Ready To Defend

I couldn’t resist this little guy for today’s blip. He was very protective of his territory and was busy looking in all directions for interlopers. I can’t believe he’s still here because the temperature outside is about 30 degrees and the water in the birdbath froze a couple nights ago and is still frozen. I’ll keep putting food out for him just in case he intends to hang around for the holidays.

I have to admit that I'm wondering what the black band is. At first I thought it was a shadow, but the sun was behind me to the left and I don't think the branch would make a shadow that dark from that angle. It doesn't look like something that should be on the bird. Anybody care to help me out here?

Today was Lizzie’s day for medical procedures, none of which she wants to talk about. The possible exception to that is the weigh-in which revealed a one-pound loss so she now weighs 17 pounds. I think she’s lost this same pound once before so while I don’t want to discourage her from further weight loss, I wasn’t planning to celebrate. When she gets to 16 I’ll get excited.