Big Day

Aside from that eclipse thing - about 89% here, I think - I had a big wildlife day for some reason. Big meaning: Managed to sneak up on both a pearly-eye butterfly and a bar-winged skimmer (dragonfly) with my iPhone and actually get a decent shot of each. Caught a nice young buck with a fresh rack while walking down to get the mail - fortunately with my camera - and got some nice shots of him hiding and watching me. Heard a bird sound I didn't recognize and managed to find the bird in question, take its photo (again, on the way to the mailbox with my camera) and identify it as a great crested flycatcher - only the second time I've seen one here, but interestingly in basically the same spot. This time there were at least three of them, I think. A family! I've added him as an extra - not much of a photo, but enough for identification purposes. The reddish tail and the yellow belly are diagnostic for me. Plus the "WHEEP!!!" noise it was making!

But I decided to blip the snake we found in the middle of the dirt road today on our walk. We decided we had to get it out of the road for its safety, but for our safety - as it was clearly a smallish copperhead, which is a venomous snake - I used a longish stick and sort of flipped it off to the side of the road. It was not happy with me. After we'd walked a bit further I said to The Husband "why did I not take its photo?" and he agreed that I needed to go back and find it and take a shot of it. So I did! With my iPhone, which is all I carry these days on our walks.

The eclipse was pretty nice. I'm rather sorry we didn't make the effort to drive to somewhere and see the total eclipse, but then again we just had a normal day at home and didn't have to spend 10+ hours in a car (going and coming back) so there's that. There was a thunderstorm that rained out the views in some of the Charlottesville area, but we had nothing but the sound of distant thunder and bright sunshine with clouds that didn't cover the sun ever during the entire process. And we had the glasses. So it was good.