Bluebirds

I was lucky to be at Christine's house this AM with my camera when she fed the bluebirds. She has nest number 3 in her box this year. The first 2 nests were in a new, fancy box closer to the road, and the current nest is in the original bluebird box closer to the house in their side yard. There are 5 eggs again this go around, and they should hatch soon. I was able to catch the mom, dad, and at least two juveniles eating mealworms. Several times, the dad put mealworms in the juveniles mouth. Christine and I were very excited to see 3 bluebirds land at once in the plate. They chowed down.

The best of the best all cropped nicely are here.

Green Heron

Well, while I was taking the deer shot in my previous blog entry, this really neat bird flew into the water area and landed on a stump. Turns out, according to my friend Jackie Trickel, that he's a green heron (formerly known as a little green heron). This is my frist green heron picture:-) More and better coming I hope!

Nature - Sometimes Harsh Yet Beautiful

I have to admit that I'm excited about some of the pics I took today. Let me give a special thanks to Danny and Christine for letting me come to their garden and take pics. I wouldn't have some of these cools shots without their help. The large lantana bush that they have blooming in their front yard has tons of neat insects on it right now. I was able to get a shot of a yellow swallowtail butterfly with somewhat damaged wings...probably from the recent storms. I was also able to get shots of an American Lady butterfly and the Hemaris Diffinis moth again. But, what turned out to be most amazing was finding a praying mantis feeding on a black swallowtail butterfly. I don't have a 'real' black swallowtail picture yet, so I wish this guy had been flying around, but the feeding shots are quite interesting, if not sad, too. Then, on the way to The Little Gym tonight, I was pretty sure I spotted a deer lying on the bank of the little water spot coming out of Fuquay on Hwy. 55. I turned around, and sure enough, it was a fawn. I was very pleased that the 'baby' let me get off several pics. Whoa!

I hope you enjoy...

The rest of the best pics from today are here.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

A picture of me and the boys taken at New Hope Valley Railway on 5/1/2005 and another one taken on 7/6/2008. Mom's hair is longer, Joey's hair has less curls, and Johnny is much bigger:-) I just thought it would be neat to compare.

Excellent Blog Award

Major Mom has so kindly bestowed upon me the Excellent Blogger Award. It's a pay it forward type of award. Christina had passed it on to Major Mom, and soon I'll pass it on to someone else.

A sincere thanks to those that take the time to read my blog and look at my pictures. I've been known to take one or two pictures on occassion;-) Taking them is fun, but the best enjoyment is sharing them with friends.

Thank you!

Another Moth Shot

At the suggestion of a friend, I went back and took some more pics with the flash forced on. I managed to get more wing and antenna detail. Cool. I'll look for these guys again when the sun is directly on the lantana instead of in the shade when I was taking the pics today.

Is it a bee or a hummingbird?

No, it's a moth! Look here for details. Christine has these all over the lantana in her yard. Here are more of the same...

More fun on the waterslide...

The boys enjoyed going on the waterslide with Madi this morning. Christine's mom gave Madi the slide, and she was in town today and wanted to enjoy watching the kids on it. The kids had a great time as usual.

More of the same are here.

New Hope Valley Railway

The boys and I went to New Hope Valley Railway to ride the trains today. They have ride days usually the first Sunday of the month May through December. NHVR is kindof similar to the North Carolina Transportation Museum where we go to see Thomas each year except that it's much more volunteer run, cheaper, and closer. We enjoy both places because WE LOVE TRAINS. Today we rode behind the diesel engine, but we got to see the steam engine run on the ride before ours. Enjoy the sites (and sounds) of our trip to see the trains today.

The rest of the pics are here.