Warm and sunny

I was welcomed home by a beautiful blue sky and warm, gentle air.  The creek mirrored the sun on the trees.  While I was gone, the birds just about finished the suet block. A male pine warbler moved on to the mealworm dish while chickadees tried to pry out the last morsels of suet.  White throated sparrows ate everything - seeds, mealworms, and whatever they found in the mulch.  A song sparrow stayed down in the mulch. 

Pelicans flew over and occasionally plunged into the water.  A flock of ruddy ducks paddled around below the dam outfall, but the sun glare and distance made them hard to capture.  Buffleheads and hoodies were out fishing along with cormorants.  A big commotion turned out to be Canada geese bathing. 

Downy woodpeckers came for lunch, as did titmice.  Like the white throats, the titmice discovered mealworms.  Red breasted nuthatches stuck to seeds and suet.  Finally the oriole showed up to enjoy some jelly.  A yellow rumped warbler showed up after lunch.  Crows were, as usual, ubiquitous.  A dove stayed high up in the oak.  It was plenty warm for bees to visit the camellia.

Around 3pm I decided to take a walk in the park up the street where I thought I had seen shovelers earlier.  There were a lot of them, along with a lot of geese and three perched cormorants.  One female hoodie was the only other kind of duck on the lake.

It was a wonderful day to be home.