A mother's job is never done...

Meet one of the mama Downy Woodpeckers - you can identify her by the bags under her eyes, the hair standing straight up on her head, the thrown-together ensemble and the wild look in her eyes. Yep, pretty much like moms everywhere with kids entering high school. The darned kids are starting to drive, but still demanding all their meals to be served to them. A mother's job is never done.

We saw the first downy fledgling last night while we were sitting on the deck having dinner. It flew crazily around the yard and crash-landed on the deck rail, looked confused and a little freaked out, then immediately flew up into a nearby tree, chattering it's little pik-pik-pik non-stop. Dad zipped right up with some suet to calm the young 'un down, and probably to offer some piks of encouragement. So darned cute. I watched one of the moms feeding a huge fledgling on one of the trees today. The baby is gigantic - I fear that she may be teased in school... And if you look at last year's blip , you'll see that the babies are fledging this year right on schedule...

I had a rare visitor to the backyard today - a Prairie Warbler. In general, the activity in the yard was at full bore today - I suspect because of the severe weather in our area. We are expecting 2-4 inches of rain today/tonight and heavy winds/thunderstorms tonight. It always seems like the bird activity picks up ahead of a big storm. And of course, many of the birds have nestlings or fledglings they are feeding right now, so things are busy, busy, busy.

The squirrel kids have been hanging around the deck and generally being kids. They show no fear of me at all, which is problematic. I took a squirt bottle out this afternoon and squirted them a few times to try to get their attention. I don't think it worked since a short while later a squirrel ran across my foot. Jaysus. And I photographed the first encounter of one of the young squirrels with Scar the Chipmunk...

I've posted 7 shots (including mom WP feeding her humongous child) on Flickr, starting HERE - have a look if you're of a mind.

Thank you for the kind words about my aunt. In truth, I never knew her very well since we've lived thousands of miles apart most of my life. But, I was able to spend a little time with her when I was in my early 20's, enough to make some memories. I feel terribly sad for her children and her husband who've had to watch her slip slowly into the grip of dementia for these past few years. It's such a nasty illness.

Yesterday's baby Yellow Warbler fluttered onto to the Spotlight page for a while which made us all smile.

xxoo
Debbi