The blue and the gold.....

The spring migrants are beginning to show up!  Today I had 5 male Indigo Buntings in the yard!

I miss my big camera with its zoom right now....sigh.

At least if they come to the feeder by the door I can get a fair shot.

I just love all that blue!

They are very pretty little finches.

Here are 3 males and a female on the right.  The female is very plain brown but is also pretty.  I hope to get a better shot of one than this.

They were picking seeds out of the drive mostly. 

I've also had more Goldfinches show up.  There were about a dozen on the drive this morning with the Indigo Buntings.  Very colorful!

Most of the males are now fully golden and beautiful.

A little too much light on this one.

Three in the drive.

This means the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks should be showing up, too....can't wait!

Eagle update......

For anyone who became interested in the eagle cam at Norfolk, VA I felt I should put this update.  Early this week, the mother eagle was killed by a plane while she was fishing.  The male was with her and escaped unharmed.  It was determined that it would be too hard for the male to raise 3 very healthy baby eagles on his own, so they were removed from the nest and taken to the Wildlife Center of Virginia where they will be raised with the intention of releasing them into the wild.  They were at the stage of learning to feed themselves and are very healthy.  They have build a fake nest and there will be other eagles that are being rehabed nearby for them to watch.  They are expecting no problems in releasing them eventually.  They have established a link to a cam so the 1000's of people all over the world who have been following this family can continue to watch the babies in their new home.  They are just getting the cam up and running so there are some glitches here at the beginning, but soon it will be operating full time with discussion just as before.  What a great bunch of people that are caring for these eagles that have become loved by classrooms full of children all over the world as well as all of us adults that have followed their story!  Here is the link....same as I have shown before.  Eagle cam

A break in the rain!......

A rainbow in the sky!  A feeling of hope that the rains might be ending soon!  After days of nothing but rain, this rainbow was so encouraging to see!  It means that there was still rain....but also sunshine!  It was a gorgeous rainbow....very brightly colored on the one end, but hard to take a photo of and couldn't get the whole thing in.  It was double on the right end and then the second one ended in the cloud over the top.

Our local paper showed aerial photos of the flooding in our area today.  I had been wishing there was some way to take photos myself, but nothing that would do justice to the amount of rain that we have been dealing with.  All of the rivers....Ohio, Wabash, White and others are at flood stage or beyond and there is just mile after mile of water everywhere.  I will put a link HERE to the newspaper photos.

So this rainbow was very welcome to see!  We are not suppose to get any rain today, but there is another inch or more coming over the weekend.  People all over the city are busy sandbagging their properties, but there isn't a lot of hope for some of them.  This is the wettest spring I have seen in a long time.

We went by the wetlands (very appropriately named at the moment!) yesterday and I got in some walking.  I need to do more walking now that the rains are going away and build up strength in my new knee.  Of course the old one that isn't fixed yet, still hurts :-)  I always enjoy the turtles on the logs and yesterday, even though it was fairly late and cool, there were quite a few out on the logs.

I liked the reflections with this one.

Butt up in the air......is head down a more comfortable position??

I think these are a combination of Painted Turtles and Red Eared Sliders.  That is what we mostly see.

Some of their favorite logs are still under water, but they always find spots somewhere to soak up a bit of sunshine.

One of the bigger groups.....small by the usual standards for this area!

Mike spotted this cool Luna Moth at the base of a tree just off the boardwalk.  I've never seen one before!  I sent him with the camera to get some close-ups.  We wondered if it was newly out....it didn't seem to be doing anything.

This is one of the times I wish we had the newer camera for better close-ups!  My camera is being fixed and I hope to have it back soon.

One lone goose at the wetlands.  I wonder if it has a mate nearby on a nest.  I would guess that many nests have gone under water, if they were very close to any rivers, ponds, or lakes in the area.  I think that the pair we had nesting by our pond gave up.  After days and nights on end of nothing but rain, rain, and more rain, one day the one on the nest just got up and flew away with her mate.  Maybe all the dampness was just too much and the eggs wouldn't hatch.  I don't know.

