Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #134.
Good morning everyone! It’s a milder morning today and perhaps a bit of rain coming later today. Which is okay, we do need some rain, it’s getting dry, a little too dry. Though the wet parts of the path were just starting to dry up nicely, and that part is good. Now they will be wet again. Oh well. I’m sure they will dry up again as well. Everything is so late this year due to the cold spring. Even dandelions are just beginning to show up in a few places. They are basically the first flower to appear in spring, but they are about 2 weeks later than normal this year.
There are a lot of birds that are very late this year too. It has just been too cold for them to return. Only the hardier birds have returned from the south so far. There should be quite a rush once the weather finally warms up to normal again. Speaking of birds, the raccoons are around every night now so I have to remember to bring in the hanging bird feeders at night. Went to do that at 9 last night but the birds were still out there eating, so I had to wait a while longer. They stay until around 9:30 now and are back at 4:30am. However, I don’t put the feeders out that early. There is a limit after all. No earlier than 5am. By that time it’s getting quite noisy out there.
Time to share today’s pics of birds…
In the above pic is the double crested cormorant. I have such a hard time getting close enough to these birds for a good pic, this is the best so far.
And next is this brilliantly colored “common grackle” which were quite late showing up this spring. Some have blue heads like this one, others have purple heads.
There we have our pics for today. I hope you all have a wonderful day, stay safe and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Nature’s Art #44.
Hello once again everyone! It is certainly a nice sunny day and a bit warmer than it has been, even though the wind is still on the cool side, but not so strong today. I went for my walk to the river today, my first time in 3 days. It is just such a joy to be out there in nature enjoying all the beauty God has provided. It was quite calm when I first arrived at the river and sitting on the bench looking out across the water was just so nice. It didn’t last too long though and the wind began to blow once more making it just a bit too chilly to sit there. So I moved a bit further down the path, but due to the direction of the wind there just was no place to sit where it did not blow directly on me. So I decided on coming back and once in among the trees again I could no longer feel the wind so it was very pleasant indeed. And listening to all the little birds singing provided a wonderful calming effect. There were several little squirrels busy along the path in different places, looking for pine cones they had cut down from the trees. I didn’t see Scramble today though, he was probably further back from the path today.
And here are a couple pics from my walk to the river, true art in nature…
Above we have the simple beauty of a dried flower stalk left from last year.
Above we have sort of an abstract beauty of ripples on the water going in different directions. The river level has dropped about 2 feet (60cm) from last week. It’s at the level of summer, which is quite amazing, it should be much higher this time of year. But we didn’t have much snow this winter and little moisture this spring, so it is now very dry in the forest.
Kind of a water themed nature’s art this week, but there is a lot of beauty found along our rivers and lakes in this area. I hope you are all having a wonderful day, stay safe and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 