..."Fat bottomed girl"

No, I am not disparaging the lovely goldfinch, but this picture made me think of that song by Queen. The female goldfinches, while not as brilliantly colored as their male counterparts, are still quite beautiful in their summer plumage, aren't they? This one posed for me as I was sitting on the patio late this afternoon.

I joined the local bird club on an Audubon nature walk this morning. Met at 8:30 and walked various trails around Kittatinny for FOUR hours!! Saw lots of new birds, several butterflies, a Luna Moth (sadly, it had apparently been caught in last night's frost and was dead), a large brown dragonfly (whose name I promptly forgot right after the guide told us) and lots of native plants and flowers. I opted not to take Big Daddy so did not even attempt to take any bird shots - they were just too far away for the 300 lens, so figured I'd just enjoy them instead. Some of the highlights for me were my first Gray and White Gnatcatcher, osprey (eating a fresh catch), barn and tree swallows in large numbers on one of the lakes, a pair of wood ducks, and some yellow rumped warblers. I think the official count on the walk from the experienced birders was about 35 birds. Audubon leads these walks at Kittatinny twice a month, so I will definitely do this again - lots of good conversation, lots of great information.

Was tuckered out when I got home, so took a nap, then just relaxed. Hubs is away at a big car race this weekend so I am going to curl up with a good book (the next in the Hunger Game series - yay!!) tonight. And, I also plan to catch up with blip activity tonight - I've been behind in commenting these last few days.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!