Lifer

The little grey bird a few posts below was a lifer for me....a blue-headed vireo. Thanks to Cathy for identifying it. It also brought me up to 54 birds this spring and summer.

I was so excited. What with not going anywhere or doing much of anything but farm, house and book work, I don't see a lot of new birds any more. (I need to take a trip to Florida or something). Thus the last new one I saw was the yellow-bellied sap sucker a couple of summers ago. (I know, I know, they are common as heck, but I just never saw one before that. Sad to think, when our apple trees right beside the house show the lines of bore holes they leave behind. Hiding in plain sight I guess.)

I am still watching closely trying to collect up a couple of more species for the warm seasons before I start anew for fall and winter. So far among the missing are the pileated woodpecker, common around here, bald eagle, ditto, savanna sparrow, sometimes seen, even had a fledgling on the porch a few years back, and a couple others I have missed this year. With any luck I might see one or two of these or something interesting migrating through. Lots of fall warblers out there, but they are sooooooooo hard.

The weather is interesting...

Yesterday afternoon the cumulonimbus started piling up to the west and the air was crackling with electricity so the boss didn't start any field-work related activities. Weirdly enough, half an hour later the sky was clear with just a few hazy clouds. Rare to hear thunder like that and not get a drop of rain or much more than a light wind. I got a real neat photo for this week's Sunday Stills though...can't wait to post it.

Have a good one!