Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Fantastical Friday! #26
Good morning everyone! And how are you today? It’s cloudy and foggy this morning, but it is mild with a temp of 41F (5C). The clouds are supposed to move away this morning and allow the sun to shine through for the day. That will certainly be nice to see the sunshine again. And it will be warm enough then to finish sealing my one window before the cold weather hits us. The blue jays are very busy this morning, eating everything in sight. The rock doves are gathering on the nearby hydro wires, waiting for the whole flock of 33 to get together so they can come and overwhelm my feeders again.
The chickadees and nuthatches are trying hard to get in there for their share of the seeds too. Actually, they do okay since the other birds stay with the bigger feeders and leave the smaller feeders to the little birds. So it works out good for all of them. A couple more juncos have shown up, but hopefully they leave soon before snow arrives and traps them again this year, like it did last year. Only one evening grosbeak, a male, has been here this morning.
Yesterday it was a female. But there were lots of the grosbeaks by late morning, though not as many as there has been. Perhaps those rock doves are scaring them away. I hope not. The purple finches were here yesterday as well, there were 9 females and 3 males. I haven’t seen any yet this morning. I’m hoping they decide to spend the winter here, that would sure be nice. The fog seems to be disappearing now and the temperature has dropped a bit.
Theodore was walking around the neighbors yard this morning, but she never came over here, at least not yet, perhaps later. A male downy woodpecker was just here, well, 3 times, and he went to my odd feeder I made for the chickadees and nuthatches. He’s not much bigger than those birds so he can easily use it too. I hope he keeps coming, maybe I can get a picture of him at that feeder. That would be interesting. Hmm, there are a lot of evening grosbeaks here now, filling the feeders. It’s a wonderful morning, a fantastical Friday! I hope you all have a fabulous day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve And Muffin’s Weekly Art In Nature. #10
Hi everyone! Welcome back to our weekly Art In Nature series! It’s been a wet couple of days here and that always makes me think of mushrooms. It seems they really like to pop out when it’s wet and a bit cooler, except for some species which like it wet and warm. They all seem to like it on the wet side and on the shady side. At least up here they do anyway, maybe it’s different in other places.
And I do enjoy photographing them from underneath, which you can see from today’s selection once again. It is tricky though and impossible with some of the smaller mushrooms or ones with short stems. And I don’t like to pick them, like wildflowers I prefer to leave them for others to see. I have noticed that some people like to kick them or stomp on them, but so many of them are quite beautiful and they are a wonderful part of a healthy forest by helping to break down plant “clutter” on the forest floor to make it usable for plants and trees.
Some mushrooms are toxic and can be deadly so it’s best not to eat wild mushrooms unless you are absolutely sure they are safe to eat. Some highly toxic mushrooms are nearly identical to mushrooms that are safe to eat. With those it’s best to ignore them altogether. But mushrooms are fantastic to photograph. Have a great day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
