A Good Weekend

It was a good weekend and I got a lot done. Saturday was sunny and mild. The high temp was only 37 degrees, but it felt much warmer. It was nice enough in the morning to have a couple windows cracked open a bit. As I was drinking my morning coffee, I heard the rooster pheasant crowing out in the yard. We haven't seen him since the snow melted, but there he was scratching around on the ground for birdseed. He's living in the white pine windbreak on the east side of our yard. He's a handsome fellow and he knows it.

I took advantage of the nice day to go out and finish trimming some trees. It took about an hour and a half, and doubled the size of my brush pile. I hoped to hear a bluebird singing while I was out there, but their beautiful song was absent. I closed up several houses in anticipation of their return.

Sunday dawned clear, but not nearly as warm and a bit breezier than Saturday. We finished our chores and went birding for a couple hours in the afternoon. Our destination was rural Fillmore County (with a stop to see Mom and Dad for a brief visit and to drop off an afghan I had knitted for them). The gravel roads were clear and dry with very little traffic so we were able to stop the car to check out the soaring birds.
Here's a list of birds we saw:

Eastern Wild Turkeys

Dark-Eyed Juncos

Horned Larks

Red-Tailed Hawks

American Crows

Eastern Bluebird (2 pairs!)

Northern Harriers

Canada Geese

Bald Eagles*

*Sometimes I have to wait for them to bank through a turn for the sun to illuminate that white tail and head of the adult, but we saw several juveniles today also.
American Kestrel*

*A member of the Falcon family -- the picture below shows the beautiful plumage of a male

Rock Pigeons

American Robins

Grackles

House Sparrows

American Goldfinches

Have a great week!