Babies

I figured I'd give everyone a break from bugs for a day or two and what. better segue than a juvenile Tufted Titmouse?  Arguably one of the cutest birds in our garden, and the youngsters are bursting with personality.  They are still traveling with their parents even though they are perfectly capable of feeding themselves.  Still, when parents are nearby, wings flutter and they make their whiney baby titmouse sounds - utterly adorable, I assure you.  You can easily identify this as a juvenile bird by the remains of the fleshy-colored "gape" at the corner of its mouth.  Also, the feathers are fresh and undamaged, which I can't say for the parents who are looking a bit haggard at the moment.  See Extra for one of the parents - you can see how worn its feathers are. 

I'm happy to report that the bluebirds' second brood hatched, probably sometime late yesterday.  Five helpless, blind, naked little blobs being dutifully fed by both parents.  And when I made my way down to the nest box to check, both parents hovered directly above my heading, clicking furiously at me.  Hubs, who was watching from a safe distance, wondered if they'd actually made contact with my head, which they hadn't.  I was a little surprised that this pair stayed her for a second brood given how much they dislike me monitoring their nest.  But I guess the abundance of food (insects) is enough of a draw that they can overlook their nosy landlady.  

Jax thoroughly approves of our new sofa.  Unlike the "old" one that was basically a love seat with a console in the center, this one is a proper sofa with three places for humans to sit - which translates perfectly to two humans and one 62 pound dog.  As I write this, is is sprawled nest to me, snoring like an old man.  

I did a bunch of shopping for the weekend today.  I still have to pick up a couple of things tomorrow but I was able to get most of what I needed today including the first local fresh corn of the year!  With all the heat, the corn should be very sweet this year - at least that is my theory.  

We watched a movie called "White House Down" last night and both agreed that it was basically 2 hours of nearly non-stop gun fire.  Not really our kind of movie so we rated it "thumbs down".  

Ninety F again today with high humidity but tomorrow will be a bit cooler (only 85 F).  And with some luck, we may even get a thunderstorm tonight with some much-needed rain.

xo
Debbi