A Very Good Weekend

Today is my birthday. I missed Dad and Mom and Phyllis terribly this morning, thinking of all the phone calls from them over the years. Mom and Dad always sang Happy Birthday together on the phone, them Mom would remind me of what time I was born. Dad would call me "Lynne-deree". Phyllis would call too and seriously sing her version which would always throw me into fits of laughter because Phyllis had a pretty awful voice.

She'd tell me

"Happy Birthday Lynne-binn".

My family is big on nick-names.

A few tears, but mostly smiles remembering.

I didn't work this weekend so we had planned to spend my birthday weekend up north at Hasty Brook but John got a last minute invite to spend Friday night with friends that he hadn't seen in a while and packing bedding and food for just one night seemed like too much effort to me so we stayed home. Saturday morning I got up early and read some blogs over my coffee and I saw that Ecobirder was going to be at Carpenter Nature Center on Saturday as a volunteer for the Raptor Center. They were going to have a raptor release and have various education birds on display. My sweet Art gassed up the car and drove me down there. One of my favorite education birds was this broad-winged hawk. I've seen them in flight before but never this kind of view.

This bird had just finished bathing.
They are quite a bit smaller than I had thought. It's hard to get an idea of size when they're in flight.
Is this not an exquisite face?

I saw so many birds and took zillions of pictures- enough for several posts. It was a wonderful gift from Art that he went along with me. He followed me patiently while my eyes sparkled taking in the sights of these fabulous birds.

He even carried my bag.

Thanks Art.