No photo available

There are 3 things that I wish I'd been able to photograph today:

• In the aviary this morning, one of my juvenile gouldian finches (only 3 months old) was feeding a young baby that had just fledged. I guess he remembered how it was to beg for food and not have mommy or daddy accomodate him right away. I've read about juvies who help raise the next clutch of babies, but I'd never seen it before.
  
• The mockingbird nestlings in a bush next to our church - I tried to photograph them, but I gave up because of problems with raindrops, my auto-focus not focusing on the babies, and the warnings from the nearby not-too-happy parents.
  
• The huge snake that was inside our house when we returned home today. No time to run for the camera, what with freaking out about how to get him out and trying to tell if he had been dining in my aviary (I was looking for finch-sized lumps in his long body). Well, he slithered out the same hole (presumably) that he had entered by, my husband (hero) filled the hole with gobs of caulk, and I took attendance in the aviary - all present. Now I really wish I had a photo of it for identification. I think it was a black rat snake, which according to the internet can grow to 8 feet. So, maybe my description of "huge" was slightly exaggerated. This snake was about 30 inches long and a little over an inch thick. If I had come in and seen an 8 foot snake in our house I would have been worried about our chihuahuas, not our finches, not to mention the fact that I would have never been able to sleep again.