Birds of a Feather...

...don't always just flock together.

I noticed the robins and the cedar waxwings liked to hang out in the same trees.

Sometimes the robins flew solo, though.

“The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off - and they are nearly always doing it.”

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Wrens have always been one of my favorites, and not just because they love to eat the insects around the house.

They are just so chubby and cute.

"Who you calling 'chubby'?"

A splash of cardinal red always brightens a gray day.

Add the backdrop of a blue sky and even the memory of a gray day disappears.

Sparrows aren't afraid of anything.

This one seems to be daring me to come closer.

It was pure luck that I came upon this couple in February,

and even more luck that I was able to snap their photo.

I was trying to get closer to the waxwings, and there these two were, right on my path.

I'm guessing they are a type of goldfinch.

(I'm grateful I have blog friends who will correct me if I'm wrong!)

“The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”

― J.M. Barrie

What is joy? It is a bird...

This little guy posed for me outside my kitchen window yesterday. 

I can't remember what kind of bird he is

beyond CUTE!

"Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come."

-  Chinese Proverb 

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

and never stops at all."

-  Emily Dickenson  

Last week a wave of robins washed over the Hollow.

I was able to snap quite a few of them munching on juniper berries.

I guess we were just a stop on their journey...

The next day they were gone.

That's the second wave of robins we've had in so many months!

"Spring would not be spring without bird songs."

-  Francis M. Chapman   

"The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind."

-  Carly Simon

blue oaks

   leafed out -

    robins back

-  Mike Garofalo, Cuttings

"Be grateful for luck.  Pay the thunder no mind - listen to the birds.  And don't hate nobody."

-  Eubie Blake 

"I hope you love birds too.   It is economical.  It saves going to heaven."

-  Emily Dickinson 

What a sweet surprise to spot these Cedar Waxwings mingling with the Robins!

"To me, the garden is a doorway to other worlds; one of them, of course, is the world of birds.  The garden is their dinner table, bursting with bugs and worms and succulent berries."

-  Anne Raver 

Yesterday Tom reported seeing a raptor flying through the Hollow, bigger than a hawk but smaller than a Bald Eagle. 

Perhaps a Golden Eagle? 

I can only hope... and have my zoom ready.

"What is joy?

It is a bird

That we all want to catch.

It is the same bird

That we all love to see flying"

- Sri Chinmoy   




Contributed to 

Deepwater in Color

I spent a weekend back in my childhood neighborhood

where shaded streets meander ever outward from a garden of schools planted in an open field,

like petals on a flower expand outward from the pistil.

On Sunday I laced up my running shoes and hit a path that circles through the field, connecting the campuses.

All around me color popped from the green grass, 

flowers I once took for granted because I saw them spring after spring after spring. 

Except primroses - they inspired my wedding colors.

I never took them for granted.

 Still so lovely...

My parents' backyard also exploded with color

from wisteria 

from a yesterday, today and tomorrow bush

and from tiny pink blossoms, nestled in the grass.

This fig tree has guarded the back fence for as long as I can remember, 

an offspring of one in my great- grandmother's garden.

I found tons to capture in my camera, just by stepping out into the yard. 

Not all of the color was from nature, but it was interesting, nonetheless, like this laundry tree in an adjoining yard...