Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #229.
Good morning everyone! It is sunny and cool this morning and it’s so nice and fresh out there. The trees are alive with birds, mostly purple finches as several families have now arrived. I wonder if they will stay around this winter like they did last winter. It’s unusual for them to do so, except for maybe one or two birds that decide to stay behind. So many of our summer birds have already gone now. All those pleasant songs heard every morning are now part of the past. Most of our warbler species have left us, heading slowly back to their wintering grounds in the tropics. Many others have also gone. But now we have our purple finches, goldfinches and chickadees in good numbers. So many in fact, the feeders can’t hold them all, so ‘discussions’ usually develop. But surprising, at times they can sit for a long time eating and getting along quite nicely.
This morning a blue jay picked up a peanut and the squirrel spotted him. The chase was on. The blue jay was having fun, he would wait on a branch until the squirrel almost arrived, then he would move up to a higher branch, until finally they were at the top of the tree and the blue jay flew off to another tree. The squirrel was left to sit at the top of the tree, chattering and stomping it’s feet. I call it the squirrel dance. He wasn’t too happy. Meanwhile, the chipmunks are down here hauling away all the peanuts. Finally the squirrel comes running down as fast as he could. But by the time he arrived, the peanuts were gone. Perhaps the chipmunks have hired the blue jays to help out.
I have shown close ups of the white pelican before, but it was an immature not quite at breeding age. This one in the pic above has the bump on the beak which shows it’s now of breeding age. The featured image at the top is a beautiful white rose.
Thank you all for stopping by, I hope you have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Daily Pics #228.
Good morning everyone! I hope your Saturday is off to a great start and that you can enjoy some relaxing time today! It is a beautiful, sunny morning again, but cooler. We did get a lot of rain overnight however, about 1.5 inches (35mm). That will certainly help a lot with the dry forests and hopefully put a stop to all these forest fires, though I don’t know right now if the worst fires received any of this rain. Up to yesterday the largest fire was 13,700 acres in size. But here it is now nice and wet, but not overly wet as the dry ground drank up that rain very quickly. That’s a good thing. But our summer temps are mainly gone now, though we might get a couple warmer days later in the week, not hot, but warmer. Today, even with sunshine it will only be 21C (70F). But it does smell so very fresh outside this morning.
And the birds are very active at the feeders. So are the chipmunks, and Jasper was here for a few trips as well. The poor chipmunks don’t realize it’s Jasper, not Rocky, since they look alike, so they run as soon as they see Jasper. However, Jasper is more concerned about getting peanuts than chasing chipmunks. I’m sure he would gladly make friends with them. Sir George and Sir Charles, my two gulls, showed up this morning, but the others were missing. Baxter and Betty, plus one of their babies were here this morning as well, plus 2 other blue jays that didn’t come down for peanuts. They looked like adults however so they must be ones that used to come before. Hopefully this means that all of my blue jays, and perhaps some new ones, will eventually be back again. They were gone a long time so it’s going to take awhile to get them friendly again. I need some new pictures of blue jays. I see Sir Henry just showed up, he’s looking in my door right now wanting his breakfast. Well, he’s now fed and happy!
In the featured image at the top of the page is a baby goldeneye duck just starting it’s dive underwater. And it was rewarded with a tiny minnow for it’s lunch. In the photo below is a female ruby throated hummingbird having her breakfast a couple days ago.
I hope you all have a most wonderful Saturday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 