Fantastical Friday #4.

Good morning and Happy Friday everyone! It is a beautiful, sunny, spring morning. Here I sit with my coffee and blueberry/maple cupcakes, enjoying the beauty out the window. It is a bit cool this morning, but there was no real frost at least. The neighbors roof was white with frost, but down here on my deck it was fine. That’s good. I don’t want to lose any more plants. Of my 5 dahlias I’m hoping to salvage 2 of them, I thought perhaps I could salvage all 5, but that’s not going to happen unfortunately. It’s so nice sitting here listening to the robin singing from his favorite tree.

A loon just flew overhead, laughing as he went, sounds so beautiful. If you have never heard a loon’s calls in real life, you are missing a real wilderness treat. Recordings are nice, but they are still not as good as actually hearing it. Definitely one of my favorite summer birds. Sir George was here for his breakfast, before 5 am. I need to start getting up earlier. Soon. But only for a little while. It’s something I like to do around my birthday, get up at 4 am, sit on the deck with my coffee and enjoy the early morning. Hmm, might have to make a slight change in that and just have the window open, instead of being on the deck.

Bert was back last night. Although it could have been a different bear too, I don’t think my eyes were completely open at 2:30 this morning. The blue jays are late this morning, they just arrived, how odd. The hairy woodpecker was here earlier and got his peanut breakfast. The breakfast crowd this morning were all here and gone within about 15 minutes, then all was quiet out there until the blue jays showed up, and they are gone already too. But, the hummingbirds were busy out there, seems everything is back to normal. The top hummingbird is once again chasing the others away from the feeder. But they keep coming back.

The female hummingbird was eating bugs off a spider web this morning. I knew they liked insects, but have never seen them picking insects off a spider web. Easy way to get them. I walked down to the river yesterday. It was so beautiful, not much wind, made for a nice walk. It was a bit cool sitting by the river though. But still nice to get back down there again. I have been trying to get a picture of a warbler, a difficult task, they are small and keep to taller trees or thick shrubs. But there was one, on a dead branch of a pine tree, right out in the open and low down. Couldn’t have been better. I got my camera focused and…suddenly a loud crashing through the bushes!

That got my attention since I was thinking it was a bear. Turned out to be a dog, a large dog of some kind, with it’s human coming slowly behind calling for the dog to stop. My bird…was gone. Now…I meet people on this trail about once in every 5 times I go to the river. The chances of this happening at just that precise moment are amazingly small. Yet it happened. I sat down with a big sigh. The dog stopped, growled a bit and her human came and quickly put a leash on her. “She’s a little unpredictable” he says. Um, then why is she running around loose? “She’s kind of wild and likes to run”. I’ll try to remember that so I can climb a tree next time I see her. Seems like it would be a good idea to keep her on a leash when using a public walking trail. But that’s just me. I hope you have a fantastic Friday and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.