Father's Day

I had a great FT chat with my parents today and got to wish my dad a Happy Father's Day in virtual-person.  Not quite as good as face to face, but our best option right now.  Both parents are well with dad still taking it very easy with his broken foot in hopes it will heal completely soon.  

While I was chatting with mom and dad, I could see baby Downy Woodpeckers careening around the garden and begging for food from their beleaguered parents.  I think they've just fledged in the last couple of days, a little later than usual but not surprising given the cold start to spring.  After visiting with my parents, I grabbed a camera and headed outside to see if I could get this shot.  Not the first time I've featured a downy dad feeding offspring on Father's Day, and probably not the last.  The larger bird on the right is a female fledgling; the bird on the left is the adult male.  Both sexes share equal duties in caring for young and by the time the nestlings leave the nest, the parents have lost a fair amount of weight and quite a few feathers.  They will continue to feed the fledglings for several weeks after which they will concentrate on just feeding themselves.  So many parallels between avian parents and human ones.

While I was out in the garden, all the birds suddenly scattered and started sounding alarm calls.  Sure enough, there was a big female Cooper's hawk in our shadbush tree.  I was unable to get a picture but I enjoyed seeing her.  All the birds stayed away for a little while after that - can't blame them.  The squirrels scattered too.  

I finished the first pass of editing the horse show pics this morning and will now do the second cut.  I am quite happy with the images - shooting under cloud cover made a huge difference!  No blown highlights, no muddy blacks, no unfortunate shadows in awkward places.  Wish I could order up clouds every time I shoot outdoors!

xoxo
Debbi