Sudoku Puzzles

Today's tough puzzle includes an excellent example of an Almost Unique Rectangle. As such, it is the topic of a new blog page.

A link to this page will be available through the link in the upper right column, directly under 'Check out the Sudoku Blog'.

The new page should be available about 1 hour after the new day here at sudoku.com.au.

I think I need to paint the gutter on my garage!!
My favourite birds.

There once was a man from Wonthaggi
Who climbed up to visit a maggie.
The magpie let fly,
And whitewashed his eye
That poor old man from Wonthaggi.

Hello Kate, I was trying hard to think of a maggie poem and couldn't, I'm glad you came up with one.

Good morning to all! If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, what's a bird in the gutter worth?

12:42
Excellent specimen of a great bird - except in nesting season! Beautiful song in the mornings.

My other favourite is the Currawong. We saw heaps of them in Victoria, their song is rather like a very lazy, husky wolf-whistle.

One for sorrow.
Two for joy.
Three for a letter.
Four for a boy*.
Five for silver.
Six for gold.
Seven for a secret never to be told.

The amount of magpies you see relates to a line of the poem and foretells of something (i.e. if you see two magpies something joyous will More...

Nice bird and beautiful poem 'KATE'.

Good mAen to all.

10:35 A spooky magpie. Bring in the witches, too!

Nice bird. We have a few nesting pairs around our street and during nesting season, one particular maggie can't stand the postman with his bright orange helmet! Poor postie, he sure gets a hammering!

8.01

10.23

Maen! A bright, sunny day here in northeast US. Thanks for the photo. I've never seen a magpie.

Nice photography.

Kate - Good poem!

mAen all - I have never seen a magpie here. Interesting bird - on Google found this - Chinese: The 'Bird of Joy'; good fortune. A chattering magpie signifies good news, the arrival of guests. Under the Manchu dynasty it also represented imperial rule. Christian: The Devil; dissipation; vanity. — J. C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols (1978), p. 102

Beautiful smart birds, Also known as thiefs of little shiny objects.

mAen.

4:34 han my medium, but it inclkudes a few guesses.

Few people know Heckle & Jeckle are magpies. Indubitably.

maen all! i notice that the aussie magpie is quite a bit different than the black beaked magpie of the western usa. ours have a lot more white with blue in their wings. larger than a grackle and smaller than a crow. very pretty birds but they do make quite a lot of noise which is often welcome on a deserted prairie.

6.39
great photo, love the magpies!
we have a family of up to about 8 magpies that live here in the trees and love sharing the cat mince. graeme can hand feed some of them. they also love to get into a big dish of water I leave out for them and wash and splash around. they tease the cats all More...

Maybe it's the angle of the photo, but I think the Magpies here have longer tails. Interesting birds. They never leave. Look impressive against the snow in the Winter. I see them eating the road kill in the country.

Great to see my childhood ditty on magpies repeated here, with the exception of '4 for guest' - I wonder where it originated - did someone say China? - I learnt it on playgrounds in India!

The Australian Magpie or Bell-Magpie has the most beautiful carolling song. This page has recordings of them: http://www.anbg.gov.au/birds/birds.html

'Quote the raven nevermore' Hi Karen!

19:39 It's late or early: 1:40am Pacific Standard time Sat. Feb 24

AHhhh! How did yesterday's hard(?) show up when I'm trying to post today's? Anyway, again: Canuck Greg. You've been playing sudoku a looong time. Didn't you know a bird in a gutter is worth a hard sudoku? :)

A beautiful description of magpie song i heard was,' gargling the early morning sun'

It's my photo and I do think I need to clean the gutter on the outside. It was this magpie that alerted me to the clogged gutters on my garage as he was pulling big long twigs out and when I climbed up the ladder and checked, they were chockers (full). My late Dad used to come and do that job for me so now it's up to me to do.

Heckle and Jeckle, now theres a cartoon I haven't heard of since I was I kid. I always thought those birds were crows.

Nice photo! We have many friendly ones around here - except when they are breeding.

Anne, I love the photo. The warbling of the maggies used to wake us every morning at Anglesea - a delightful, happy sound. There are few around here, unfortunately.

I love your photo and story to go with it Anne. Going back to the 'One for sorrow, two for joy,' poem, we used to say that for how many sneezes you sneezed. For magpies my cousin would quote this part of Frank Williamson's poem:
'Just to hear the magpie’s warble in the blue-gums on the hill, More...

Tess, that's lovely. I just love listening to the magpies singing.

19:10
Slow....was it so difficult? maybe I am slow

12:36 Hi to all.

9:3 in sunny warm Houston...

Grrrrr... 9:34. *grin*