Red, White & Blue Jay

Happy Independence Day!

I am thoroughly enjoying the weekend, especially since yesterday was my first "real" day off in I don't know how long; about a year I think. I ran a few errands, went to see my good friend Leah, but mostly was able to be around the house. Ahhh. I had an early dinner with R, then went to bed at 8pm, and slept until 5am at first light.
I really enjoy the birds we have at our house. The original builders had Macaws, several enormous aviaries, and a bird cage in every room, so birds have been a big theme here. My mom and I have thought about having caged birds, but we always enjoy the wild ones; how could I have a prisionier bird? Even if it had a palace for a cage, it would not be like our wild birds.

This afternoon, I got a nice shot of one of my favorite birds, one of a pair of big blue jays; ths is the female, considerably smaller than her mate. We have a bird feeder, and the house finches are usually there, but when the blue jays arrive, which are easily 3x the size of the finches, the finches scatter. The mourning doves are also here a lot, at the feeder. The little white cap sparrows are on the ground cleaning up, as long as the neighbors' cats are not around. I also have a sock with nyjer seed, and that attracts a lot of tiny yellow finches, which I call lemon finches, but the bigger house finches love to poke holes in the sock and eat there too. There is a fountain nearby, and they usually like to have a bath and a meal.

But when a person or the dog walks by, everyone scatters. I have wondered if I could tame the finches, but that was a quick thought; it's their instinct to flight. Then today, I saw something I have never seen: the sock and feeder were full of two dozen birds, and suddenly there was a large shadow, and a large hawk swooped in quickly, but everyone scattered seconds before, and it took them a while for them to return. I didn't think the hawk was predatory toward the other little birds, but I'll have to read up. It was still an incredible sight!

We had a lovely day at CdM market today, then home; the ocean was a beautiful blue (see my shot on the way home at El Moro) and now I am making ribs and chicken for dinner, before the fireworks at 9pm.

Today I also think of my suppliers in Madagascar and Morocco; what a wonderful thing it is to be independent, though independence brings its own problems. They have been independent about 50 years, which would be like us having independence at the WWII era, so people would be around to remember.