At Margaret’s House

Leslie spent a lot of time this Spring helping Margaret, so I would occasionally spend the night there, too.  I’ll have to admit that I would sometimes feel a little lost without my toys and with too little to do, but when I was really feeling bored I would take my camera and go out for a walk and entertain myself.  Early on I would just focus on the flowering trees in the orchard, 

or the beautiful azaleas that lined the road.

Margaret’s house is also a good place to see birds.  One day I even took my 500mm lens with a doubler but, of course, the terns that Leslie kept telling me about didn’t turn up since I had that lens with me.  They did show up on a day when I had my 600mm RF lens, though, and I managed to get some distant shots of them diving into the water.

When the tide was out and the sea birds had disappeared, I would wander the field in front of the house looking for song birds. I was amazed to find a small flock of American Goldfinches feeding on the dandelions growing where the field hadn’t been mowed recently.

I’ve always seen dandelions as an obnoxious weed, but I’ll have to admit that for a few minutes I actually thought of letting them grow in my yard instead of ruthlessly weeding them out. 

The best picture I got there, though, was taken as Leslie and I walked up to the mailbox to get the day’s mail. On the way, I heard a woodpecker hammering away trying to attract a mate.  When I turned around I spotted him on the address sign. 

I’ve seen so many Northern Flickers do this that I just assume it’s a Flicker when I hear the sound.  But this was clearly a Red-Breasted Sapsucker, and it stayed around long enough that I got a lot of shots, clearly as good as I can ever expect to get.

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