Twitchy Twelve

Adding to this year's yard bird visual list, a handsome male Northern Flicker (Yellow shafted) was hanging out, aerating the lawn this afternoon while Hubs and I sat on the patio.  Quick as a flash, I went into stealth mode and slithered out of my chair onto the patio, firing bursts as I went.  Flickers are birds of the woods here, although I do see them on the lawn and walkways sometimes, poking about for ants and other insects.  Unlike some other lucky folks, they never visit my feeders so I don't often get chances to photograph them.  Color me happy today.  I chose this image because you can see his identifying "moustache" and the bit of red on the back of his head.  Females lack the moustache, making it very easy distinguish between the sexes.

This morning I met up with three of my birder friends for a nice long walk at the wildlife refuge.  We enjoyed the day, even though it was a bit cool, and racked up 25 species.  The highlight for all of us was seeing several flocks of Rusty Blackbirds.  They are a species of concern in N. America as their numbers are declining.  We don't often see them since they don't breed here and tend to move around a lot in the winter.  One of the flocks we saw today was about 50 birds - very impressive.  They are easy to spot if you can see their eyes, which are bright yellow.  We also saw a pair of Eastern Phoebes (flycatchers) who were gleaning insects from a small group of white-tailed deer - something none of us had ever seen before.  So, a good day.

Photo of Rusty Blackbird in Extra - not a great shot but the best I got from the distance.

And now only two more days left until I go in for the biopsy - can't wait to get that behind me.  

I have been having a multitude of issues with Lightroom recently - wondering if anyone else is experiencing this.  My problem is mainly that it won't export - which is, of course, kind of a key issue.  But, it is also slow to open and gets hung up a lot.  I've tried uninstalling and re-installing, switching catalogs, rebooting, etc and nothing really seems to work.  It will export just fine several times and then inexplicably stop.  (Running on Windows 10)

Stay safe, be kind.  Maybe some dark choco with sea salt today?

xo
Debbi