NEW BIRD FOR THE LIFE LIST
It's not very often we get a chance to see a bird that we have never seen before. As most avid birders do, Linda and I keep a "life list" of the birds we have seen. In the back of The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior (illustrated by David Allen Sibley), there is a Species Checklist. This is where we keep track of our birds. So this past weekend, I was able to mark another one off of our list.
This gorgeous bird is a Wood Duck. I had heard from one of my local birding groups that there were some of these ducks at the Terrace Heights Cemetery pond. Since I had been wanting to go back there to see the Trumpeter Swans again, we decided to go last Saturday. Upon walking up to the pond, I spotted him right away. I think he was hoping we had brought him something to eat (we didn't think about it) as he was swimming back and forth, back and forth, at a discreet distance. I saw a total of two male Wood Ducks at the pond. I am not sure if there were any females present because I really didn't know what they looked like, and anyway I was focusing my efforts on getting pictures of the male. He was absolutely stunning with his beautiful coloring. The red eye is very distinctive.
I took the picture above with the light falling behind him, making the water look like a mirror causing a nice reflection in the pond. The picture below shows him swimming across the pond. He had just taken a drink of water and you can see a drop falling from his beak.
Of course I had to get some video, and this little fellow was very willing to oblige me. The swans got into the act as well. I love it when they start vocalizing to each other!
The swans were also keeping their distance. The male swan seemed to be glaring at me across the pond.
I could have stayed there all morning watching them, but it was a bit cold and we needed to get moving to stay warm. We took a short walk around the cemetery but found that it was not quite as interesting as the Tahoma Cemetery because there are no headstones. All of the graves are marked with ground-level markers. However, we did stop to read a few of them. Whenever we do this, I am always reminded of the ancient Egyptian proverb, "To speak the name of the dead is to make them live again."
VALENTINE'S DAY & A SAD ANNIVERSARY
I hope that everyone had a nice Valentine's Day. I took my sweetie out to lunch at our favorite restaurant, WaterFire. Actually, we took each other out because I made the reservation but she paid, LOL!
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| Lunch Date |
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| Dad - very much missed |
After our lunch out, we came home to spend a lazy afternoon reading. Just as we were getting ourselves ready for drinkiepoo, our doorbell rang. Linda opened the door and there was a big box, a present from my sister, Manners, and her partner, Susan. We were absolutely delighted to find this inside...
OMG, I just cracked up when she started fluttering her wings! So cute! Susan told us that she found this at Walgreens and got one for herself, so she just had to get one for us, too! She said it brought her joy. We are all for anything that brings someone joy these days, and it is true...you can't look at this without a huge smile breaking out! It was a wonderful way to bring the perfect day to a close. By the way, we have named her Veronica Valentine (we have this habit of naming everything.)
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl was not very excited to be sharing her big bed with an intruder.
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| Is she ignoring her? |
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