Looney Tunes

While the days are starting to get warm, nights are still fairly chilly, so I keep the window open to cool things off. There's something so nice about the fresh air wafting through the room when I'm sleeping (except, of course, when the skunks walk by with their distinctive perfume). 

As a bonus to the (usually) fresh air, Piper and I have been awakened by the pre-dawn call of loons from across the bay. It's a perfect prelude to an early morning walk. 

We typically don't see them, since they're way on the other side of the water, but we occasionally get a glimpse when we're walking along one of the other nearby lakes, which is where these pictures were taken. 

Bald is Beautiful

These pictures were taken a couple weeks ago, when the trees were just beginning to put on their summertime finery. 

On the hillside behind my sister's house is a favorite perch for the eagles to survey their territory. 

When Piper and I take our early morning walks, we frequently see them gliding overhead, looking for hapless fish, squirrels or rabbits as they hunt for something to feed their youngsters. 

This handsome pair must have a nest nearby, since they are in the neighborhood almost every day. 

Now that the leaves are on the trees, it's impossible to get a good picture, since they're hidden by the foliage, but they can still see all the hunting possibilities. They do have the eagle eyes, after all! 

Oh, Deer!

Piper and I discovered this little sweetheart hidden in the grass very close to the road along which we were walking a couple mornings ago. 

It did an excellent job of staying put and hardly twitching a muscle, in spite of Piper's interest. I told Piper to leave it, took a quick picture and kept walking, so we wouldn't disturb it. I think I might need to lecture its mother about leaving her youngster quite so close to the road - there were much better places nearby to park the baby while she went to find her breakfast. 

Piper remembered where it had been and took me by the same spot the next morning. Needless to say, she was disappointed the interesting and unusual creature was no longer there. 

A Puzzling Solution...

Here's the original puzzle picture again, so you don't have to back up to the last post to see if you can find what's hidden in it. 

If you click on the image, it will enlarge and you can poke around the bigger version for a closer look. 

Fairly close to the middle, sitting on a little branch next to a clump of grass is this tiny little creature. 

It's about the size of a quarter, as you can see by the size of the grass blades behind it. I'm not sure why I even saw it, but something about seeing the that roundish shape on the long stick in my peripheral vision snagged my attention and made me look again. Isn't it a cutie? Piper wasn't sure what the big deal was, but she waited patiently while I knelt down on the trail and took some photos. 

A Puzzling Post

I haven't posted in quite a while. It's been a rough winter, but I'm hoping for a more promising spring and I'll try to be better about showing up to report on small adventures. :)

So, here's a little puzzle to start things off. 

Piper and I were walking in the wetlands and something caught my eye as we were going along our way. 

Can you see it? 

Mini Mystery

 
Well, darn! I have no idea why this didn't work the first time. That really was a mystery - I'll bet you really didn't expect a blank mystery post!!

I'll try again and see if I can actually get this silly little post posted. 

As you know, Baloo is never very far from my thoughts and I frequently smile at things that would have entertained or delighted him. That being the case, I saw something out in the middle of this grassy meadow about which Baloo would have been really excited and decided that I would take a couple pictures and share a little foolishness. 

You can click on the picture to enlarge it for a better chance at spotting the thrill.  I'm still using my brother's camera, so the pictures are less detailed than my old (dead) camera would have given us, but I'm doing my best. 

But!!! The excellent news is that the camera I wanted is finally available again and I ordered it just this morning. It should be here in a few days and I'm really excited.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm also blathering along and making extra paragraphs to keep you from seeing the answer before you've had a chance to try and solve the mystery. 

Okay, now I will just throw in a few asterisks to make sure the answer photo doesn't appear at the same time as the mystery photo. 

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Baloo loved these little squeakers. He'd hear their chirp of alarm and go into full alert mode. Or, he'd see that little, brown speck twitch out in the middle of a big field and immediately want to go investigate. He knew both of those things meant that thirteen-lined ground squirrels really needed to be harassed.

That's the solution to this mini mystery. Triply mini mystery -- a mystery about why it didn't post the first time (which is unlikely to be solved), a very small mini creature and mini because I didn't make you wait an extra day for the answer. 

The whole thing made me smile and I hope it gave you a bit of a grin, too. :-)

(Sadly, the stuff I wrote last night was much more clever than this retry, but there's nothing I can do about it now.)

 

 

Blushing Beauties

While some house finches stay through the winter, others are flying in from warmer climes for nesting season and they're enthusiastically joining the lineup at the bird feeders.

 

 

A few of them usually find a place to nest nearby and will visit the feeders all summer long, adding their cheerful color and voices to the back yard chorus.

 

Isn't he a handsome fellow?

Madam house finch is a little more shy, as well having a more muted wardrobe. She likes to keep to the lilac bush interior between visits to the feeding stations, but she's a cutie, too.