Sometimes the familiar holds a surprise and the camera sees more than the photographer!

(I'm getting behind again) These pictures are from 2 different trips to the wetlands and netted at least one surprise for me. Tiny turtle

I've beginning to think of this duck group as "the Seven Sisters"......and they are always chowing down on the duckweeds when I get there!

I like the irridescent look of the black one's feathers.

ssssssssnake! Tom from the Ohio Nature Blog, assures me that this is a Black Rat Snake. Thanks, Tom!

The Great Blue was standing in the shallows.

I think they are ugly from the front...... why is it that I always think.... "Thanksgiving drumsticks" when they turn this direction????

He took off and relanded, but of course I wasn't able to track and photograph anything but a partial landing.....sigh. Better than nothing! I always miss the swallows swooping over the lake, too.

dragonfly

The following was my big surprise! I love it when I get home and discover I took a picture of something I didn't even see at the time!!! I was photographing the hole in the tree and when I put it on the computer discovered the HONEYCOMBS hanging down under it!!! Cool! Now I want to go back and look at them!

My honeycomb surprise.

Always turtles to see.

Water plants beginning to crop up.

.....even growing out of the logs!

The water in the creek part is really getting green. I like the "maze" of marks across it.

A grackle in the tree cleaning its feathers.

I love when he fans his tail!

I haven't identified this wildflower yet.

Becky at Woodynook Creations just identified this for me.....Foxglove Beardtongue. Thanks, Becky!

The youngsters make you smile :-)

This was a new one for me.....a Towhee juvenile! I've only seen the parents before, but there was no mistaking that tail, the minute I saw it. It was far away and in a bad place for me to photograph, but here are 3 shots of it.

The tail really stands out with the speckled appreance of the rest of it.

My young thrasher is still hanging around......

......and chooses the most awkward positions possible to eat the suet!

This way was much better!

He has such a "gawky" teenage look about him!

Baby Finch showed up at the bottle feeder......

.......flapping at dad for some attention, but didn't get any.

I have about 8 of these young House Sparrows and they have tried every feeder out there.

This one has seen the other birds eating this "caged" stuff and knows it must be something good!

Looking at the "messy mouth" you know he's been in the suet for sure!

Memorial Day (traditional)......May 30th

Our skies are safe to "watch" every Friday because of their dedication.....war after war.....peace after peace

Thank you!

Guess who's coming to dinner......or a late night snack anyway!

I wrote about raccoons and skunks in this post back in January with better pictures ...Varmints....the downside of feeders..... so I will not repeat myself, but I have a raccoon or two visiting nightly right now and it is really frustrating! They eat an entire suet cake....or 2...or 3....unless I go out each night and remove them. This is not a handy thing to do. I don't have a good picture of this one yet. He stares at me, until I open the door to shoot flash and then he takes off. I can't photograph him through the window, as you can see! Last night we were sitting in the house and smelled a skunk outside......looked out and sure enough! Glad the cats weren't out. I may have to close down the "Driveway Diner".

This and That on the home front, plus a TV "rant"...

I haven't seen the Towhee for quite a while, so she (he?) deserves a picture eating in the Driveway Diner. My first impression was "she", but now that I look at the picture the head and back are pretty dark.
I've had a persistent wren the last few days that I think might be young.....and cute.

Lots of attitude

Just in case you wanted to see the underside of a wren :-) He was really tilting to get to that suet from the top.

Mockingbird with its tail up.....thinks its a wren maybe?? I've been wondering if it was a young one, also. It is determined to "own" the suet tree and tries to chase everyone else away.

Mock..atitude

This is my Forsythia bush that thinks in the summer it would be more fun to be a rose :-) It has a wild red rose that grows up through it and I figure it gives added color!

.....this year it has a wild white rose growing in it too! What a versatile Forsythia I have :-)

I love this Deutzia bush.....and my husband hates it because that is HIS side of the garage that it is hanging down in front of. As soon as it finishes blooming we will have to cut it back.

Deutzia close-up

OK......now my brief TV "rant". I seldom watch TV. I do like tennis however, and wanted to check in on how the French Open is going. It took me a phone call to my husband and 3.....THREE.......remote controls to find the tennis channel! No wonder I don't watch TV! It's too blasted complicated to even turn it on!!!!!! Does it really HAVE to be that hard???? I know.....I'm a dinosaur.....live in the dark ages when you just click a button and dialed a station. Sigh.

New Harmony.....part 3 ..frustrated birding day...

My last New Harmony post. I should call this my "it's-too-far-away-to-identify" post. A day of frustration for me as far as birds went! I had heard that the old cemetery was a good place to see birds and we also wanted to try to get close to the Wabash River and see if there was anything there. Well....there are, but I never got close enough to identify anything I saw!

2 birds on a wire......no idea what they are. Phoebe? Flycatcher?

The Wabash is still out of its banks as we found out down by the boat ramp.

OK.....I won't park there!

Another bird that I can't see well enough!

The cemetery is very interesting.....way up on a hill not that far from the river. See the bird on the tombstone? Any idea what it is? I can't tell you!

Here it is cropped closer.......still don't know!

Old tombstone with lots of lichen. Tombstones, I can identify.

Revolutionary War grave! That one surprised me.

One of those wonderful holes in trees that always fascinate me because I never find out what lives in them!!!!

Bluebird in her box.....I'm pretty sure I got that one right at least!

This box was at the end of one of the rows of graves. I think it is wonderful that someone is encouraging the birds to live there! I'll see if I can find something more interesting to post later on.........but sometimes this is what bird watching is like when you don't have good equipment with you!