Could they be any cuter?

mallard ducklings

Crest white strips?

This is Maggie, our friendly neighborhood golden lab. She has a great smile.

Not mine, of course

pretty...

Passing by

I'm not the only one who's enjoying this warm weather...

Flirting with danger

Look at them all dressed up in their summer finery. I think they were planning their trip home - I haven't seen a loon since I took these photos last week.





common loons

We've been coughing...

That floating gunk that he's swimming through is pollen - it's everywhere!

Extra large

I received this photo from my brother today - his three are a little larger than our pups, but just as cuddly.





Our pups leave a little more room on the sofa for me. On the other hand, I can't use them for pillows.

Welcome to Florida!

I took these photos when we drove to Florida a few weeks ago. This was our first stop just inside the Florida border. I haven't seen boat-tailed grackles since we left Florida last year. Haven't missed them too much.

Anticipation

Our pups on the right, cousin Kiel (long-haired dachshund) on the left - may we please have some of your snack???

Yum!

A little meat...





Then some Zick dough for dessert...





Why is that the little ones take the biggest pieces?

Double-decker squirrels

Beach art - Don Pedro Island

On our recent Florida vacation, my husband & I took a long, long, long walk on the beach at Don Pedro Island. Here's some of the "artwork" we saw along the way...

The journey is half the fun...

Mention the word "ride" around our pups & they practically fly into the car. It's amusing to me that they have no idea where they will end up - a three mile trip to the post office or 650 miles to Aunt Bev's in Florida - doesn't matter to them. Ahhh, life is good!

Florida scrub jay - close up!

After a couple of years of saying "we should go see the scrub jays", we finally did it. We were told that the place to see them was at Oscar Scherer State Park, near Sarasota Florida. So on the way to my sister's house on Don Pedro Island, we took a little detour. We asked the gate attendant where we could find some scrub jays. She told us to drive through to the last parking lot, then follow the yellow trail. She said we probably wouldn't have to walk very far down the trail to see some. That was an understatement. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we heard them and saw a few flying around. I took a few photos of them drinking from a small creek, then we headed down the trail.


The park's brochure said not to feed the wildlife, but it was obvious that not everyone obeyed that rule. These birds were downright tame! My husband held out his empty hand and 2 jays fluttered inches above it to see if he was offering any food.


Florida scrub jays are listed as a "threatened species", but it was obvious that they didn't "feel threatened" by us! This guy perched about 2 feet away from my camera lens and posed for me like a perfect little bird model...











Florida scrub jays

A new home for Allie

Our neighbors' Sheltie passsed away last summer. And from these dog lovers we've been hearing "we'll get another Sheltie someday, but we're not ready for another dog yet". So we were surprised to see a dog in the back of their car as they drove in their driveway last week. Check her out - definitely not a Sheltie! She's a sweet stray that had been hanging around their church for a couple of weeks. Now she has a great home. I love happy endings!

They'll probably return soon ...

I have a spare memory card for my camera which I rarely use. When I needed it recently, I found it was full of images taken last summer. Here's a sample -

A turkey vulture - for Lynne???

My BIGBY 2008 list is up to 37 species, but until yesterday, the turkey vulture was conspicuously absent from my list. Sure, I'd see them soaring while I was driving, but that doesn't count for BIGBY. Yesterday we finally saw some soaring while we were walking. Susan's post about vultures last week was for Lynne. Does Lynne like vultures? I didn't know that about her, but if so, this post is for her too!





I took this photo last summer - click to enlarge the photo & check out that hole in the top of his beak. I think I could hook my pup's leash to that!

Road trip

Driving up Rt. 95 through Virginia, this view always catches me by surprise. It's the National Museum of the Marine Corps, but it looks like the building tipped over.





We drove up to Washington DC to watch my husband's granddaughter play in a volleyball tournament. She's the pretty one with the long legs and long dark hair. Yes, I know, that describes the everyone on the team.





Here she is serving...





This is the closest they came to winning any of their games -





I took tons of photos of blurry motion which I won't post. Good thing she stood still for at least one photo with the team mascot.

Lunch!

Every morning our birds fly in for their daily ration of mealworms and Zick dough. This afternoon was clear & sunny - perfect for photos, so I put out a second serving to draw them in. The pine warblers and bluebirds always show up first.


Are those mealworms down there?





I thought so!





I love this one - it looks like I tossed a worm to him and he caught it...








