Hey, here's a post that's not about birds!

Yesterday evening, Kevin & I finally dropped off all our paperwork to the accountant who does our taxes. It was still cold outside, and still a little bit of snow falling here and there, mostly the fainthearted kind. Not much oomph behind it. We were heading West, and there were dark skies behind us, as well as some dark skies in front of us... but way to the Northwest, we could see a hint of blue skies. The further we drove, the closer we got to the dividing line.


After dropping off the papers, we stopped at our favorite little Mexican restaurant for dinner. We have never had bad food there. Last night was no exception. Though the Coronas could have been a little bit colder... It was nice to have some time with just us 2. I didn’t invite the kids. I needed some time away from them and some time alone with Kev. We took home some tacos for them, though.

I remember hearing or reading somewhere once that your teenagers start acting so nasty that you become glad to get them out of the “nest.” I am having that kind of week with Joycie. That girl can be such a sweetheart one minute and then SAB the next... *sigh* I know I will miss her living with us come August, but yesterday evening, I could not wait for August. And I strongly suspect she was feeling the same.

Taking photos of the birds is definitely like OCD with me. I never get tired of it. While writing this post, I have stopped several times already to take photos. I was up well before 7:00am, and have been for the most part, sitting here at my computer and watching and photographing the birds while Kev and the kids slept. Well, Kev got up about 8:30am, and the 2 of us just put a couple of roasts in the crockpot. (Kev trimmed them up while I got the sauce ready... our plan is to have it over egg noodles for dinner.) I also talked with Sandy on the phone for a while... so it’s not like I’ve been sitting here for 2 hours doing nothing but taking photos of birds and drinking coffee. Ah, well, it’s kinda like that...

I also watched 2 doe walking on the far side of the pond come into my view. This was just as the sun was starting to come out of the low cloud cover this morning. I watched them walk along the far side and around the end of the pond, grazing all the while.

Then they crossed the driveway and grazed into our front yard for a long time.

Kev woke and I called him off to see them... when he approached the window, they perked up and stood there for a minute, then took off.

I love living here.

Right before the deer took off, a brown-headed cowbird showed up at the feeder. I’ve seen one before, I suspect this is the same one. There has only ever been one. Thank goodness. This is the male.

I have to admit, I don’t like the cowbirds. For one thing, that dull brown head stuck on that shiny black body looks like the result of one of those children’s books where the head, body and feet are different pages, so you can create all kinds of creatures or funny looking people. It just doesn’t look right to me. Also, female cowbirds don’t sit on their own eggs, instead they will lay an egg into an existing songbird nest. One female will do this to 4 or 5 different nests. Sometimes the songbird mother will get rid of the foreign egg, but often, she’ll just add it to the lot and hatch it with her own. But then the baby cowbird ends up being the pig of the litter... as my bird book states, “The young cowbird grows quickly at the expense of the young of the host, taking most of the food or pushing them out of the nest.”

Well, ok, this post had a little bit of bird in it.