Good morning everyone on this cool Wednesday! It is a good day to grab a coffee and enjoy the natural surroundings of my deck area. Actually, it is kind of cool to sit outside without a jacket this morning. Although I did it for a while, and no jacket. But it was cool in that wind.

The temp is only 61F (16C) this morning. We have not had a cool temp like that for over two weeks now. I even closed my windows for the first time in nearly 3 weeks, it was getting a bit cool in here. Muffin seemed to enjoy the cooler temp in here however, and she was really flying around this morning. We had 2 great playtimes this morning and she is now sleeping very soundly on my bed.

GPS digging for a peanut at the bottom of the cup which I hold between my knees.

I am back again. I just went outside for a few minutes because I saw a Yellow Warbler out in the walnut tree and I was hoping to get a photo of it. Unfortunately it flew away just as I went out on the deck. But I stayed there for a bit hoping it would come back. Oh well.

Red-osier Dogwood, a fairly common wild dogwood shrub in our area.

At least I know that it is around, so I will be watching more carefully for it again. I do not have a pic of a Yellow Warbler yet, so it would be fantastic to get one. As the name suggests, it is mostly a bright yellow, though kind of a greenish yellow on top and the male has rusty red streaks on its chest. But it looks basically yellow, except up close.

Warblers, we have several species here in summer, are some of our most colorful birds. But because they are small, like our goldfinches, they are hard to see. Mainly they stay hidden among trees and leaves, which makes it harder to get a photo of them. I do have a few, but would like to get more of them. Since I am not walking to the river, that makes it even harder to find these little birds.

Northern Paper Wasp on a leaf of that dogwood. The leaf is 1 1/2 inch wide where the wasp is sitting, which would make the wasp 1 1/4 inch long. More on this little critter another time.

But they do show up out here now and then. I just need to be a little faster getting out there with my camera. I think today might be a good day to repot some of my houseplants. Well, thank you for visiting, I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.