Excitement All Around

My friends, there has been all sorts of excitement going on around here. I suspect you can guess that some of it is bird related, can't you? Sick of them? I sure hope not! Otherwise you will probably have to go elsewhere for some light entertainment because I don't see MY fascination with all things birdy diminishing anytime soon. :)

Let me just tell you that when I spotted the distinctive white head of a Hooded Merganser on our lake, I was absolutely thrilled. Times like these is when I wish I had a longer lens like many of the folks I know that are bird nuts like me. Lately, I'd seen a few local photographs and hoped they would come to me, and sure enough, they did.

It must have been that same afternoon when a Wood Duck surprised me by flying into the tree outside our door.

What you really came here for is a kitchen update isn't it? On Monday, Pete and Victor prepared the kitchen for painting with paper completely covering the backsplash,

as well as the floors and appliances.

And then nothing happened until Wednesday when Troy arrived to begin spraying inside this.

Yup, there is our two plastic plates and wine glasses, you know the important stuff. In another first for me, (think Publix sub), during this time with the kitchen completely shut down, I bought some Chinese food for lunch, and was it ever delicious. Way too much of course, however, that worked perfectly because Bruce had it for dinner while we could still get in our refrigerator. Nice Dave lives a few doors down where he heated it. And here we go...coat number one.

I told you it was exciting! 

Before that happened, on Tuesday while Bruce was gone to the plane, I took a walk around Lake Davis to enjoy a little sunshine. Chilly, but nice. I saw the Ring Necked Ducks,

as well as the Blue Teal, hanging out with some American Coots. I am no smart cookie when it comes to bird identification making me ever so grateful for Google.

If you the the slightest bit squeamish, you may want to skim past the next series of photos but, if you are like me and are interested in how nature works, by all means, keep reading.

Oftentimes I see the Anhingas on our lake, well, not technically our lake, but for our purposes, let's just call it that, shall we? Moving on, what I see is them catching and eating fish, however, I am usually many feet away. On this day, I was not, and it was so interesting watching how they eat a fish.

It swam over to a stand of Cypress knees, probably to reposition the fish.

What actually happened is that it kept slapping it on the knee to, I presume, kill it. Probably ten times at least. Now you are wondering how it gets down that skinny neck, aren't you? I was too.

It was kind of a juggling act with the fish being thrown up in the air a bit,

Now that's more like it....

And down it goes...

Jan and I got to talking the other day about how all the shore birds gathered around the lake while the Cormorants were here and I think her explanation seems like a good one. She thinks the birds in the water are stirring things up, making fish more available to the shore birds. Does that make sense to you?

Another thing I did that same day was make the thrift store rounds looking for more vases for my shelf, not that I'm so knowledgeable about that, but Google is. Walking into the Salvation Army store on West Colonial, I had a little start when I saw these two prints up high on the West wall of the "showroom".

And, just why would that be Gail? Neither Bruce, not I, could exactly remember too many details, but we had these very same prints in our bedroom for years and years, having bought them at Jordan Marsh, our then favorite department store. Maybe 30+ years ago? I bought nothing, but seeing those and sharing them with Bruce was worth the trip!

And the excitement just keeps coming because we had an invasion of American Robins on their annual migration!!! Walking outside Wednesday morning the first thing you noticed was the sound of chirping birds, seemingly everywhere. At our home they used to come through to feast on our neighbor's Camphor tree, however, here there are countless Camphor trees and they make good use of them. Hundreds is my best guess, although the sky was dull and gray making it hard to make them out. I walked the complex and finally got a couple of shots.

My Vancouver friends will shrug their shoulders at this because they are so plentiful there but for us, seeing them is always a big treat.

I can tell you that the ground is littered with hundreds of dropped berries!

If one Merganser Duck is good, two is even better, as seen another day!

For a week with mostly gray and chilly weather, it has been very exciting indeed.

The best news of all is that Troy is hanging the doors and the inconvenience of not having a kitchen for four days will soon be a thing of the past.

The big reveal upcoming soon.

your friend,

Gail