Left Overs

Well, I don't think it's going to my 8 year old son Andrew's head, but the "guest appearance" post of his pictures had more hits than any of mine. :)  He was quite pleased with the post and Facebook comments and emails he got.  I'm happy for him.  He got that sheepish, shy, trying to hold it back grin some will know of him.

I have a few pictures left over from after my previous CBC count post which I never put on the blog yet.

The first and only bird we saw of the elusive, late staying warblers was the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.  As you can tell from this picture, this little bird does not stay still.  Here it is just about to drop off to somewhere below.  I had to check once to see that the picture editing software hadn't missed a picture rotation, but it hadn't.

Blue-gray Gnatcather

 This is the closest I've gotten to these cute little ducks.  I finally had some nice lighting and was able to capture some of the iridescence of the feathers on it's head.

Male Bufflehead

Common (to us) but still beautiful Male Mallard.

I really don't know what this female Red-breasted Merganser was going to do with, what I think is a perch.  It was struggling with it for a while.  Between constantly re-arranging it in it's bill, and repeatedly losing its grip only to recapture it after a short chase, we had to give up on seeing the meal go down and moved on.

female Red-breasted Merganser with fish.

On our way home we quickly stopped along York Road as we saw a Bald Eagle in the sky slowly circling over towards us from the north.  It was very high up, and this is more of a "wishing shot" (you know... taking the picture knowing it's really too far away, but taking it anyways) than of any pleasure to you or me after the fact.  This is even a cropped picture.

Bald Eagle

Not much has happened since my post on the Orange-crowned Warbler as I haven't been able to get out.  Work has been very busy so no lunch outings, and the home front is VERY busy as Holly is expecting our 5th and suffers morning, afternoon, evening, and night-sickness for all of her pregnancies.  Things do approach a manageable level towards the due date, but for now she's not capable of much else than overcoming the impulse to deliver (her stomach contents, not the baby) to the sink her latest attempt to keep food down.  We'll just say that both her and I are both eagerly awaiting Aug 10 (or earlier would be fine if that's in the Lord's plans!)

We'll see how long it is till the next post.  Till then, don't hold your breath. :)