Townsend's Warbler

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Bill and I hope that 2016 is a good one for all of you and for Blipfoto.  Today, 46 years ago, is when Bill and I met for the first time.  On a blind date.  We remember it well.  

A rare winter sighting of this little Townsend's Warbler.  They are around, I guess, in the winter, but are most often seen in the spring and the fall.  Look closely and you can see this one is just beginning to take off, and I caught him with his feet in the air.

I had a great day going to my aunt's and seeing my cousin Tami and meeting her husband and two girls.  She just interviewed for a new position at the University of Oregon.  They drove to Portland to see my aunt and me.  We had lunch out and I got to sit beside her husband who is from Hawaii.  He also is a teacher.  We discussed genealogy and Hawaii and I was about as happy as a pig in mud. And that's pretty darn happy!!  Even after living outside of Hawaii for many years, he still had that soft voiced cadence of a local Island boy, and I so enjoyed hearing him talk.  My cousin talked to my aunt and asked questions about the family on things that she didn't know about.  She is the half sister to our 'new' cousin that I'd found with the DNA this last summer.  It was a good visit.

And the weather was lovely - sort of. Blazing blue skies, bright winter sunshine but a strong cold wind coming out of the gorge and straight into Portland.  Brrrrrrrrr. 

See ya later!