

The white Queen Anne's Lace is also abundant.



Even the prickly thistle plant produces a pleasant looking little purple flower and when that matures, a fuzzy little brownish-white tuft.



The goldenrod are just now starting to produce their flower heads and soon the edges of the yard will be a bright yellow.

All these are "weeds" and yet they are quite pretty to look at and food sources for insects and birds alike. It's the reason I try not to cut back many of them. It's all part of nature's landscaping plan.

Zucchini plants and Herbs

I took the camera out when we went to inspect the zucchini this morning. (Can't let the little devils get to advanced!)



This is one of the male flowers. The "star" is about 5-6 inches across. The females flowers are tucked beneath the leaves.



Terry has made me promise not to plant so many next year. I tried to tell her that the four pack was the smallest Agway had to offer. She said to either only plant four plants. I doubt you can get just four seeds. Next year we will try to put in some bush beans but there's a healthy rabbit population in the area. Might have to do some fencing or target shooting.



We did put in some herbs as well as a few perennials. The Marigolds are to deter deer. There's dill (from seed), basil, parsley, chives and more. All are doing quite well.

Zucchini Invasion

Yesterday was a beautiful day with clear sunny skies and humidity down around 50%. The temperature itself never got much above 75 degrees and the breeze blowing up the hill from 9 AM until around 7 PM made things incredibly comfortable. As a result we did damn little around the Aerie yesterday.

Terry cooked up a nice zucchini and yellow squash casserole to go with some boneless chicken breast. While it was delicious, it was also an act of self defense. She had picked up the yellow squash at the "free" corner I mentioned a couple days ago but the zucchini are all coming from the eight plants I put out this spring.

Please understand that when we lived in New Jersey, I would put out eight or ten zucchini VINES and the VINE borers would attack them and we would get all of five or six zucchini squash if we were lucky. The plants I purchased at Agway were BUSH zucchini--a variety I had no experience with. Apparently BUSH zucchini are impervious to the VINE borer. Heck one has even survived having a bear sit upon it.

Anyway, I bought this little four pack of baby zucchini. Each cell contained two tiny little plants having just their paired seed leaves. They looked so cute and fragile. So fragile in fact, that I did not even separate the plants from the first two cells and simply placed each cell 18 inches from the other in the soil of the raised bed in front of the cabin where they would get lots and lots of sunlight. The other two cells I did manage to separate the plants and put them in the raised bed near the bird feeders where they don't get quite as much sunlight but there's more organic material in the soil.

Well, let me tell you! Those cute little plants have grown and grown and grown! They have produced one huge orange-yellow flower after another. Now some of those flowers are males and stand upright and proud on a thin little stalk. After a day or so, they wilt and fall off. The other flowers, not quite so large and deeper down beneath the huge plant leaves are the female flowers. They are to be found on the ends of short, thick stalks that will become zucchini squash if all goes according to plan.

Hooo-weee! Something went according to plan. Not long after I brought home those four zucchini from the neighbors to be made into a dozen zucchini breads, OUR plants started to produce. We have had zucchini oiled and spiced up on the grill, zucchini slaw, and now zucchini casserole. And still they are stacked up on the counter llike cord wood.



Or perhaps it's more like bombs on the flight deck of a WWII aircraft carrier. This could be an invasion!



There are currently 13 squash in the stack right now and that is after using 3 yesterday in the casserole. Terry says there will be 4 or 5 ready to harvest this afternoon. She has purchased more vanilla, sugar and flour. There's still some room in the freezer. I can see zucchini bread becoming a regular at the Audubon Society meetings and the Embroidery Arts Guild meetings (6 meetings a month). After all, I'll need room in the freezer when I get my deer---or two.

Santana super as Mets down Cards, 9-1

Jerry Manuel allowed Johan Santana to come out for the ninth inning today. And why not? The left-hander was pitching lights out and had a 9-1 lead. Besides, after last night’s 14-inning affair the bullpen needed the rest.

Santana, who was pulled in his last outing and who had to watch the pen squander a three run lead in the ninth, had said he would have been willing to go the distance if asked. Today he was asked and he won his 10th game of the season giving up just one run on an Albert Pujols home run in the seventh. It was one of just six hits he allowed along with one walk and five strikeouts.

The Mets continued their hot hitting with a total of 17 hits (one more than last night) including three homeruns. Fernando Tatis (3-4 on the day) stroked his seventh dinger with one on in the sixth, Ramon Castro (1-2 with 2 walks) hit his sixth of the season also in the sixth inning, and David Wright belted his 20th of the year, a solo shot, in the fifth. Everyone in the lineup got at least one hit including Santana who had two singles including one that knocked in a run, his first RBI of the year.

Meanwhile, the Phils are beating up on the Braves 11-5 in the sixth, while the Marlins were defeated 9-6 by the Cubbies out in Chi-town.

The Mets are heading to Miami to face the Marlins tomorrow night in the start of a three game set. The Mets send John Maine (9-7) to the mound against Rickey Nolasco (10-6).

Mets fall to Cards, 10-8 in 14

Tough game last night for the Mets. Brandon Knight, making his first ever major league start (he had pitched in relief very briefly for the Yankees several years ago) must have had a ton of butterflies in his stomach. He gave up four runs in the first inning before settling down and throwing four more innings of decent shutout ball. When he left the Mets had battled back and held a 5-4 lead.

The relievers (predominantly Muniz and Smith) would yield 4 runs in the sixth inning to see the Mets fall behind 8-5. Yet the Mets managed to come back once again and tied the game on a Fernando Tatis home run in the bottom of the ninth. The teams traded goose eggs until Albert Pujols hit a two-out, two-run homer in the 14th off Aaron Heilman who was working his third inning.

And so the Mets fell to the Cards 10-8 in 14 innings.

Carlos Delgado continues to be zoned in. He hit two homers last night. Jose Reyes was 4 for 8 including two doubles and a home run. Fernando Tatis was 3 for 5.

The Cardinals rapped out 21hits In 60 plate appearances as Skip Schumaker went 6 for 7, all singles, Pujols went 5 for 8, and Rick Ankiel went 3 for 7.

The Mets still hold on to a one game lead in the NL East. The Phils downed the Braves 10-9 in regulation and the Marlins topped the Cubs 3-2 in 12 innings.

This afternoon it will be Johan Santana (8-7) for the Mets against Kyle Lohse (12-2) for the Cards.