Tag Archives: cardinals

Ordinary Birds

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A House Finch at the bird bath.

I saw Red and Mrs. over the weekend. Plus, an intruder, another male Cardinal. There was a chase between the two bright red birds and it didn’t look friendly. Mrs. was on the fence sitting between her Mourning Dove friends watching the show. The Cardinals dashed around and flew out of the yard. Mrs. flew away, too and I haven’t seen a Cardinal since.

I haven’t been taking many photos, because I only have “ordinary birds” in my yard. But yesterday I sat outside and watched them and decided they are all beautiful in their own way. That reminds me of a song that I posted below.

A Sparrow in the Fire Stick plant.

Mrs. Gambel Quail with her spouse.

A Mourning Dove sat on a branch floating in the air.

A Gila Woodpecker took over the Bird Buddy AI feeder. The blur on the left hand side is saguaro cactus spines.

Mourning Doves on the fence.

Quail playing King of the Mountain, or king of the rock!

I hope you enjoy my backyard “Ordinary Birds.”

Here’s the Grammy Award-winning song by Ray Stevens from 1970. I don’t think this song would be produced today with the opening of children singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”

I have one more week of recovery and then my post op appointment. I’m not in pain, but am unusually tired! I guess that is to be expected.

What’s on your calendar this week?

Do you have any favorites of the ordinary birds?

What birds do you view as ordinary where you live?

Travel Day

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A photo I took of Red on his flamingo buddy the day before we left.

Travel day turned out to be uneventful, thankfully. There wasn’t a single delay or cancelled flight on the boards when we arrived. We got through TSA in a snap. Waffles was a trooper and besides finding the one stray M&M under a seat in the airport, he was well behaved.

After asking my husband repeatedly if he had packed his swimming trunks, when I unpacked at the hotel, I realized that I had forgotten my swim suit. The hotel has an amazing spa with a steam room, jacuzzi and pool. I was looking forward to daily lap swimming and enjoying the luxury of soaking in their various tubs and using the steam room and sauna.

Where I sat outside with Waffles waiting for a friend of my daughter’s to pick him up for a week. This was outside the hotel with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. My daughter needs one more week to heal from her shoulder surgery before she can take care of Waffles the pug.

Sunrise view from our bedroom at home before we left for the airport.

Ginger snaps and chocolate chunk cookies my son baked for us the day before his surgery.

I lost a lot of sleep over travel worries and worry about my son. Although he’s in a lot of pain post surgery, the doctor said it went well.

What relaxes me

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I made an executive decision over the weekend that was difficult for me. It made my stomach hurt a wee bit, but I’m glad I did it. I decided to retire as our HOA newsletter editor after four years. I have a partner that works with me to create the newsletter and she also agreed with me. I am missing the joy and sense of accomplishment I once had. I wrote a resignation letter for the two of us and I’m waiting to hear back from the Board.

I found that photography is relaxing and rewarding to me. I enjoy taking my nature photos. I enjoy exploring Adobe Bridge and Photoshop and tinkering with the pictures to make them a bit better. I have decided to enroll in my second art workshop for DSLR photography beginning in January. This is becoming a lifestyle more than taking a random class.

Mourning Dove on our fence.

I also want to get back to writing and working on my several WIPs. If I get too busy with things I have to do, I don’t get in the time to write and edit.

Red is fortunately a constant in my backyard. I’m enjoying taking his photo along with Mrs. and various other creatures and plants.

Mrs. in a setting of purple flowers.

Agave with sharp red tips.

The same plant from a distance.

I never get tired of watching the squirrels.

Have you made any difficult decisions lately? When you are faced with a decision, how do you go about deciding what to do?

Sea Glass, Flora and Fauna Photos

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I was surprised to get an email Tuesday that I needed to submit my Sea Glass Work In Progress for Thursday night’s photography class. After traveling to Northern California to help my kids, I hadn’t had a thought about photography in more than 10 days. Before I left town, I sent a few photos to my professor that I took with my Macro lens and asked him for suggestions. He pointed out that I needed to adjust a setting for “exposure compensation” to zero. It was set at -.7 and my photos were too dark.

So, Tuesday and Wednesday with my camera adjusted, I set out to take more sea glass photos. I also looked through my scanned images of kids and beach photos. Finally I settled on some and sent in my WIP. As I’m writing this, I haven’t had my Thursday night class yet, so I’m not sure what my feedback from the professor and students will be. It’s more than a little nerve wracking.

