...Meet Fuzzy-Face

This is some sort of skipper, I think either a Peck's or a Zabulon (but I could be totally wrong). Anyway, as you can see, it's very small about the size of a US penny. I used the 4x close up filter on this and then cropped it. I liked the view of the tongue (yea, I know that's not the technical name...) and the eyes and, of course, the fuzzy face.

It was actually a pretty eventful day ... bumble bees, hummingbirds, blue jays, woodpeckers, flycatchers, catbirds, rain drops and a few other things. I made a slide show on Flickr which should be very easy to view. And as a bonus, I included a fisheye shot of part of our deck, aka the Bird Sanctuary. You can see in it how close to the woods we are, hence all the wild critters. Click HERE for slideshow

My attempt to eradicate the yellow jacket wasp nest last night was unsuccessful. I put on a heavy coat, buttoned to the neck, gloves, hat, chiffon scarf over face, boots and ventured out after sun down, armed with a can of wasp nest killer (all botanical.) I can't swear to it, but I think I heard laughter coming out of the nest as I sprayed and screamed. And this morning when I went out, I am quite certain that one of them flew out and flipped me off. But guess who had the last laugh??? Yes, ME!!! I called my friend Jim the Exterminator who came right over and dispensed with the nest. He used stuff that won't hurt the honeybees, butterflies or chipmunks but will exterminate the wasps. A few coughs were heard, then silence. I usually don't like killing anything, but those yellow jackets are so damned aggressive that I just didn't want to have them in my garden. They tend to attack in groups, so getting stung can be dangerous, especially if you have any sort of allergy. Not worth it. While he was here, he treated an outbreak we had of carpenter ants in the patio retaining wall, too. And he put down some bird and chipmunk friendly slug bait.

I am off bright and early tomorrow morning to head into NYC for a follow up doc's appointment at NYU. Then, I'll head over to my friend, Kura's place on W. 48th where a night food and beverage will ensue... No telling what or when I'll blip tomorrow. May even be a iPhone blip.

Oh, and speaking of iphones ... I ordered the olliclip (I think) attachment for mine that has a fisheye, macro and wide angle lens for the camrera. Sounds silly I suppose, but that phone takes better pictures than my old point and shoot cameras! I fiddled with the macro lens a bit today - fun!

Thanks for sending my little wren to the Spotlight page today! I checked with a friend of mine who's an expert birder and he believes the two are immature birds, rather than molting adults. He said that the adults have a more gradual molt and would not look quite so scruffy as the youngsters look. It also explains why the song sounded somewhat different since the young don't learn the songs right away.

Okay, off to contemplate dinner. Hubs is out of town, so it will be something fast and easy for me tonight - maybe some eggs with sliced tomato salad...

Happy Tuesday, blippers!