Spotless!

Hard to believe that yesterday morning we had 5 inches of snow and more falling ... and today the temps hit 53 F and I saw my first TWO ladybirds of the season!

It was a frosty 28 F this morning when I met up with the Audubon group for our first of a series of 6 spring walks. It was great fun to see everyone again after the long winter (or last walk was in November, to catch the late migrants). We walked about 5 miles on snowy trails and saw loads of ring-necked ducks, some hooded mergansers, pied grebes, wood ducks, black ducks and the ubiquituous mallards and Canada geese. We even flushed a great blue heron! Shocked us all to see one as they usually move further south in the winter when all of our lakes freeze. They don't truly migrate though, so this one probably one went as far as the first open body of water before returning to his regular fishing grounds.

This afternoon was time to go see our tax guy to drop off all of our papers for the taxes - our personal taxes and both businesses. Big yuck. But it was quick and then we were back home to putter around. Much of yesterday's snow has already melted so I raked a bit in the garden and just puttered.

Saw this spotless ladybird (and a spotted one also) and tried out my brand new (arrived today) Tiffen close up filters! Fun to play around with macro again. I'm using the 28-300 Nikon lens and with the filters I can get within inches of the subject. Of course, the focus sweet spot is small, but this was okay for a first go around. This one is sitting on my daffodil shoots, by the way --- they are all avobe ground and looking healthy!

A bit of lima bean, collard and ham stew tonight and maybe something red ... Then a movie, then sleep. I am tuckered out from the long walk this morning and looking forward to putting my feet up and vegging. And catching up with all of you!

Thanks for sending yesterday's juncos to the spotlight - and for those of you who took time to look at the shots in Flickr, an extra big thanks!

Happy Saturday!

Debbi