Carpe(nter) Diem

This was kind of a last minute blip decision. I was going to blip another set of dueling goldfinches but then decided on the bee instead. Figured I'd give you a break from the birds today.

This is an Eastern Carpenter Bee, pretty much harmless to humans, but big and very buzzy. This one seemed to be guarding a section of our deck today, where I have the hyachinth and pansy pots. He would hover about 2 feet from me, seemingly daring me to raid the nectar source (as if!) At one point, another bee ventured into the zone, and a pretty cool bee-chase ensued. Very noisy and quite impressive. And no way in hell to capture a shot, at least not for me. Some moments are just meant to be enjoyed.

I saw some interesting behavior with the chickadees today - I saw an adult (presumable female) fluttering her wings and begging from her partner. I've never seen that with the chickadees, so I quickly ran to the the computer to see what I could find out - turns out that sometimes the female will beg from her partner, especially if she's got eggs or young in the nest. There are at least two pairs of chickadees who seem to be nesting in the area so I wonder if maybe this pair is further along than my nestbox pair. Things in the nestbox had pretty much come to a standstill this week and I actually wondered if maybe the pair had abandoned the nest (no eggs in it). But today there was a flurry of activity at the box, so I'm just not sure what to think. I won't check it for a few days as I don't want to run the risk of spooking them before they start laying. I feel like a nervous mom.

Thank you very much for the wonderful comments, stars and hearts on my true-blue jays yesterday. I think that will go down as one of my personal favorite shots, just because it's not something I've seen very often. Glad you liked it too.

Hubs is about 5 1/2 hours into the 12-hour race now. They have 3 drivers for the race, so each of them goes out for about 90 minutes at a time, then back for fuel and a driver change. I talked to him a while ago it it sounds like they are having fun. The car had some problems in the first hour, so they had to bring it into the pit for repairs, losing about 40 minutes in the race. Which sounds like a deal-breaker, but it's such a long race that it may not hurt them all that much. They will finish the race at midnight and then it will take another hour or so to pack everything up in the trailer, back to the hotel, sleep, then home tomorrow. I'll be glad to have him home.

Happy Saturday!