Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

He is the first colorful bird I've seen around the house in a couple of months.  No Cardinals, Blue Jays, Blue Birds, Finches of any kind have been seen.  We wonder if the drought in our area has them living elsewhere.

Happy New Year everyone!

Summer Tanager

Wow.  My blog is still here.  It's been how many weeks -- months since I was here last?  

Is anybody out there?

Had to post this guy.

Juvenile male Summer Tanager

He is getting his red/orange coloring, slowly but surely.

Hope I can spot him again from the kitchen window.

November Sunset

Sittin' pretty

Baby Tree Swallow
June 2014

October pool party

Four Blue Birds and several House Finches had a ball in the pool a couple of weeks ago.

Pokeweed review

My annual shots of the poke weed plant that comes up down at the garden.

I always remind my husband to leave one stalk because I think it's a looker.

These were taken one evening in late August just seconds apart and the only change was that I stepped to the west a couple feet and pointed the camera more to the south to get the garage out of the shot.  Just a couple of feet can change the lighting quite a bit.

Garden spider

An enormous garden spider at my in-laws' a couple of weeks ago.

Huge.

About two inches at least.

Two's company

Photo ops still few and far between, and mostly limited to the home grounds.

I'm grateful we have a good sized property and no neighbors to amuse with my squatting, bending, and sitting on the ground.

I did a little Googling and I'm calling these "blue-winged wasps".  They have a scientific name, but that's much to hard for my retired, keep-it-simple mind.  They feed on grubs and do not usually sting.

Sharing with:
Good Fences @ The*Run*Around*Ranch

On the lake

We took the boat out one evening while our son was home for a couple of weeks before he went back to campus. The temperature and humidity were not bad or this woman would have stayed at home. They didn't catch anything and there weren't many photo ops either. The wildlife was pretty scarce. Getting a sharp image in a bobbing boat is certainly a challenge, but I did manage to get a fairly decent shot of a heron of some kind.

Cluttered skies

We've had a lot of rain and high winds this spring in north Alabama.  The skies looked dramatic like this at some point each day for several days straight.  This week the clouds are back again and we've had a little more rain.
It does make for photo ops.

Having salad

Morning Strategy Meeting

"More, Dad, bring more!"

This last photo is a frame captured from the below video.

Tree Swallow feeding time

You'll get stepped on!

Baby Tree Swallow

I usually don't post multiple photos that are almost identical, but I couldn't choose which of his little faces was the best.  In fact, there are more to come.  Apparently, these parents became comfortable with us being around the nest, eggs, and now babies.  So, I've been out there multiple times . . .

Here is Mama watching me from the "Blue Bird" box several weeks ago.

See more of the parents in this post . . .

Waiting on instructions

Baby Robin

Blue Bird at the watering hole

Blue Bird

Tanager

I believe these are Summer Tanagers.

Notice the female on the same branch as the male in this last shot.

All of these photos are heavily cropped.

The Tanagers are all over the place at

Joe Wheeler State Park Golf Course

Rogersville, Alabama, U. S. A.

Things are a-buzzin'

Another pot of flowers that made it through single digit temps here in north Alabama.

Someone doesn't understand why he can't be outside.

And it could look like these last two were gawking at one another, but they were taken on different days.

The Cardinal shot is not in focus and normally would not make the cut, but . . .

 his expression . . .

All shapes and sizes

Rather, all colors and sizes.