American Robin - Turdus migratorius - male - greets the morning sun with song from the top of the tallest pine tree in the yard. This is a perch most commonly occupied by a Red-winged Blackbird.

 

Second cutting of hay went late into the evening on Monday. The weather has not been cooperative since then, however. The cut hay was rained on, so it had to be tedded (the cut rows stirred and spread out to promote drying by air and sunlight), then raked into windrows again. With luck it might get baled this afternoon. A little rain that wasn't enough to fill the usual puddles, barely enough to push up a new crop of dandelions, meant two extra trips over this field at a considerable cost in fuel and labor plus wear and tear - this is what separates life in rural America from the cities. We like things to go smoothly as much as our urban brethren, but our expectations that such will occur are tempered by the frequency of this sort of experience. One learns patience - among the cardinal virtues - or one lives and works elsewhere.

 
Common Grackles - Quiscalus quiscula - in Furnace Creek.

 
Cabbage White - Pieris rapae - flutters by a Red-winged Blackbird - Agalaius phoeniceus - keeping watch over the pasture.

 
Fortuitous is, I believe, the correct word for this. I snapped a picture of the cats in the yard through the windshield as I approached the house and didn't even notice this Mourning Dove which startled into flight just as the shutter snapped. On editing, this was in the extreme lower edge of the frame and much more interesting than the cats.

 
Green Heron - Butorides virescens - wades in the water hunting while its much larger relative, a Great Blue Heron, stood almost motionless nearby on the shore at the Tilden Industrial Park stormwater impoundment about midday last Sunday; while a . . .

 
Canada Goose - Branta canadensis - family prepares to enter the pond already patrolled by a Wood Duck - Aix sponsa - hen and her duckling; while a . . .

 
Turkey Vulture - Cathartes aura - circled overhead.

 
House Sparrow at the moment when it has taken flight,

 
Practice makes perfect - Attacking a chipmunk us a lot easier when the mother cat has already done the hard work of finding, killing and dragging it home.

 
Wrestling is a favorite pastime for the kittens.

 
Kittens from the current crop - one marked in black, the other in grey. Another is mostly black while the fourth has the the biggest, bluest eyes and is marked more like a grey tiger.

 
Killdeer - but something about the markings weren't quite right, especially with the naked eye or through the camera - rather as you see it in this small photo. [NOTE: Click on the photo to see the image full-screen the way I saw it when I got home and started editing.]

 
Killdeer walking across the puddle and calling loudly - this solved the mystery. The one that first caught my eye was a juvenile (later I noticed there were two of them sticking to the margins of the water) and this adult was trying to distract my attention.

 
Courtship among the Mourning Doves.

 
Pole Dancer in training? Considering that all this kitten managed to do was leap onto the handle of my snow shovel and slide down, maybe it's training for a career as a firefighter. I guess the snow shovel should have been put away for the season by now, but we are in the grip of a cold damp spell in the weather and Al gore's friends keep telling us global warming is going to cause a new ice age - or some other crise du jour.

 
Kittens are so cute, sometimes it seems a shame they grow up to be cats. I can't complain too much about this particular cat, though. She does have the serious defect of being distinctly unfriendly toward me, but she has produced a first litter of four healthy kittens and she is showing them the ropes - the body count in one week has been three mice, two chipmunks and two birds. I'm not thrilled about the bird kills, but the success in thinning the small rodent population is more than adequate compensation.

 

Mallard drakes - these three took wing when I got out of the vehicle for a better look at them while a fourth stayed in the creek. I g\shot about a dozen frames as they flew away and about the best that could be said is that in a few one duck would be in focus. Still, their colors are in fine display here.

 
Four kittens made their first public appearance this past week.

 
This kitten's expression reminds me of a little boy none too thrilled by his mama's insistence that his hair be combed to be presentable to the neighbors.

 
Memorial Day seemed a fitting occasion to find this specimen - it's the nearest thing I've ever seen to a red, white and blue insect.

 
Bumblebee in clover - not taking a holiday.

 
Day's end and the first cutting of hay is paused for the night.