Well, hello there!

Obviously, I'm not in the City anymore...

I met up with the group this morning and we set out on a 4 hour birding/nature walk. We saw some great birds including my first ever scarlet tanager (no pics, sorry), several warblers, a warbling vireo building a nest, an indigo bunting, several raptors and this rather sluggish female Eastern Garter Snake.

We were actually trying to spot a kingbird that was singing nearby when someone happened to notice this snake coiled up about 5 feet away. She is rather large for a Garter Snake, maybe a couple of feet long and was identified as a female by one fo the naturalists on the walk. It was only in the high 50's and shady where we found her, so she didn't zip off into the leaves as they usually do. She did coil into the strike position though! Anyway, thought this would be a fun blip - and my apologies to any snake-a-phobes.

I'm still pretty fatigued from my two days in NYC, so when I got home from the walk I had lunch and took a two-hour nap (!!) Guess I needed it. When I went out on the deck later, a female female Baltimore Oriole landed on one of my perches on the deck for a nanosecond before flying up to the trees where I got this slightly fuzzy shot. She did come back again, so maybe she'll stay around. I'll get some oranges tomorrow and some grape jelly too - even though I've never successfully attracted them to the yard with either. Worth a shot.

The hummingbirds were scarce today, but the Japanese honeysuckle all over our property is in full bloom and it is a nectar magnet for hummers, so they are probably busy with that.

Thank you all for your lovely comments and stars on my last two days of city shots. As you know, I have a special love for NYC and I really enjoyed just being out with my camera. Next time, though, I think I'll head downtown for a change of scenery. Maybe Soho or the Meatpacking district - both interesting neighborhoods with loads of charm and a certain urban grittiness that I love.

Happy Saturday!

xxoo
Debbi