A daily affair.
In mornings it comes to drink,
Sipping sweet nectar.
It flutters in place
Near a pot by the glass door,
Bringing much delight.
As it twirls around
Its beauty and its splendor
Makes my world stand still.
Valerie Bollinger 2025
And then there were so many flowers…these photos capture a few unusual ones…
I always enjoy sitting on the front porch of my son’s home in North Carolina. His house is at the end of a cul-de-sac, next to a wooded lot, that in winter and without the leaves on the trees, you can see a sliver of Lake Wiley.
Even in the winter, when it’s about 45* here, I still like to grab some blankets and bundle up and sit out on the front porch with a cup of coffee.
Occasionally we can see deer, and always lots of birds.
Yesterday I saw four deer and this morning I saw a red-headed woodpecker, my first robin of the season, a beautiful Eastern bluebird and, something new to me that I identified as, a Ruby-crown Kinglet.
I enjoy seeing the birds and listening to their singing, and also watching the squirrels scampering to and fro. Squirrels are fun to watch in the woods (not at one’s bird-feeders!)
It’s a great way to start the day.
While visiting with our friends near Clearwater, FL they thought we would like to visit the Seaside Seabird Sanctuary, and they were right.
We enjoyed seeing the beautiful coastal birds, which included owls, egrets, herons, and several other birds we see back in Minnesota.
Although most of the birds in the sanctuary have been injured somehow, it was great to see them recovering and walking or flying around…some up close and personal.
Many of the birds were in enclosures by themselves, or in large pens with multiple birds. Some were walking the grounds and others were flying freely.
Of course, the risk is one may get bombed with a plop of bird poop. One such plop landed on our friend’s cell phone.
Some of the birds may be perfectly healthy, but they know where to find an easy, free meal. Part of the sanctuary is open to the seashore, along the intercoastal waterway.
I’m grateful for the people who run this small, but intimate bird sanctuary that is free and open to the public (donations accepted). It’s a way to help the birds, and to introduce the birds to anyone who stops by.
Thursday morning the snow started to taper off mid-morning, and stopped before noon. The official snowfall total for Northfield was 15.1 inches over this three-day storm. That’s a lot of snow, but not a record. Now, this morning, it’s cold out there…below zero temperatures!
Thankfully we have a snow blower. With Gary behind the snow blower and me using shovels to clear out the front porch and short walkway, we make a good team, but he does the brunt of the work shoveling out.
We are also responsible to clear the public sidewalk along the east side of our house…Gary uses the snowblower for that.
It wasn’t too cold when we went out to clear snow. It went quickly. Then we wait until the snowplow comes along to plow the street and pushes a huge mound of snow back into our driveway. Gary goes out once again to plow it out…and the sidewalk entrance too. And so it goes.
The birdfeeders suctioned to our windows were full of snow. I saw a chickadee pecking through the snow to find seeds. I “spooned” out the snow and added fresh seed in the feeders.
The first day of the snowstorm we were on country roads driving home. It had been snowing for awhile and the wind was blowing across the fields making it low visibility and white-out conditions over the fields. At that time, it was just beginning to snow…I can only imagine what it is like out on open roads with much snow and wind.
It looks so innocent and serene looking out our windows.
Ah…Minnesota winters…not for the faint of heart.
We’re back on our son’s front porch in North Carolina. The temperatures are mild, and it’s wonderful drinking our morning coffee out here. Yesterday, a long, gentle rain fell, but we could still sit on the porch and watch the rain fall, and it was lovely.
The woods next door offers a beautiful view of fall colors. We get to experience an extended fall season.
This morning’s show included an occasional leaf gently floating down and many active birds…the ones I could identify were finches, eastern blue birds and a woodpecker. The cardinal is the state bird of North Carolina, and I’ve seen many already, just not this morning.
All is well.
Tiny red feather Stood out among the birdseed... A love gift for me?
I’m going with the idea it was left behind as a love token for me. 😉
For the past few mornings, I start my day by saying “good morning Papa Bird” to the mourning dove nesting in the eaves, outside our bedroom window. I think he likes being greeted, now that he knows I’m not going to harm him. If he’s facing me he smiles (!)…if he’s facing the opposite direction, he lifts and turns his head to look at me.
I started by calling him “Mama Bird”, but after a little research online, apparently the male dove sits on the nest during the daytime.
He is in the direct sun from the west, and with these hot temperatures I wonder how he tolerates the sunshine and the heat. I want to put up an umbrella to give him some shade, but that’s not possible.
In the meantime, I will continue to open the window a crack to talk to him a few times throughout the day, and then say good night in the evening. And I’ll keep watch to see what happens when the baby doves appear.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. I am posting excerpts from a memoir my friend wrote about her family pet, a lovebird named Babypie.
Babypie By Joy Kimi Kanazawa ...Babypie was quite a character. He loved classical music and used to bob up and down in time to Beethoven, as though conducting the orchestra, looking like a green baton or a green Leonard Bernstein. Seldom in his cage, Babypie had the run of the apartment and used to sit on the shoulder of anyone he felt like being close to. Every weekend we (our family) would go to our cabin in the Pocono Mountains, a two-hour drive from the city. Naturally, Babypie always went along for the ride. One night my father went outside onto the deck, forgetting that he had Babypie on his shoulder. It was a rainy night and suddenly there was a flash of lightning and a loud crash of thunder. Startled, Babypie flew off into the night. ... we returned to New York without Babypie, all of us heartbroken... Two days later I decided to go back to the Poconos (as impossible as it may have seemed) to try and find Babypie. I walked the roads near our cabin and a quarter of a mile away I looked up and saw what looked like ...Babypie. I got out of my car, climbed onto the roof, and blasted Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony on my boombox. Babypie flew down to his beloved Beethoven. What a miracle from God! Babypie was back!
As we walked along the river trail the other morning, we heard an unusual number of birds singing. The sound ramped up as we got closer to the hundreds of birds we could not see (except for a few in the treetops) but it sounded like a huge choir of birds, and not the normal bird songs one hears in the spring. Loud chirping was more like it. We took notice.
As we walked through this moment, we passed some walkers and they commented on the sound from the birds. I recognized one of the walkers as the orchestra conductor at St. Olaf College…I said to him as we passed, “I think the birds need a conductor.” His group also commented on the number of birds there must be to make loud “music” like that.
Gary and I continued on and all at once there was silence!
Not one bird sound. They all stopped at the exact same moment…for about five seconds.
Silence.
Then, just as quickly as they stopped, the birds resumed their singing again, loudly again. We looked at each other and Gary quipped, “They must have had to turn the page.” I laughed.
The conductor said he’d love to see all the birds take off at once. That would be a sight to see.
I do love birds…to watch them at the feeders and see them in nature, to admire their unique beauty and hear their sweet songs.