Hello everyone! It is a bit cooler this morning than the last couple of days. In fact, the temperature has been dropping all morning. It started off at 46F (8C) but has dropped now to only 39F (4C) and there is a cold north wind today as well. I am a bit late today, it has been a busier than normal. The neighbor’s dog was here bright and early, about 6:30am, barking and growling.

I thought he must have cornered a bear on the deck, so I turned on the light and it was just the raccoon that comes around here at night. That raccoon is sure getting big and fat. Nearly all those juncos that showed up again yesterday afternoon have gone again. There is a couple out here today, plus one tree sparrow. Tree sparrows are the last of our sparrows to come in from the far north.

They usually do not stay around long before heading further south. They only go as far south as they need to in order to escape the snow. Smart birds. Juncos are the same. Another far north visitor has arrived too. There were a couple dozen Bohemian waxwings out here this morning. They were looking for a snack on the cherry tree next door.

There are not many left on that tree, and the ones that remain are quite small. A ruffed grouse showed up yesterday morning, quite early, and he was eating those berries too. I was able to get some nice pictures of it too, one I am showing today. It can be hard to focus on the bird when there are so many branches in the way. But they came out quite good anyway.

Manual focus is the best way to go in a situation like that. The auto focus feature usually wants to focus on the branches instead. Unfortunately, the manual focus can be slow, and birds do not often stay around long enough to use it. But this one cooperated nicely. I will show more photos of it soon. Even though these birds are common around here, it is still hard to get pictures of them.

They usually fly before I am close enough to get a decent picture of them. This one was too busy eating to pay attention to me I guess. Yesterday it was 65F (18C), an unbelievable temperature for us really. Then today it is 39F (4C), a big difference. It is still nice though, there is no snow on the ground. So I will not complain. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.