Tiny Three-fer

If you know me, you know that spring is my very favorite time of the year.  Not only is it the season when all the summer birds return to our area to nest, but it is also the time that the invertebrates start to appear.  And every spring when our two weeping cherry trees start to bloom, pollinators show up in the droves, seemingly out of nowhere.  One of my favorite things is standing in the branches of the trees, listening to the steady buzz of bees all around me.  Yea, I know that may sound crazy to some of you.  And I'll be quick to tell you that my Hubs thinks I am absolutely nuts to put myself right in the middle of hundreds of bees...but I have never (knock wood) been stung.

Anywhooo...there were a boatload of very small honeybees in the trees today so I was standing a few feet away with my 300 mm lens, snapping pics.  In among the honeybees were bumble bees, miner bees, paper wasps and some small halictid species.  I had no idea that I'd captured a miner (lower right) and a halictid in this frame until I got it up on my Mac screen.  Happy days!

While taking photos, I was also being serenaded by the male bluebird who seems to have staked out our yard this spring.  He's shy and won't come down to the garden while I am out there, but he wasn't far off, singing his sweet melody.  House Finches were plucking blossoms off the cherry tree and eating them, as they do every spring.  Blackbirds were singing from the trees.  And the temps are up in the high 60's so it's perfect weather.

I've had Jax out to play in the yard several times today and Hubs and I will take him for a walk on the Lane before dinner tonight.  I also managed to get one front toenail clipped when he was sleeping on the sofa.  I am going to try to desensitize him to the clippers.  I made a game out of it today where I'd tap his foot with the clippers - he seemed to think it was a lot of fun and was dancing around with his tail going mile-a-minute.  If I can get him to the view the clippers as something benign, maybe I can get him to tolerate being clipped.  Or maybe I'm just delusional.  Hard to tell.

I went for some dark with cranberries today - let it just melt on my tongue so that I could savor the taste completely.  

Thanks to Sheol for hosting TinyTuesday this month!

xo
Debbi