Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #295.
Good morning everyone! Happy Monday as well! I know, I’m terrible for enjoying Mondays, but I just can’t help myself, every day is just such a blessing even if things don’t always go just right. And believe me, I know what that is like. A lot of times things just don’t go quite right for me. Of course, that could be somewhat my fault I suppose. No, that can’t be it. Oh well, might have to think about that one. Anyway, it’s a nice morning, not so cold, sun shining so beautifully and it’s supposed to get into the mid 40s (8C) today! And tomorrow up into the 50s (11C). All week it’s supposed to be nice actually. Perfect. I need some good weather to fix my bird feeder. Well, the whole set up out there needs to be changed really, and it will be, unless something happens to slow things down too much.
Today is preparation day, getting everything ready so tomorrow I can work quickly to get things changed without upsetting the birds too much. And with such nice weather there won’t likely be much bird activity at the feeders anyway. So that makes things a bit easier. However, with me easier doesn’t necessarily mean easy. But we don’t need to talk about that. I have the whole plan written down…in my head. I know that may not be the best place to keep it, might be hard to find under all that dust. But we’ll see. If I put it all down on paper I will likely lose the paper. And I don’t know how to draw plans on my laptop. Oh well. Muffin will be watching to make sure I do things right anyway. Oddly there seems to be less and less activity at the feeders these days, I hope that doesn’t keep up. It will be a dull winter if it does. Speaking of dull, I came up with a bright idea. Hey, it happens sometimes.
Anyway, all this week I will be showing some of my favorite pics from the summer. You might remember some of them since I did show some during the summer, but some will be new as well. It will just be a mix of different pics of birds, flowers, scenery, insects and whatever else I decide to put in there. And today we start with two water birds, the first in our featured image at the top is a male common merganser who appears to be looking up, but actually he is swallowing some water he just picked up. The second is one of my all time favorite birds, the common loon and he also is looking up. But his reason was a bald eagle flying overhead. Eagles are not a real threat to an adult loon but still the loons don’t take chances. I hope you all have a very wonderful Monday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Daily Pics #294.
Good morning everyone! Wow, did it get windy yesterday. But at least it isn’t bad this morning. It’s even a bit sunny today. It is a bit chilly though, 18F (-8C), but warmer weather is on the way. We got a bit of snow overnight as well, not very much though. It’s hard to tell how much we got really since it was so windy. And going out last night to get my bird feeders inside, wow, standing on that box and reaching way out there to get the feeders with that strong wind blowing at my back, I thought it was going to blow me right off the deck. I definitely need to make those changes out there this week. I really do. I’m sure that wind kept the birds away from the feeder yesterday, there was hardly any activity at all except for the blue jays and a few smaller birds. Even Theodore didn’t bother coming around, he probably stayed sheltered in the pines across the street along the path to the river. That’s probably where a lot of the little birds were hiding too. Can’t blame them, birds and other animals just don’t like wind.
Even Jasper stayed hidden somewhere until later afternoon when he finally braved that wind and came looking for some food. I spotted him on the feeder eating sunflower seeds so I went to the door with peanuts. As soon as he heard me at the door he came running over to me. I gave him the biggest peanut and he bounced away happy as could be. He ended up making a couple more trips and then he disappeared once more. Nothing keeps those blue jays away though. It was nice to get that extra hour of sleep last night. Usually I miss out because I stay up later since I have that extra hour and so I end up losing that extra hour, but not this year, I actually got that hour this time. Hmm, once in 10 years isn’t bad. Theodore just showed up for his breakfast, quite fluffed out from the cold. If he thinks this is cold then he’s in trouble. But even the blue jays were really fluffed out today, I didn’t think they would be. There’s still a few juncos out there, haven’t seen any sparrows though. Plus a few chickadees. But really, that’s not much activity for breakfast. Oh well.
For our flowers today we have some flowering shrubs to enjoy. The featured image is a cluster of flowers from the elderberry bush. There’s a few of these down the path to the river. The we have some chokecherry flowers, also from along the path. And last we have my favorite, lilac flowers. The first two are wild flowering shrubs, but the lilacs are garden variety. Have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
