The PhotoHunt theme this week is “Birds”

Totally cheating, I’m combining my PhotoHunt and Nature Notes posts, again this week. Well, the subject’s pretty much the same – Birds.

Things have been, and continue to be, hectic around here, lately. But I was able to steal a little time to enjoy the increasingly better weather we’ve been having. Of course, good things never seem to last very long – temps are supposed to hover around 88º this weekend. Hardly inspiring the feelings of fall and upcoming holidays!

Still, we’ve had some new visitors:

The Gray Catbird has returned to enjoy snacking at the Beautyberry.

And this lousy picture is of the male Painted Bunting who appeared – if only for a couple of days before apparently moving on to Miz Shoes’ place, several miles away. I was very excited to see the male bunting! I’ve only ever had females come to my feeder in previous years, and have only ever seen one male, years ago, from a distance! So, what happens? The breeze comes up, and it’s nearly twilight, and all I get is a fuzzy image. But I don’t care. I had a male bunting!

In other news, three – count ‘em three – hummingbirds showed up at the pavonia and mystery shrubs! At the same time! For us, that’s more than exciting – it’s incredible! If they stick around, I’ll try to get some new hummingbird photos – not so easy to do, since they seem to prefer the flowers to the feeders.

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Michelle at Rambling Woods is hosting Nature Notes: Signs of the Season, a weekly meme dedicated to challenging us to take a moment out of our hectic lives and notice the seasonal changes – large and small – taking place in nature all around each of us, in our own little corners of the world. Please visit Michelle and all the other participants, and maybe take some of your own Nature Notes!