Birdland

So, yeah, I've not posted in a while because I went to Maine and wanted to post photos but couldn't find my camera so bought two cheapy throw-aways and took great pics but haven't gotten them processed. "Processed." Can you imagine.

I'll highlight the highlights from my most recent Maine trip. I spotted a mink. No, in the wild! In the front yard! Well, more like "over yonder" and I didn't really know it was a mink at the time. I thought fox, first, then otter. It sinewed blackly on the white expanse of snow about 200 yards from me, went down to the pond but not in, and then silkily scurried back up the hill and away. P. informed me, after my description of the creature, that it was a mink, though it might have been a fisher (the woodland animal that ate some of our cats in my childhood. We think.) I

I thought I had another moment of nature's miracleness when I watched a wood pecker in the tree I used to climb (it got so tall! I got so old!!) and then observed a bunch of chickadees also pecking, at the lilac bush in front of the house. J. informed me that that's normal, they're just also pecking for wood bugs. Like there's not a totally full bird-feeder right there on the terrace. Hello? Greedy little bastards.