Ol' What's His Name

 Once again I'm at a loss. I've got a great site for bird identification - The Cornell Lab of Ornithology; All About Birds. For those of you that are interested you can find it at :
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1189   Just in the browse for name and/or shape section there are over 400 different bird pictures! 
  I'm pretty sure that I've scanned every picture therein in hopes of identifying this particular bird. But nooo. I haven't been able to even come close as far as I can tell. I know that I should know what it is. I've seen several around. As far as I know, it's probably one of those that is so common that the site doesn't bother identifying it. Surely you know what that is! Everyone knows what kind of bird that is! I mean, come on...
 But I don't. I can't find it at all. So I guess we'll just skip the formalities and move on. This particular "bird" here made him/herself known to us last Sunday evening when it decided to try and fly through the window not once, not twice but over and over and over again. Now I understand the "clean window" thing but what makes a bird fly repeatedly into an obstacle that it obviously cannot pass -whether it can see it or not? This photo was taken as it was resting in between kamikaze attacks. Maybe it was planning a new strategy, I'm sure I don't know. But apparently, if it was, it decided against whatever new approach it might have come up with because the bombardment repeated continuously until dark.
 Maybe, even in the bird kingdom there are a few crazies out there. Maybe once in a while a bird has had all it can take for one day. And I suppose that maybe there are some things that are just enough to make a bird cuckoo...

The Tufted Titmouse

Well as the weatherman accurately predicted, it snowed-lots. And even though it has snowed and reached below average temperatures before this our bird feeder hasn't had very many patrons this winter. I don't know why they've been absent but they're making up for it these last few days. The nice thing about it is that we're seeing a lot of different varieties that we don't normally see. Along with this Tufted Titmouse the regulars include a Red Headed Woodpecker, a Downy Woodpecker, several Dark-eyed Juncos and plenty of Cardinals.
I sat inside behind the sliding glass doors and got a few good shots over the weekend - I guess that's a testament to my wife's window cleaning.
Anyway I hope that they'll stick around for awhile because we really enjoy watching them.
And by the way, I did refill the feeder after this shot!

A Splash of Red

Wow, what a blur the last five days have been! I wanted to have a extra special post on the many things that I'm thankful for last Wednesday but Thanksgiving rushed right in. The holiday weekend brought us a lot of extra family time with a lot of extra family. We have quite a large family and our get togethers are always a good time. So I guess that even with all of God's beauty that I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by what it all comes down to is family. I have to say though, even with all that said I'm always thankful for a splash of red on an otherwise dreary, drizzly day!