Flights of Fancy

Migrating birds are coming through and they gather along the beaches, resting and looking for food.  

It's hard to get close enough to the herons to get a decent picture. They're really shy - and they blend in so well with the beach grasses that they can be difficult to see.  Sometimes one will take flight before we've noticed it and there's suddenly a very large and beautiful surprise winging through the air.  

Then, there are flights of things that don't migrate quite so far.  This is a nest Baloo and I discovered on one of our forest rambles.  It was so pretty that it looked sort of like a large ornament hanging in the tree.  I think it has been abandoned for warmer quarters in the ground at this point, because some of the carefully worked architecture is beginning to unravel.  We had a swarm of yellow jackets completely take over a wren house in the yard.  I should have gotten pictures of that before the rain and wind took a toll.  It looks far too ragged to bother with at this stage.   

This picture was taken last year, but went unposted during my complete lapse in blogging activity.  Moving will do that to a person.  Anyway, my sister had a lost homing pigeon hanging out at their house for quite a while.  We think it may have been blown off course by a big storm we had.  She dubbed him Walter...