... Peanut Alert

Thanks so much for the lovely comments, hearts and stars on Scar the Chipmunk yesterday - you sent him zipping into the Spotlight much to our delight! By the way, he was back today and I got a shot of his backside so that you can see his scarred furry bottom. I had to give him extra seeds to get him to go along with this.

Today's shot - well, this is one very agitated blue jay, soundly scolding another jay that was about 30 feet away. Between the two of them, they made enough racket to be heard on another continent. I took this from inside the house, through my not-as-clean-as-I'd-like window so not as crisp as I'd like. But, I loved the way his crest was fully raised, not to mention his "I'm pissed off" body posture. Blue jays are in the corvid family, very smart and funny birds. This shot, btw, is SOOC and no cropping. A couple of other shots HERE and HERE.

For the last month, I've had a flock of purple finches visiting my feeders. This is somewhat unusual as last fall/winter and this summer, I never saw a single one of these finches. Maybe because there are less house finches this year? The purple finches can easily be mistaken for house finches since the males are also reddish and the females plane brown. However, they have more exaggerated markings and belly streaks, and the males are actually more of a raspberry color. Anyway, I posted a couple of pictures on Flikr - the male HERE and the female HERE.. And just for fun, here is a shot of a titmouse doing his blue jay imitation.

Spent about 3 hours outside clearing out some of the spent flowers from the beds, tidying up the vegetable garden, emptying herb pots, and other general fall garden chores. Lots of work, but quite enjoyable. The day is cool and overcast, perfect for a turtleneck and fleece.

Hoping your weekend was great!