Coming in hot!

Race car drivers sometimes come into the pits "hot" which basically means that they are carrying a little too much speed. Which is exactly what this blue jay was doing. This was one of those shots that I didn't even know I'd gotten until I dumped the card in the computer. I took it through a not-very-clean window so I had to sharpen and tweak it a bit. Still, it made me laugh and it's a perspective that I've not captured before in my gazillion shots of blue jays.

Waited a good part of the day for the fire/building inspector to show up to check the fireplace. Phoebe and I spent quite a bit of time peering out the windows, watching the endless stream of birds at the feeders. I posted three other blue jays and a purple finch HERE on Flickr. The third blue jay shot, with the bushy eyebrows was my second favorite after this one - I think you'll agree that it's pretty funny looking.

Those of you who are blessed with blue jays know how they like to test each peanut to find the one that weighs the most. It is hilarious to watch one of them lifting and dropping one peanut after another, until finally one of the other blue jays gets irritated and puts a stop to it. I was lucky enough to get a 20 second video of this crazy behavior today, so if you'd care to have a look, I posted the clip on YouTube HERE.

Tomorrow the fireplace installers will come back and close up the sheet rock around the fireplace, which should go far towards eliminating the draft that we are currently getting. I'm hoping that maybe we'll have use of the fireplace by the weekend. Temps continue to be below normal right now, but things are supposed to warm up a bit by the weekend - just in time for Super Bowl Sunday. (Which I will be watching from the comfort of my living room.)

Happy Tuesday, people. And thank you very kindly for sending my hawk soaring onto the spotlight page today - wheeeeee!

Debbi