Noreen is here for a visit. She brought me another beautiful stained glass panel that she made. I love it! She’s so talented at making them. Lucky me!
Tag: birds
Bikes and birds.
This is the weekend of the MS-150 bike ride from Houston to Austin. I served as sherpa again with Doray and drove Laura and her friend Patty to Houston on Friday night.
This morning we helped her get to the start and then we drove east, instead of west, so we could do some birding on the coast.
We had a great day, logging over 80 species, and turned in at the hotel late and a tad tired. Tomorrow is another day!
Roadtrip!
Since we are (mostly) unencumbered by commitments, we took a road trip over the weekend to Louisville, to attend our niece’s wedding. We extended it a day or two to squeeze in a couple of additional visits in Indiana and Kentucky before heading back home. It was a beautiful and heartfelt wedding. The fall foliage was beautiful. We were able to play tourist a little bit. And we are now back home safe and sound.
Mary Anne and Chris did it up right. We enjoyed the ceremony, the reception and, most importantly, the time spent with family visiting and telling stories and laughing. Not everyone could be there, and Gene & Jo were sorely missed.
We visited some wonderful places in Louisville.
The Louisville Stoneware factory got my potter juices flowing:
The FlameRun glass-works gallery and working studio:
The Louisville Slugger factory & museum:
The Big Four pedestrian (former railroad) bridge over the Ohio River:
And then we popped over to Indiana to visit Charlie & Kathy, and enjoyed the night life and autumn beauty of Madison.
Will Carter and Trisha Gene Brady performed at Red Bicycle Hall.
This is the amazing view of the Ohio River valley from their living room!
Then we stopped in the hills outside Bowling Green for a day with Lanny, and I scoped out all the birds I could find. The bird on the left is a lifer for me – a white-breasted nuthatch; a carolina chickadee on the right. I do love the birdies!
Another trip in the books. It’s also nice to be home 🙂
Peep show.
This may be the worst quality photo I have posted to date. But, it’s capturing the moment that counts, right? 🙂
These are a few of the birdies that were running around on the skylights over our back room yesterday afternoon.
Magic mug.
My sweet sister-in-law, Susanne, gave me this wonderful coffee mug at the reunion last week. I love it! It makes me smile every morning.
Cuties.
We have birds nesting in a number of places in our yard. You’ve already heard a lot about the Bewick’s Wrens. A Carolina Wren also nested – in one of the aloe plants out back. The babies are out of the nest today, and I got a picture of mom/dad feeding one of the fledglings. I counted four babies at one point. You can see another one on the left edge of the bench in this shot. I hung the bark butter up again nearby and the parent bird is going to it every few minutes to feed the little ones. Such cuties. Their tails are so stubby right now, I don’t know how they get around.
Again!
Yesterday, our resident mom & dad Bewick’s wrens started building a second nest! In a different house than this season’s first brood. I’m pretty sure this is the same mom & dad, since I’ve been watching them tending to and feeding their babies at the same time that they are building the new nest. I’m just amazed at how hard this pair of birds have been working over the last 6 weeks or so. I was surprised to see this behavior, but found this website whose explanation of their nesting behavior helped me learn a bit more about this lovely bird.
I can’t wait to watch the next round of babies make their way into our backyard.
Who’s there?
Crittercam caught a critter last night! I believe it is an eastern screech owl. I heard it calling during the night but didn’t venture out. The camera caught (most of) it.
Three birds.
I found myself taking 2 pictures today. After looking at them, they had something in common- both pictures of birds… so to speak.
First one taken while on a walk after work.
Second one right before dinner – Monte’s latest technique for grilling chicken … posed by me 🙂 Brined grilled chicken cooked with applewood chips. Yummy!
Happy Summer!
Here’s another gratuitous bird pic. Well, same window. Different bird.
I didn’t have a good shot of this guy. For some reason, even though there are four feeding stations on this feeder, they always go to the one that is blocked when viewed through the window. He did take a moment to peer around the side at me. So, that ‘s as good a shot as I got this time around.
Today is the first day of summer 2012. The solstice was about 10 minutes ago, actually. So how’s that for getting in early? 🙂
I’m hoping that this summer brings lots of good times, there’s sure to be more lake fun. And who knows what else.
I wish you a happy summer, too!
Mamma Dove.
This afternoon, before I heard or saw any signs of it outside, I noticed a red blob on the weather radar that I usually have running in the browser in the background. We were due for a very brief blow of rain and wind any minute.
So I took a break and walked into the kitchen to look out the window. Sure enough the wind was gusting and the sky was grey. As I was looking out, I noticed this mourning dove sitting in the crook of a tree branch. I realized it was a nest, and that was the mom (or dad?) sitting on a couple of babies, probably to keep them from falling out of the nest as the the branch bobbed in the wind.
The nest was pretty far away, and I had to use digital zoom — so, the the quality of this shot isn’t too good. I wasn’t able to get a good shot of the babies, but in this one, you can make out the mom — looking right at me. 🙂
Sheila365 