Friday, January 22, 2010

Banner Day for Birds

Well, yesterday was a banner day for backyard birds and bugs!

Why? Well, because I finally went outside and spent a few minutes outside looking around.

It seems as if one of the major lessons in my life is that if you're not looking, you're not seeing.

I went (outside), I looked, I saw!

Our weather has turned absolutely gorgeous - clear blue skies and seventies, so yesterday afternoon was perfect for playing in the backyard.

This is the first time that's happened since we moved! So, like a bad housewife but a good mother, I ditched my housework (a minor mountain range of laundry) and took Abbey out back.

And, oh, the reward for slacking on housework! The afternoon sun shone gold on the water and the birds were soaking up the rays in the sky.

Laughing gulls flew over head, one starling showed off every song he knew (more than I thought he had) in our neighbor's oak, tiny warblers flitted and sang between that oak and our willow, the lesser scaups dove in the water snatching up fish with their powder blue bills, and a yellow bellied sapsucker poked around and pecked at the many old knots and holes in the willow's bark.

A yellow bellied sapsucker! My first! Woohooo!!!!

Then, we also saw a large leaf footed bug - we're talking almost 2 inches long here - that let us get close enough for Abbey to touch it!

Awesome, awesome, awesome afternoon! And this was just in the space of an hour or so.

How am I supposed to do laundry when there's all of that outdoors??? I swear it's only the need for the neighbors not to see me naked that keeps the clothes cycling through the wash. Otherwise we'd be out back in the buff, I swear.


No comments:

Post a Comment