NYT Spelling Bee

[ab_grp]

That is a really nifty guide, Langue_doc! I had never heard of a wigeon, which kind of sounds like a portmanteau of water and pigeon.  They are cute, like little ducklets! Do you have any favorites?

[ab_grp]

Woo ha! Got QBABM, finally seeing that word! Good luck!

Still have to do hard sudoku and try LB...

[cathwen]

Congratulations on QBABY, ab_grp!

I just made QB, but with Shunn for the last two words (I get impatient). 

Langue_doc, thanks for posting the birding by subway guide!

[ab_grp]

Hooray! Congrats, cathwen! Believe me, I usually get impatient, too.  I think Shunn was coming up in the near future if I hadn't figured it out.  Since husband is off today, we had a little more time on our hands.

[ciao_yall]

QB - 4, nudge from Shunn to get to QB - 3. About to dive into Wordplay definitions but I still only have 3fers for LB and not quite sure I'm ready to see the hints for that yet....

[ciao_yall]

Flash from Shunn so QB - 2. Definitions for the final 2 so QB.

Glad I found the LB hints - 2 tricky ones today. I worship any of you who got the 2fer on your own.

[Langue_doc]

QB and two-fer. The words are ones that are familiar to us. My last three words included a couple that are used in the current context and a food word.

ab_grp, herons are some of my favorite birds. I saw a couple the other day when I was at Central Park, in one of my usual birding spots at the south end of the pond. These must have been juveniles based on their color and the fact that they were together for a short while before finding perches over the water. I've seen herons and egrets here before. Just above the other side of the pond is the Hallet Nature Sanctuary, another spot for bird watching. The herons are safe as you can't walk down the cliff from the sanctuary to the herons' fishing spots. As for ducks, we saw several migratory species on the birding trips in late March, April, and early May. I recall the trip leaders telling us to take a close look as these birds were on their way north.

I have the merlin app (from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) on my phone. They just added a new feature where you can identify birds by their calls. https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

[Parasaurolophus]

Struggled a bit but got to genius, at least.

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

Genius, but no pangram. The last words yesterday were immunize, minimize, and finally, linguini.

farmhand/dichotomy

Tried to find a mate for chariot, but had to give up.

Happy solving, all!

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

SB - Last two words were linguini, luging.

LB - Also farmhand-dichotomy Langue_doc you rock for finding it on your own - I needed multiple hints from the wordplay blog. Some of my better 3fers doh-homonymic-craft, chard-dominion-nifty, antonymic-chard-drift, conch-hominid-drafty, modify-yarn-natch but twas not to be.

Is it just me or is LB trickier this week than usual?

Anyway, happy solving.

[cathwen]

Good morning!

Genius with pangram, but running out of imagination. 

Yesterday my last word was immunizing. 

LB:  I got the "official" solution yesterday—fandom-matriarchy.  I don't yet have a solution today, but I have several good words with remaining letters that refuse to coalesce into a recognizable word!

Ciao_yall, I do think that LB has been a little trickier this week. 

Langue_doc, that Merlin app is great!  I haven't yet tried the call identification feature.  (I have another app, BirdSong, that purports to identify birds by their songs, but it is horribly inaccurate.). Have you ever visited the Ornithology Lab?  It has walking trails through the woods and in the lab itself, a large window overlooking a pond that is thriving with bird life.  When I lived in that area, I used to go there frequently. 

Anyway—happy puzzling!

[ab_grp]

Good morning/afternoon!

I have two more words to go to QB but will have to take a break and have some breakfast first.  Kind of a tough set up.  My last words yesterday were immunizing, linguini, so I guess a few of us struggled with those.

Congrats on the 2fers yesterday! I like the dichotomy solution.  I had a couple ones I thought were very good contenders, but no luck.  Oh I just saw cathwen's note.  Dangit!! I had matriarchy and kept thinking -dom but didn't get there.  Good job, cathwen! As for whether it is trickier than usual lately, it always seems to be tricky for me!

Langue_doc, herons are so majestic! I have seen a couple here and there, often just from stumbling upon them.  Well, I haven't seen them out here but have back home near the canal and lake, I think.  And one up in Canada in a park I got lost in for hours.  I guess I should say that I think they were herons, but I am realizing more and more from your posts and resources that there are some birds that look pretty similar to each other.  Maybe I can dig up the pic I took in the park and see if it does, indeed, appear to be a heron. And congrats on your QB yesterday!

Happy solving!

[Langue_doc]

ciao_yall, it's cathwen who rocks on LB!

cathwen, I too used to live in that area and get there almost every year. I was there earlier this year and also made it last year after a week of dithering (friend and I were trying to decide if it was safe for me to visit, back and forth emails and texts--I let friend decide since I was the one in the highly contagious part of the country). I go to Sapsucker Woods with my binoculars at least twice when I'm visiting and we also do the falls and state parks. Usually one of my friends accompanies me on the bird-watching jaunt. The lab was closed this year and also last year because of the pandemic. This year the city had just relaxed the distancing protocols in restaurants so we had a nice dinner at one of the waterfront places. We had to wait for a while because we wanted an outside (overlooking the water) table.

The sound ID is quite new, so I haven't tried it yet, but a friend who tried it was quite impressed.

ETA: my last words were immunizing and minimizing (I must have been asleep when typing immunize and minimize).

[ab_grp]

We each finally got to QB but had to compare first letters for the final couple words.  Didn't go to Shunn, though I'm sure we would have.  None of the remaining words were difficult.

The bird sound resource reminds me of a book I bought for my ex that plays bird calls.  He was really into bird feeders and such in our yard, which led to a funny mishap with an ebay purchase (I bought the whole Ellery Queen series but didn't think it ever arrived... it was packaged in a huge bird seed box that had arrived well before that I thought was for him!).  We also used a bird sound app here at one point to figure out what kind of bird we had nesting on our back patio.  I think it's a pretty neat idea for an app!

[ciao_yall]

I finally got a 2fer today OMO so yay.

Genius but no pangram. Hmmmm....