As usual, the titmice and wrens were forced to wait until the bluebirds left.

Pine siskin

Our home was built in the 1960s as a summer lake house. It has a very high ceiling in the living room, lots of glass and apparently not much insulation. In an effort to keep the house a little warmer for the winter, we've covered our sliding glass doors with plastic - you know the kind they sell at Lowe's that you tape up, then shrink with a hair dryer until it's "crystal clear". Well, it's not crystal clear as you can tell by the cedar waxwing photos in my previous post.


For days I've been trying to take photos of the few pine siskins that hang out with the flocks of goldfinches at our feeders. For days, I've taken a lot of blurry photos through that layer of glass and plastic.


This morning I figured I was in luck. The door of our screen room had blown open and a pine siskin had flown inside and couldn't seem to find his way out. Camera! Time for some nice clear close up photos!


Hold still...





Hold still... (Click on the photo below to enlarge and you'll see he looks quite "ghostly" here with a transparent head.)





A little better...





Thank you!

What we've been missing...

Ten years ago we moved from upstate NY to North Carolina, but this is the first winter that we didn't head even farther south to Florida. We're really enjoying the winter here, and the wild birds love having us here to put out mealworms, Zick dough & sunflower seeds. Last week this little flock of cedar waxwings paid us a visit. Prior to this, I'd only seen waxwings at Cape May and my husband had never seen them.





Just 4 feet from our bubbling bird bath, they preferred to drink from a tiny puddle on our deck railing.








cedar waxwings

flames

Nothing better than a little fire on a cold night...





but it looks like somebody is in the fire - spooky!

BIGBYing 2008

Most Sundays I keep a tally of the birds that I see at our home and I enter the info in eBird. My rules for this count are that I must see or hear the birds while standing somewhere on our property (1 wooded acre & a dock on Lake Gaston).


For 2008 I'll be expanding my count territory as per the rules of BIGBY, Big Green Big Year - birding without creating carbon emissions. I first read about this on Laura Erickson's blog, then again on Delia's blog. I signed up for the self-propelled BIGBY, which allows the use of a bicycle or a canoe. I love the idea of this - so low-key - perfect for the gal who does most of her winter birding from the hot-tub on the deck. OK, maybe the hot tub is not so green, but in our defense, we keep the heat turned down in the winter & almost never run air-conditioning during our steamy North Carolina summers.

Lil Shirl - memories...

This is Lil Shirl, a baby northern flicker that we rescued from the beak of a crow a few years ago.





We had no way to get her back to her nest - a hole in a dead tree, 30 feet high. We nailed a box to the same tree and put her in it, hoping Mom & Dad would feed her. It didn't work. After a few hours of watching Mom and Dad fly in to feed her siblings, but ignore her, we brought her into our home.





I wasn't a licensed bird rehabber at the time (working on that now), but I do have a lot of experience hand feeding my own baby finches. And I do have an NC Wildlife permit to rehabilitate small mammals, so let's just pretend that she has fur instead of feathers, shall we?


She was easy to feed and grew like a weed. We cut down a couple of trees, brought them into our screen room, and she was right at home.





She would join us for dinner...





Hey, this stuff doesn't look half-bad!





A few weeks later, her siblings emerged from their nest and I decided it was time to set her free. Here she is, outside of the screen room, but not too anxious to go anywhere.





Finally she left my husband's sleeve, hopped to the ground, ate 100 ants in a matter of seconds and I knew she would be fine. We have lots of ants! She climbed a tree and flew away without a backward glance.





Oh, but she came back - again & again over the next month. She liked to hang out with us and she loved the mealworms that we fed her. She was a very sweet bird with very sharp claws!





Our screen room has a plexiglass roof. Here she is looking down through at us. Hey, where are my mealworms?








Northern flicker

Finch Friday

For the season...





society finches

A Christmas visitor

Mommy, I'm not really sure about this...maybe you should put down the camera and pick me up!

Tall hair

Savannah & Sage -





Hairstyles have sure changed since I was a teen...





Reminds me of Cindy Lou Who ...

During the non-Christmas season, we limit Pup2 to three toys at a time. So she really loves it when I bring out her sack of Christmas toys...





OK, I got it off the table...





Look at all this stuff!!!





I think there may be one more in here...





Yep...





I knew it!

Finch Friday

This is why they're called society finches - the more the merrier and the closer the better...





society finches

Passing through

Amazing that there are no collisions!









Canada geese