Sunday, February 19, 2017

Thankful Sunday--February 19, 2017

The crowd was looking at a pair of bluebirds in a tree.

I am thankful for new discoveries.

Ward and I are now proud owners of only one house.  So for the first weekend in a long time, we don't have to do house stuff.  There is plenty to do, but none of it is time sensitive like the chores of the last six months have been.

We decided it was time to do a little more exploring in our new neighborhood. While doing this, we found an Audubon bird sanctuary only ten minutes from our house and we went on a bird walk there
Saturday morning.
I never found the bluebirds, but the sky was nice.

Ward had to encourage me to go because the thermometer read 29F and I had no desire to go out in the cold for two hours. Have I mentioned I don't like cold? After a couple of prods, I started layering up and stayed quite warm during the walk. Actually, too warm. In only a couple of hours, the temperature rose 30 degrees. But that's what layers are good for--peeling off and cooling down.

I learned a lot of new things about birds, but I didn't see many. It was a low bird count day, but that was not the main problem. It's my untrained eye. I can see the birds when they perch on our feeder, but spotting them in a distant tree? By the time I figured out which tree they were talking about, the bird had flown away. I knew I was in real trouble when the leader said to look at that flock of cedar waxwings and I couldn't even find the flock. However, I did spot a small plane that was flying over. And no one even pointed it out to me. I consider that my great find for the day.

Despite the lack of bird sightings, it was quite an enjoyable morning. It is definitely someplace we will go back to and explore the various trails there.

So for this first of many discoveries we are going to make in our new neighborhood, I am thankful.