Here are photos I’ve taken this week since coming home:

Bougainvillea blossom from a new plant. The last plant was eaten at the roots by a raccoon, skunk or javelina.

A house sparrow at the bird bath. The little birds like the bird bath, rarely do the bigger birds use it.

Someone in Laguna decorated this city structure with shells and sea glass. This was an old photo I scanned from our summers in Laguna Beach.

Another sea glass photo from this week.

I identified this pretty shrub with blue flowers as “Imperial Blue.”

Red on his flamingo buddy.

Mrs. gets a turn.

Three more photos of Red, just because:

Happy Friday and weekend!

Which photos do you like best?

What plans do you have for Saturday and Sunday?

Birds Plus More Surgeries

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I was so excited to capture this photo of Red taking off the Ocotillo!

I’m going to the Bay Area to take care of my daughter post shoulder surgery. She has a repetitive use injury from swimming from kindergarten through college. Her practices in college added up to 12,000 yards of swimming per day.

I’ve been especially nervous and haven’t been sleeping well. There’s a back story to that, besides the anxiety and worry. (Ever since our last thunder and lightning storm our house alarm has been going of at 3 a.m. Now that I figured out how to get it to stop, my body is programmed to get up at 3 a.m.) Once awake, I worry about my upcoming trip and my daughter.

Mrs. giving a side-eye to another bird at the birdseed block.

I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon to take a last look at my ankle. I discussed my other foot with the doctor. My first visit to her was about the left foot, but she discovered my “sprain” was a break in the right ankle — and I was scheduled for emergency surgery.

Now we’re back to the original issue and I’ll have surgery after taking care of my daughter!

Here are more photos from my backyard buddies:

Gila woodpecker taking a turn on a flamingo.

I learned my chipmunks are really Harris Antelope Squirrels! Who knew?

Red’s turn on the flamingo.

The Beavertail sculpture is another favorite perch for Mrs.

This father quail keeps watch over his flock from the tree.

Red ignoring both flamingos and other backyard birds.

I’m afraid I’m at that age where my future will be lots of doctor visits. Hopefully no more surgeries.

Which photos do you like?

How is your week going?

Seeing Red

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Now that I’ve been home for a few weeks, I’ve been enjoying photographing my backyard birds. I find it relaxing as well as rewarding. Red and Mrs. stop by several times every day. I think I have another male cardinal, too. At first I thought it was Red, but this guy is a little chunkier and has a dark gray spot on his beak.

How can I be sure if there’s another male, because Red and the other guy are never in the backyard at the same time. Last spring, I saw two red Cardinals chasing each other, flying at full speed over our house. That’s the only time I saw two males together.

This one is definitely Red. See there’s not a gray mark on his beak. The photo below is the imposter Red. Or, it might be Red with a bruised beak. My first few days home, I took photos of this guy, thinking it was my Red.

Here’s Mrs. on a planter at the edge of our fence.

I was pleasantly surprised with this finch photo because of the sharp detail on the barrel cactus.

The birds love their perch on a flamingo.

Here’s a view looking out the casita window with my telephoto lens set at 80mm instead of 400mm I use for closeups of critters.

I haven’t seen the cardinal with the gray spot on his beak lately. So that brings the questions of the day:

Do you think I had an imposter Red? Or, did Red bruise his beak and now it’s healed?

What’s your opinion and why?

JoyRoses13 from Nuggets of Gold wrote a fun story on her blog using my photos and another photographer’s. You can read it HERE.

A big storm and then the light

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We had a huge thunder and lightening storm with tons of rain. My phone called it “severe” and said to stay inside. It started Thursday in the middle of the night. The thunder was as loud as we’ve heard. I was sure our house had been hit. The house lit up with lightening every few seconds. We lost a lot of sleep as the storm stayed right overhead and didn’t go away. We continued with downpours the next day until the afternoon.

But with the sun peeking through the clouds, I saw the trees sparkling with raindrops that looked like diamonds (photo above.)

There was so much rain that our sunken pool bar flooded. There’s a grate over a drain under the table but the ground was so soaked it took more than a day to drain.

Below is a video of the rainstorm with thunder in the background. You can see how I flinched at the beginning when a loud crack of thunder hit.

Once the storm left us, the backyard got back to normal.

Mrs. in the tree a few branches away from Red.

I wonder where Red and Mrs. were hiding during the storm?

Is your weather changing for Fall? Or do you still have Summer weather?