Yard birds # 24 and # 25

A dilemna!  Two very cool yard birds, and I have no guarantee of seeing either of them regularly...so, for I think the third time ever, I am doing a collage.  On the left is a Song Sparrow and on the right a Cooper's Hawk.  I'm happy to report that the sparrow was not eaten during the taking of these photos.  However, the coop did fly directly over my head, close enough for me to hear it's wings and way too quickly for me to raise my camera.  I managed to get this shot (heavily cropped and heavily edited) when she landed in a tree, right against the backlighting that every one of us hates.

The eastern phoebe was around again today too, singing in the woods. Then, a male bluebird showed up with his mate and they spent a lot of time checking out Box # 1, while the chickadees were giving Box # 2 a thorough once-over.  I am hoping for a good breeding summer for the yard birds this year - fingers crossed.  I'm putting a rather poor shot of Mrs BB in Extra - you can see her standing on the box, while Mr is out of sight up in a tree, singing.  

It was another really lovely day, temps around 60, so I farted around did important things in the garden.  Well, really I didn't do that much - hauled some brush away, cut back a few shrubs and spread some very smelly organic fertilizer on all the flower beds.  Yuck, that stuff smells awful!  Then I discovered a lady beetle so I grabbed Beauregard because I knew he'd be very interested in taking her photo.  Interestingly, my miniature shot from yesterday has had over 7,000 views on Flickr.  

Hubs is over at the Man-cave working on the race cars - first race of the season is just about 6 weeks away, so work is reaching a fevered pitch.  Lots of manly things happening...

Happy Saturday, people.