Baby geese........

We just got back from a two day trip with friends over to Muscatatuck Wildlife Refuge in Seymour, Indiana......plus 4 wineries along the way.  It was a short trip and drizzled rain the whole two days, but we did get a few photos and saw lots of good stuff.  My better camera is now fixed and was suppose to arrive the day we were leaving, so I tried to get them to let me pick it up at FedEx, but they loaded it on the truck anyway and we had to leave before it arrived.  Then to make it worse, the driver left it sitting propped up, unattended against the front door for the two days we were gone!  I guess I'm lucky to have it back at all....and not water logged!  So all the photos from the trip are with the old camera and many were very "pixely" (if that is a word) and useless.  Some things I thought we had good photos of, we didn't.

I always enjoy the Canada Geese and their babies and we saw quite a few families of them.  This was a very small family....just one baby.

A much larger family of 6 young ones.

A family curled up on the bank.

Three babes....

....Six babes.

This family had the youngest ones we saw....so cute and fuzzy, but hard to pick out in the tall grass.

Many photos that I'll be showing were taken by Mike.  It just depended on who was on the right side of the car with the best view.

Birds from a drive near the river in Henderson, KY.....

We keep going to Henderson hoping that the water is down enough to get near where we watch the birds.  Still too high and several roads closed.  So we headed to the road that we call "the butterfly road" where we often see lots of butterflies and some birds.  We didn't see any butterflies, but did catch a few interesting birds along the way.

The first was a Dickissel.  They like to sit on the top of small trees or bushes like this one and sing.  Sometimes we see them up on the wires also.

It's a rather pretty bird with the touches of yellow.

Then we saw a Pileated Woodpecker in someones front yard.

It was pecking the ground near the remains of an old tree stump.  Looking for bugs, I assume.

I think this is a female Cowbird.  She flew across the road in front of us and appears to have something in her beak.

This Eastern Wood-Pewee was a happy find.  I could tell it was some sort of flycatcher, but didn't know what it was until I got back home with my books.

I don't know which little sparrow this is, but it was willing to pose for us.  There were several flying around together.

Then on the way home, we saw this one turkey all by itself out in a field.  I was surprised to not see others with it.

This is the best shot I've gotten of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak this year.  It just won't sit up and turn around and let me see its pretty pink chest!

Caught this House Wren going in and out of the gourd.  Probably just stuffing it with twigs.  They do that a lot, but I'm not sure if it has a mate or not.  I guess we will see.  I hear it singing whenever I am outside.

Birds, raccoons, and squirrel......

Things are beginning to dry out some around here.  Still high water in the river and creeks.  All I have to offer today are the home birds and critters.

This Goldfinch female was being so careful to pull out a seed and not drop it.

"Lunch!"

Sitting in the tree

A Mockingbird getting some suet

Since I showed his mate in my last post, I thought I would post the male Red-winged Blackbird.  I really don't know why they are hanging around my house. Our pond doesn't have a lot of reeds or a grassy type area they like.  They must be living along the drainage ditches or a neighboring pond and just come to my house to eat free seeds :-)

An unwelcome visitor......this big raccoon shows up every day.  Usually they only come at night to steal the left-over seeds, but I've been seeing this one in the day time.  Hope it doesn't have a bunch of babies!

I even spotted it climbing the Ash tree to get at the big suet cake that hangs there.....which didn't have much in it. 

This little squirrel sneaked up to the front step to get a drink from a dish of rainwater that was sitting there.

I hope to get out today or tomorrow and see if we can get to any of our favorite photo places.  Still haven't got my camera back, but I'm anxious to see what all the birds are doing in the high water areas.

Catbird.....

Every spring the Catbird shows up with the Indigo Buntings, Grosbeaks and other summer visitors. I've been trying to get a photo of it, but it hasn't cooperated too well.  Today I happen to be sitting outside and it came fairly close to get some suet.

A beautiful gray bird with a black cap.  Same family group as the Mockingbird and the Brown Thrasher.

I think they are rather striking and like to listen to their unusual cat-like cry.

He was having trouble hanging on the suet for very long.

He would move over the the roof of the wood feeder to rest in between attempts to get some suet.

There is a rufous colored area under the tail......it shows a bit here.

The Gray Catbird.....

.....and the gray cat! (a.k.a. Mouse) 

She does a lot of her bird watching with her eyes closed.  Next week her matted fur gets shaved.....she will look very "interesting" after that, but will be more comfortable.

Home birds.....

I feel like I should apologize for how poor some of these photos are.  I just realized today that my old camera is only 5.1 mega pixels! No wonder the far shots are so poor.  Sigh.....I hope my other camera gets back to me soon before we are ready to go on a short trip to take nature photos.

At least I have a camera to use at the moment!  I was suprised on one of our very wet days to see this female Red-Wing Blackbird at the feeder!  I see her mate all the time, but have not seen the female come until now.  At first I wasn't sure what it was, since I seldom see her.

She is so different from her black mate.  I never realized that there was a faint touch of red color at the top of her wing area until I looked at these.  Not as flashy as the males red and yellow wing patches.

I still have a lot of Goldfinches hanging around and in their summer color they are easy to spot.  I have had as many as a dozen or more on the driveway with the Indigo Buntings.

Posing in the tree.

A female Indigo at the front.....not a good shot.  I have several juveniles, too that are only partly blue.

Chickadee....dee....dee

"Is there any seeds left in here now that the squirrel is gone???"

I found out that the Cardinals like the peanuts that I bought for the tits and nuthatches.

So now I scatter a few on the drive with the sunflower seeds.

We went to the park looking for Meadowlarks and instead found this lovely Kingbird sitting in the grass looking for insects.  (One of those times I really miss the other camera!)

I really like Kingbirds.  They are pretty to look at and watching them catch bugs is a lot of fun.  I'm not quick enough to catch them in the act with the camera, but I can enjoy watching them.

That little piece of grass he was on barely held his weight, but it gave him a good hiding place to hunt from.

That's it for now.......I'm seeing lots of birds at home, but not getting good photos worth posting.