There’s nothing better than a bouquet of fresh flowers cut from your own garden. My BFF sent me this gorgeous vase for Christmas that I was very excited to use for the first time with this arrangement. I shot this in the late afternoon, the sunlight was bouncing off the neighbors window into our family room giving them a really cool shutter pattern.

Last night I looked over at them and they caught my eye, the light from the lamp making them glow, bringing out the femininity of the petals and they had a bit of a romantic mood.

I thought you might enjoy a few shots from my late night tulip admiration. I was experimenting a bit with my cameras shutter speed and aperture. Usually I just leave it on auto, but the lighting made me want to try for something a little different.

Ice Stick Tulip
Peach Gerbera Daisy

Curious Mourning Dove

First Red Tulip Bloom

(Shown for effect only. Photo quality sucks. So does the bug.)

 

I love migration. It’s nature’s way of confirming spring has arrived when you see flashes of color out of the corner of your eye and have this dude reeeeaching his little head waaaay over so he can have a peek at the lady with the camera:

American Goldfinch, Male

And this guy, who I see flitting around in his typical skittish way, never too sure of what to land on until he hits a finch sock – then you couldn’t pry him off if you wanted to:

House Finch, Male

All of the other interesting birds will arrive soon and only be here for a week or so. Eastern Towhees, Grosbeaks, Creepers and Wrens will stop by, then my tried and true birds will stay here for the summer. This fella caught my ear while I was outside the other day:

Chipping Sparrow, Male

He was just singing away up in a tree, I did an overlay so you can see what he looks like singing, too.

I thought you’d like this one, since I was talking about how to identify males and females and mentioned the female Red Bellied Woodpecker had been by – but I hadn’t snapped a photo of her yet. I managed to do that the other day. Of course her hubby is here quite a bit, so here’s a new pic of him with her in the corner so you can see how they differ in appearances side by side:

And last, but not least, a squirrel with no tail. I have no idea what happened to him, and honestly it makes me sad to think about it.

It appears to be growing back, though, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for this guy (and yes, he’s a guy, he turned around and stood up and my eyes about popped out of my head), hopefully we’ll see some growth over the summer. I wonder how he communicates without his tail? Anyone know anything about squirrel behavior or communication to know how he might adapt to this injury?

This is the happy couple that has decided to move into our birdhouse this year. I’m showing you this because I received a couple of interesting comments on Mr. Poofy Sparrow yesterday, and I thought you might find it interesting and useful to be able to identify male and female birdies. I know I am always a little annoyed when someone calls my pet (say, Dusty, for example) a “he”, because she is clearly a she, at least in my head. I like to know. I have to know. God forbid I have gender crises on behalf of my own critters or the birds I watch and enjoy!

In birdwatching, there’s one rule of thumb with identifying the gender of a bird.

The boys are always prettier.

I know. Not fair. Girls do all the work, but the boys get the good looks.

So in the photo above, the sparrow to the left has more striking markings and more vivid hues. He’s the boy. The girl is pretty too, in her own dull brown innocent way. Once you see two of them together, it’s very easy to identify their gender. We have couples who frequent our feeders – cardinals, house finches, goldfinches, red bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, sparrows, cowbirds and red winged blackbirds.

We also have mourning doves but I still have a hard time determining who’s who unless one poofs up and starts chasing the other one around in circles, the dirty little bird.

Sometimes, I wanna do exactly what this little house sparrow is doing.

Hunker down in a quiet place away from the wind and just go “poof”.

You know what I’m sayin’?

Hubby hung a birdhouse early last spring, it sat empty all year. It was a little sad, as we had hoped *somebirdy* would want to live there. Not a chance. It is pretty close to the tree and feeder, and we thought that might be the reason.

This year – it looks like we’ll have tenants! Chirp chirp! I’m excited, especially since I had a sad experience with some baby sparrows a couple of years back when we demolished our carport. (We found a nice lady who rescues wildlife and took the babies to her, last we heard a couple of them made it.)

Both mom and dad have been getting things ready in there, so we helped them out a bit by adding some nesting material in a suet feeder for them.

Meanwhile, I am also occupied. Of course. My schedule is jam packed and the spring weather and sunshine have gotten me back on my treadmill so my flabular thighs fit into my summer wardrobe. Speaking of which, I had better get movin’, shakin’ and jigglin’!

Happy Easter.The girls eggs are beautiful, I couldn’t resist sharing them, and the verse. A couple more eggs after the jump. Caution – one of the eggs is a little cracked.

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The perfect backdrop, Chickeymonkey’s Thumper jacket.
What’s not to love about blowin’ bubbles?
They’ll make you feel like a kid again.

Next time you’re at the store, pick up some bubbles,
and go blow.