Home and Hasty

A quick Sunday morning post here. Yesterday was a gorgeous day here in Minnesota. Sunshine, and breezy. Except when it was gusty and raining. A little bit of everything ! Art and I spent most of the day outside watching Molly play her opening day softball games. I so enjoy watching girl's softball. We keep lawn chairs in the car all summer. We bring along jug of water or iced tea and a bag of "spitters" (sunflower seeds) and we're good to go. I always bring binoculars and a camera too.

Art is leaving this afternoon for a week in Nashville to get his A and P. He's been working on the testing to get his Airframe and Powerplant FAA license for the last two years. When he's finished he'll be certified to be a aircraft mechanic. He's been an actuary since I've known him but was a helicopter crew chief years ago in the Army and working toward his A&P is something he's always wanted to do. Because of all of the losses in my family this last year he's postponed this final step in the training until now. I'm so proud of him. GO ART!!

I have just a few thing to share from this last week before I forget about them.

I liked this picture of a Blackpoll Warbler twisting around to investigate the tip of an oak branch.

Hey lady! Can you spell Welch's?

A Lincoln's Sparrow has been hanging around under me back yard feeders all week.

A pretty Nashville Warbler spent the morning in my plum tree yesterday. He carefully examined the blossoms looking for insects. He seemed to be licking the centers. Do they eat nectar too or was he just getting bugs that way?

I drove up to Hasty Brook on Friday by myself for a day alone. The bear took my feeders apart from two weeks ago when Art and I went. Three of them were repairable and the rest were smashed. He bent the shepherd's hook feeder poles right over at the ground level. I straightened them and filled two feeders just for the day and took them down when I left. I don't think I want to encourage bears to make our campsite a regular stop on their shopping trips. The Black and White Warblers were singing up a storm. They nest up there and sing all summer.

Yellow-rumped Warblers were everywhere. My favorite bird watching spot up there is a place where you can look down about 25 feet to the creek level. It leaves me able to scan easily near the tree tops and also to see the woods floor from above, at least until the undergrowth leafs out. The butter-butts were zipping through the trees along the creek fast and furious, almost enough to make my eyes wiggle.

It was from my birding spot that I spied this Northern Waterthrush. Thomas pointed one out to me last week at Eagle Lake (that was a life bird for me) but I was thrilled to find and photograph this one on my own. This bird walked so slowly and was able to slip along on top of the submerged grasses and twigs so that it seemed it was walking on water. I watched this bird for a long time until he slipped from my sight.