This and That......

A couple photos of the Goldfinch males to show their progress.  Some are completely yellow, but I never seem to catch that one with the camera :-)

We drove over to Henderson with friends to check on the eagle and heron, but once again the Ohio River is way out of its banks and we couldn't get down the road that goes near the nests.  I have seldom seen the river higher than what it is right now.

This cute little gray squirrel was sitting in a tree eating some kind of nut.

At first I couldn't tell what sort of bird this was, but finally realized it was a female Cowbird.  Didn't seem the least bit bothered by our presence.

Rather pretty in a plain sort of way.  We saw a lot of Cowbirds and I was wondering whose nests they were hanging around waiting to add eggs to.

Who me?

The male liked this tree, too.  They both seemed to be eating something at the base of the leaves.

I couldn't see anything there to eat, but they kept nibbling at them.

(Sorry about the odd circle frame on this, but I had the long lens screwed on and didn't want to remove it.)  This disposable camera was chained to a bench with a note saying to take a photo and leave the camera for the next person to do the same.  In a few days check the blog and see what people have taken photos of.  I haven't checked yet, since we just took our photos yesterday!

Our friend Dan, taking a photo.  It was hard to do with the camera chained to the bench.  Didn't give you much control over what you could aim at.  It is right along the river, so I imagine there will be lots of river shots.  Who knows?  An interesting idea.

My Mallard and storm damage......

This is the female Mallard that comes back to my house every year.  She has been coming for three years now.  She has a leg band, so I know it is the same one.  Her mate is not as friendly, but she will sit and wait for me to put corn in the driveway for her to eat.

Mrs. Mallard waiting in the violets

You can see her leg band

She eats the corn and whatever other seeds she can find on the drive.

Last night we had a bad storm.  We thought we got away without any damage until I went out on the deck to fill the feeders and saw that our pink crab apple tree on the dam was down.

I remember the day I planted this tree.  I had to practically chop a hole in the hard packed dirt of the dam and barely could get it deep enough to plant the tree.  I never figured it would be able to get good roots or do very well in that hard ground, but it has stood there for at least 20+ years. 

It actually seems to have produced some good sized roots, but I guess they weren't very deep.  At least I have a hole ready for whatever I put in its place!

Our house has "cherry petal pox".....LOL!  Every year when the cherry blossoms start to fall, we have pink "snow" all over the place.  Very messy to walk through at the front door.

I think I need to get the hose and broom and sweep this up.  The storm really brought down the petals.

Around the yard looking for critters......

Walking around the yard yesterday, I almost stepped on this turtle.

I believe it is a Red-eared Slider.  It didn't want to poke its head out very far, but Mike saw the red marks.

I walked across the yard for something and came back and it was gone!  It must have really taken off in a hurry.  I had picked it up to look at it and it didn't like that :-)

My Red-Breasted Nuthatch is still hanging around and wants to know why I don't buy some more peanuts for it.  Next time I'm at the store.....I promise!

It was all over the place making it hard to get photos without a lot of stuff in the way, but I thought it was cute when it hangs upside down :-)

Caught in the act of leaving.

I have a Chipping Sparrow or two, but can't seem to get a good shot of them.  The old camera doesn't have as much zoom.

The female Goldfinch up in the Maple tree.

The lilacs have been just gorgeous this year!

There was a Tiger Swallowtail flitting around on them, but I couldn't seem to get a good focused shot.

The Ornamental Cherry is trying to rival the Lilacs for who is most beautiful.  I love both....although they don't look very good together :-)

Cherry Blossom Pink.......

I love when the Ornamental Cherry Tree begins to bloom!  Even though the flowers aren't completely open yet, I like the way they look like little bouquets!

This is my first time to use the new editor for Blogger and I can't figure out how to do half of the stuff I want to do.  Frustrating, but I guess I will get used to it.