... "What do you mean, I don't count???"

Day two of The Great Backyard Bird Count in North America and in spite of walking about 4 miles through the woods and along a stream and spending several hours glued to the window, I didn't get that "special" shot today of the birds. Oh, not to say that I didn't get some shots that were decent, but just nothing that said "yes" to me. So, I played around with some super close ups of Phoebe's eyes which led me to wonder why she was tolerating my iphone in her face ... when I realized that she was locked in on none-other than Extreme Seymour!

The little furry guy was loving my home-made peanut butter suet block. He was doing everything he could to look like a bird, including an unprecedented leap straight into the air for no good reason (yea, that was just a grey blur in my camera.) I decided that he deserved to be blipped, even though he's not technically a bird - after all, he does eat bird food - and lots of it! I had to promise him that I'd submit him in my count (white lie, don't say a word!)

I submitted 3 checklists today for the GBBC- two in local state parks and one from my backyard. In total, as of this moment, over 17,000 checklists have been submitted, over 500 species of birds reported, and over 1.5 million individual birds. And, the event isn't even half done yet!! Counts range from as for north as Alaska to as far south as Hawaii. Tomorrow hubs and I will be going to the Wallkill River NWR to do a bird count and walk some of their trails. The Avian Wildlife Center will have some of their rescued birds there, too, which will be fun.

Happy Saturday, blippers!