Early August 2020

I have been having fun bird watching and taking photos. It can also be a lot of fun organizing them and creating a story line for the blog. There is a fair amount going on in the yard, three bird baths, feeders, flowers, berries, bushes and trees. The diversity of what we can see is pretty remarkable.

Bird Baths

Momma having a drink
Babies

The baths have been very popular and it can be problematic to keep them full.

In Demand
Robin
Juvenile Orchard Oriole
Splish, Splash taking a Bath
Blue Jay

Bird Watching

Carolina Wren
Carolina Wren
Crow
Crow Feeding

It was a surprise to me, but in the bright light of full sunlight, the crows are not entirely black. These crows seem to have brown heads. This seems unusual to me.

Downy Woodpecker
For size reference
Mourning Dove
Great Blue Heron

I saw this eagle. It was all brown and it looked bigger than the eagles I am used to seeing.

Brown Eagle
Bald Eagle
Comparison

It could be either a juvenile bald eagle (first year) or a transient golden eagle. I wish I had made an effort to identify it better, but at this point I don’t think it will be possible to make a firm identification.

Little Brown Bird

Adnaw (Hummingbird Moth)

I was intrigued by the hummingbird moth and decided to try to get some better pictures of it. Here is a short video of Adnaw and you can gain some understanding of the difficulties I am having trouble getting decent pictures of the moth. (You know you have a problem when you name your bugs.)

The problem is that the moth never sits still, it is always flying. That means I need to get a picture on the fly. This is much harder than static pictures.

Hummingbird

To do this right, I would need to upgrade my camera system to a mirrorless camera with a much faster lens. I could probably squeak by for around five grand. However, you don’t fight the war with the army you want, you fight with the army you have. Tactics not strategy ………….

Adnaw
Adnaw
Adnaw
Adnaw
Adnaw
Adnaw

Bugs

It is a slippery slope, while out there trying to photograph a difficult bug, why not take some easy pictures. This opens a whole new can of worms.

Bumblebee
Bumble
Wasp
Hornet
Bumble

Mammals

Sharing
Chipmunk
SQRL
SQRL found my magic mushrooms

Bengi

Bengi got another new toy.

Protecting the House
Verdi

Fun with Food

We restocked the larder from the farmers market:

We got some more breakfast sausage and saved some sweet potato fries to reprise last blog’s epic failure. This time we crisped the fries before baking. The sweet potato fries were a nice touch. All I can say is that this was an improvement over the first try.

Benji is a Big Help
Plain or Sugared Donut?
Why not both?
Breakfast

We had another anniversary and created a feast to celebrate. Usually we go out for a speshul meal at a restaurant but decided this year to try Chez Moeller. It was barely adequate…….

What happens when nobody feels like cooking on Friday? Pizza! We got pizza for our mini BYOB celebration. This is our small effort toward keeping Moody Point traditions alive.

Lunch

All in all, it has been a fairly entertaining week.

We are all healthy and getting tired of the self isolation. It is distressing that we as a nation don’t have the will to deal with this properly resulting in an extended self isolation.

Hope you all are well and maybe the blog brought a smile to a few faces.

Mark, Wink and Meg

This Blog is Approved by Benji

3 thoughts on “Early August 2020”

  1. Happy Anniversary! And yes…it is distressing that as a nation we haven’t figured out how to do this right. Isolation is tiring but better than sick or worse. And on another note, can’t wait to see what you do with bugs 🙂
    Love the SQRL video.

  2. I sure am glad that YOU spent all that $ for the super cool camera! The pictures it takes are great. Also, do all bird baths get that much action? If so, I might be getting one!

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