...Excitement!

I took this afternoon off and went to Wallkill River Nat'l Wildlife Refuge - haven't been there in about a month and wanted to see if I could spot some wood ducks. No luck on the wood ducks, but I happened to glance up as I walked, to see a flash of yellow ... a whole flock of cedar waxwings (bombycilla cedrorum) feeding on berries!!! Maybe for some people, this is a common sight, but I've only seen waxwings a handful of times so they are definitely a rarity for me. They make a very soft high frequency call so part of my delight is that I can hear them.

I posted some other shots of the waxwings, this one being my second favorite of the day.

There were hundreds of turtles out sunning themselves - literally every log was wall-to-wall turtles! I also saw a great blue heron (it startled me by taking off only 20-30 feet from me, no time to focus and shoot), a cabbage white butterfly (very difficult shot with Big Daddy, never mind all the endless flitting!), and ... hold your breath... my first baby Canada Geese of the season!. The birds at the NWR aren't tame and are not easily approachable so that I was even able to get a quick look at this brood was pretty remarkable. I did see other pairs off in the reeds, but all seemed to still be sitting on eggs and I saw no other evidence of goslings. Here's a closer shot of Junior, looking cute enough to squeeze.

Thanks for all the nice comments on my newspaper hit - I don't want to make too big a deal of it. It's just the local weekly, not like some big hoity-toity deal. But still bragging rights, I guess.

We are off to Long Island tomorrow to visit one of the Aunts - probably be gone all day as it's a long drive. So, I'll blip something tomorrow night. Have a great Friday night and a fun Saturday!!