Mosaic Monday...swans

For this week's mosaics I am choosing to show a few more of the photos from Monticello's swan park.
There were many ducks and canadian geese amongst all the swans, seeing the geese next to a swan shows just how large these magnificent trumpeter swans are!
You can also get up close and personal with them as they are up on the shoreline within 5 ft of the park's roped in boundaries.
I hope you enjoyed seeing the swans as much as I did, if you missed Saturday's post of them you may click HERE to see it.

Please hop on over to our hostess Mary, the Little Red House, to see more wonderful mosaics.

Sunday Steeples...

Rock Valle Lutheran Church, rural Echo, MN

Trumpeter Swans...

Jeff and I went on a road trip yesterday and stopped for a few minutes to see the Monticello Trumpeter Swans.
On my previous trips to see them I have always timed it around 10 am to noon as that is when the swan lady is out feeding them and they are coming in for landings and take offs (a photographers dream shots). You can see some of those shots, HERE, Landings HERE, and courtship HERE. However, yesterday we didn't get there until about 4:15 pm and there were still many swans hanging out and the late afternoon light on the water was gorgeous as well. I guess it doesn't matter what time of day you visit there will be swans.
The viewing park is located next door to the swan lady's house and there were many swans resting up on her lawn...
and honking up a storm! It is actually quite noisy there with all the constant honking going on. I would also hate to see what her lawn looks like when the snow melts...lots of droppings going on!
There were lots of little family unit groups with the gray ones being the immature first year youngsters. Did you know swans mate for life and can live up to 25 years?
There were many mallard ducks and canadian geese amongst the swans...they know where a free corn meal comes from as well.



Waving bye-bye for now...of course, you know I took many more photos so the subject will be swan photos in Mosaic Monday.

Starlings...

The agressive European Starlings are definitely not one of my favorite birds. My reasons include that they keep trying to nest in all the wood duck boxes but most of all they are so agressive at the feeders scaring all the songbirds away and eating them empty in a day.
This winter they have discovered my feeder tree right outside my window and since they are easily spooked off I find myself waving at them all day.
When they come in they spend a few seconds looking towards the window to see if I'm there with my not so friendly wave.
Their winter plummage is quite striking with the iridescent purples and greens but their beauty is still not swaying how I feel about them.

They have emptied my large wire mesh peanut feeder and don't even allow the woodpeckers and nuthatches a taste and now they have moved on to my peanut butter dough feeders.
Since I don't have time to stand at the window and wave all day, I might have to take them down for a week or so and see if I can get them to move on. If they'd only learn how to share...

Outdoor Wednesday...Blue Skies

I was blue, just as blue as I could be
Ev'ry day was a cloudy day for me
Then good luck came a-knocking at my door
Skies were gray but they're not gray anymore

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see
(Irving Berlin — Blue Skies lyrics)



There is nothing like bright sunshine and blue sky to lift one's spirit after the long cold spell we just came through!

Please head over to our wonderful hostess, Susan, A Southern Daydreamer to see all the others participating.

Mosaic Monday...family weekend

We had a great weekend up north with Jayme & Scott working on several projects around their home. Even though we spent many hours working all day you never get tired because you are having fun while doing it...wish all jobs could make me say that :)

June 8th - Jan 8th comparisons...

The red chair doesn't look quite as welcoming this am as it did 6 months ago!

I'm cleaning out my photo files on the computer and couldn't help but notice the difference 6 months makes here in my garden. I'm not complaining by no means just showing the comparisons I am a firm believer in "to everything there is a season...".

On June 8th there were lots of deep purples and blues amongst all the fresh green in the garden...on January 8th the color is still there you just have to look a lot harder for it!
On June 8th it rained so I captured raindrops on the beautiful blues of the false blue indigo (Baptisia australis)...on January 8th there is snow but I still have many beautiful blues in the garden!
On June 8th a robin scoots along the rock path gathering nest materials...on January 8th, I say "what path?" as the snow is a foot and a half deep.
There is no comparison photo on June 8th of a Harris sparrow. They are just beautiful migrators here and on June 8th they had already passed through on their journey north and on January 8th they should have been enjoying the warmer temps of the south for a few months already! But this January, I am enjoying seeing this little immature one who must have lost his identity and thinks he is a house sparrow mingling in with the large flock I have this year.

winter

Don't let the -11 fool you, with this wind it feels like -35F!

Mosaic Monday...this morning's birds

It is the third morning in a row of temps of -20 or below and since I am not venturing outside I have more birds to show through my window. The feeders are extremely busy on mornings like these, but I do feel sorry for those with frost around their eyes!
On the last post, Kay Kay asked if I had a heated birdbath. I do, but this year it is buried in the snow on top of my rock fountain. The heat is enough to keep the snow off the top and the birdies still find it. If the heated dog water dish in the garage is empty so do my dogs as you can tell by the tracks on the rock.
This sparrow is not a house sparrow - what do you guys think...an immature harris? It does have a slight V of black on his chest so I will try for a shot of that next time.
Have a wonderful day - and please head over to Mary's, the Little Red House for all the others participating in Mosaic Monday. You can find her post and the links HERE.

it's COLD outside!

It is so cold outside that a chickadee, female hairy woodpecker, a female downy woodpecker and a blue jay are showing the frost around their eyes! I looked at the outside temp and it was -28 degrees F this morning and the inside of my windows are even frosty leaving the temp on the windowsill at 48. A check of our furnace thermostat confirms the outside temp at -28 but it is sunny with no wind so it actually didn't seem as cold as other recent days when I went out to fill the feeders for my frozen friends.

Fluffed out at the feeder tree and ready for their close ups are a female hairy, junco, female downy, bluejay, goldfinch, male downy and a chickadee.

I don't know where the bluejays slept but they were the frostiest even on their back feathers!