Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #236.
Good morning everyone and Happy Sunday! It’s cool and cloudy this morning and very quiet outside. There is a lot of white-throated sparrows around now, along with the purple finches. There is only a couple goldfinches left now, I guess the others have headed south already. There is quite a few chickadees around now too but they are having trouble getting to the feeders for food because of all the purple finches. I need to put up a feeder just for them, but will have to make it first, and make sure the squirrel can’t get at it. No gulls around this morning, they seem to be getting later all the time. Sir Henry didn’t even show up yesterday which is odd. The chipmunks are having fun picking up peanuts this morning without Jasper here. He must be sleeping late this morning, but I’m sure he will show up soon. Hmm, what do you know, I think Jasper has arrived.
So much for a quiet morning for the chipmunks. Jasper arrived as Pocket was getting his peanuts. The chase was on! Around the flower pots and Chester showed up and joined the chase behind Jasper. They all went through the peanut box, first Pocket, then Jasper, then Chester. Well, the first two went right through, Pocket went over the edge of the deck with Jasper right behind him. Chester stayed behind, picked up his 3 peanuts and went out the one door while Jasper came in the other door. Jasper never saw him. Then Lady Pearl and mate showed up for their breakfast. Lady Pearl came down first as usual and her mate came after she left, even with me standing out there, but I had to turn away from the feeder before he would come down. Guess he’s getting a bit braver.
Well, for our flower pics for today, we have a single variety of marigold, instead of the usual double varieties. That’s the pic at the top. Then we have these flowers above, but I have no idea of the name for them. But they have used them a lot in the town flower displays this year. I hope you have a wonderful Sunday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Daily Pics #235.
Good morning everyone! I seem to be getting later all the time. It’s due to technical difficulties. A term I use which means my health problems are worse than normal. Which is also why I’m a bit slow in answering comments these days. Sigh. Hopefully this will return to a more normal state soon. It was a quiet morning with the birds, Lady Pearl and mate were here, though he didn’t come down today. I’m not sure if I should keep calling him Sir George, or give him a new name. Speaking of gulls. On Wednesday evening I heard such a huge noise from the gulls that I had to go take a look. This was around 6:30pm. The sky was filled with gulls, I’m sure there were thousands of them flying around out there. I have seen this only one other time, several years ago.
There was a lot of immature gulls, babies from this year, plus the adults. Probably the first time the babies were out flying around far from the nesting sites. There was a mix of the herring and ring-billed gulls. The herring gulls were flying higher, but at times they were closer together so the size difference was noticeable. There is an estimated 10 to 15 thousand ring-billed gulls on the lake and around 5 to 10 thousand herring gulls. Also on Wednesday evening, after the gulls had gone, small flocks of nighthawks came along on their way south. There wasn’t many of them so the main migration must have been the night before. So that puts their migration just a little later than usual. And 9 times out of 10 that means a nice long fall and late winter. I hope they are right this year. Oddly enough there was no crazy chasing this morning. The chipmunks must have been watching Jasper closely and only showed up when Jasper wasn’t here. So it was a calm morning, sunny, warm, a good morning to be on the deck with my coffee.
Now the sun has disappeared behind the clouds, apparently we might get thunderstorms this morning. I decided to share some more pictures from along the river this morning. There are so many beautiful spots down there. I hope you will enjoy them. And I hope you will all have a beautiful weekend and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 