Upper and downer kind of day

This morning started out pretty good with many birds flocking to the bird feeders. I even went out to refill the feeders and had a surprise visitor. It seems a chickadee decided that I wasn't so big and scary so it landed about three feet from me and appeared to watch what I was doing. It flitted away and back several times as if I didn't exist.

Plenty of birds were chowing down when a hawk of unknown type swooped down toward the feeder and off into the trees chasing its lunch. One small wren took off in rapid flight and smacked into my viewing window with a lot bang. Sorry to report it did not make it, not a lunch for the hawk just another window kill.

Kind of sours the day.

Sunday Afternoon at home

Added two new hanging rods to the bird feeder this afternoon. Squirrels will have a difficult time getting to these. Have had the Downy and the Wren visit this afternoon.



The next two pictures are of the Gray Cat Bird that has been hanging around for a few days. What a sleek looking bird!




Gaula a Belgian Malinois is a new visitor to our house. This dog will be trained by my son to search for explosives. This is high spirited dog with lots of drive, but she has great personality, a real sweetheart.



The Cardinals around the neighborhood are slow to mature and are colorful if not like their parents.




This Carolina Wren has visited off and on this summer. Really likes to flit about, but today it was out in the open more than usual.




The Gold Finches have been active too, not exactly pretty like many of this I have seen this summer, but maybe it is getting ready for winter.

Saturday Night at Lake Evergreen

The Sun was setting and driving westward was blinding. Here is a picture showing the sun, the bright white is the sun and the yellow the glow around the sun.


At least three Heron's were resting at the Lake prior to sunset.

Saturday and plenty of activity

Today was a active day in the Normal Back Yard! The wife turned on the lawn sprinkler and plenty of birds came out to enjoy the water as it drifted through the air. Even the Humming Bird was seen darting back and forth to absorb a few drops of the refreshing water. One problem with the sprinkler running is that my camera had a difficult time focusing. I think the many drops of water confused the focusing so that most of the pictures turned out pretty out of focus.

Todays visitors included a new species, at least new to me, sitting on the cloths line was a Alder Flycatcher. Of the two pictures only one was recognizable, and it was not worth posting. Included in my count today was the Gray Cat Bird, Red Breasted Nuthatch, a Wood Thrush, 4 robins, 2 starlings, 6 Rose Breasted Grosbeaks, a couple of Purple Finches, several house finches, and of course the Humming Bird.

About 5pm we took Ninja, our dog for a ride in the county. Ninja loves to go for rides and since we don't expect her to be around too much longer we have been doing what our Vet suggested, spoiling her. We drove out north and east of Carlock enjoy the beginning of fall colors and much harvesting that was happening.

Since I always like to take my camera we ended up at Lake Evergreen and found three herons enjoying the south end of the lake. Since I left the camera in the car, pictures will have to wait. The deers appeared to be gone from all of the usual southern and western spots, but as we headed over the spillway toward Interstate 39 we found several groups of deer, probably 25-40 in total. Since I wasn't expecting to see these deer in these locations I didn't get any pictures.

Well as I get older my memory lapses and tonight another lapse. I forgot the Downy Wood Pecker, they are so commonly seen that I skipped them in my bird list above and of course the many sparrows that often cover the bird feeders.

What's new is the neighborhood?

The black thing on top of the chair is our cat Spook, the cloth on top of her is part of the chair cover. Now how many cats do you know that can cover them self before taking a nap?



Todays visitor is a Red-Breasted NutHatch. This one came down to the bird bath for a little drink.




A couple of pictures of a few of our female Rose-Breast Grosbeaks.







An finally a couple more pictures of our Humming Birds. Still hanging around.

A new visitor

A new visitor Saturday was this Gray Catbird. Since I had never seen one before, I asked our friendly Vet to identify for me. I would guess this is a young bird.



Two Gold Finches sharing the same feeder. The bottom one is immature as you see the colors are rather dull.



Even the Starling likes nuts! Often thought of as a pest and ugly, this Starling is a neat looking bird.



Clearly a immature Gold Finch



This Dove was out early Saturday morning in the cool of the day. It's feathers are puffed up and sat on top of the feeder for quite awhile. I would label this picture as "Guarding the Feeder".

The immature birds make it difficult to identify at times. These next four are of Northern Cardinals.






This is a Gold Finch that found the thistles.



Now are these sparrows? immature Grosebeaks? or maybe even Cow Birds?
Of course, the longer leaner pictures are really squirrels.

Pictures from the week of September 9-14

The three Humming Birds are still hanging around. They hang out a lot in the back yard, but occasionally head to the front yard. At least one of them might have mental problems as it keeps trying to get juice out of our purple plastic flowers. Here are a few more pictures from the back yard feeder. Since it is getting cooler, I don't know how long they will stay around.

While I was uploading these pictures, one of the Hummingbirds hovered outside my window moving to within a foot, nice view, but on the phone and no picture. I was a little afraid it was going to dive into the window.