Tag Archives: birds

Tree Top Home

Mourning doves make pitiful looking nests. To my eye they are no more than a few beakfulls of sticks in a haphazard pile but I am no mourning dove.

Last year a pair of doves nested and raised two babies just outside one of our second story windows. I marveled at those those few sticks that made up the nest as they persistently clung to the branches all through the winter, and now, the doves are back. They have added what looks to my eyes to be another scant pinch of twigs to spruce up their old tree top home and are settled down to the business of raising a family. The top of an old tree on a tiny bed of sticks look like a perilous position to me.

But I am no mourning dove.

I’m participating in the April Squares challenge with  The Life of B!

V is for …. Vulture

Turkey Vulture if you want to be specific.

I always know when they are flying over the house because my bird dog came with a Vulture Alert System.

Perhaps it’s the frustration of having big bird that he can’t point leisurely sail by, perhaps he suspects that there is something smelly and dead nearby that he doesn’t get to roll in, or maybe he just hates vultures.   Whatever the reason, he goes tearing across the lawn barking at them.

Every.

Single.

Time.

I guess it works, they’ve never tried to infiltrate his yard and it is a very handy habit if you need a “V” picture…

 

Photo blogging my way through the alphabet with:

Reinforcing Bad Habits

One morning I (after, of course, staying up far too late the night before) woke up, completed the mostly unpleasant task of getting two of the girls to school, put breakfast in front of the crying and volatile third and went out to take care of morning chores.

My dog (always watching out for me because he’s, you know, perfect) alerted me to the presence of an intruder underneath the brooder house.fox under the chicken coop

I pondered the situation, took a picture (who am I kidding, I took five, then my camera battery died), showed Jane what a fox looks like (he was much further away than he appears in the picture) and then made a decision.

The chickens stayed locked up, the dogs were put in the basement and Jane and I went back to bed.

When I woke up, the fox was gone and the rest our daytime visitors were cheery-looking (okay, so the bluebird looks grumpy but I’m pretty sure he was actually super happy) winged creatures.

honey bees
male bluebird
female bluebird
male rose breasted grosbeak

Today was probably terrible reinforcement of my napping and avoidance habits, not to mention my problem with procrastination…

But hey! I had a great day- the second go around!

 

Winter Birding

Junco

“There is an unreasonable joy to be had from the observation of small birds going about their bright, oblivious business”
― Grant Hutchison, The Complete Lachlan

nuthatch

Sky Blue Daze suggested I participate in the 3 Day Quote challenge. I thought it sounded good, but then I found out, there were rules.

  • Post on 3 consecutive days
  • Post one to three quotes per day
  • Challenge three different bloggers each day

Rules…

I’m not so good with arbitrary rules, but I’m pretty good at making up new ones!

So, instead of nominating three new bloggers to participate every day I’m instead going to introduce you to one a day. Partially because I’m contrary like that but mostly because I sincerely hope that you will all follow my link and find a new fantastic blogger on the other end. And, if said fantastic blogger wants to share some quotes in the next few days that’s just a bonus.

Today I highly recommend you visit Summer Crow Photos.  Her photos of rural Pennsylvania are amazing. The line of cows in Keeping Warm are my current favorite but I love them all from the activity in Harvesting to the still life in Cherries. And, as if that’s not enough, she sometimes post photos of her visits to Assateague Island. Yes Marguerite Henry fans, that Assateague Island!

Please, go check her photos out and say hello while you are at it, all us bloggers love comments!

Colorado: Not All Fishing

My mom and I took a trip to Colorado and despite the look of the previous post we did see more than fish.

US Pro Tour
Petrified Stump
Kansas sunset
Nebraska thunderstorm
old mining relic
Bourbon
elephant head flower
mule deer in velvet
moose
dipper bird
sunflower
pika

But it’s possible we only looked up when the fish weren’t biting!

cut throat trout
rainbow trout
brook trout
hungry fish made this even prettier in person