Hi Joe, Wonderful photos! I love LaReine, I have three of them in my front garden. I agree with Michael and the others, the bird is a Blue Heron. Your capture is fantastic! We have them once in awhile on the lake close to our home. We have White Egrets at the lake most of the year and they are so beautiful...but I need to get a telephoto lens for my camera to capture them flying...they are so beautiful in flight! Thank you for sharing lovely photos! ...Missy

Yes, I am sipping hot tea after doing some 'inside' work, after looking at the extended forecast I decided that Spring WILL start on this Sunday. Putting out my flag didn't help keep winter away, but now this is it for me!!!LOL. Don't see too many nights below freezing in the forecast for next week, so I am setting up my garden. Putting out my 'garden art' and benches. This time last year I had two different varieties of daffs in bloom, but right now they are still in bud. I ended up getting just shy of an inch of snow, and it was the heavy stuff, It is pretty much gone now, a few more flurries were hanging on, but nothing really stuck, The sun is actually out now, and I have the urge to get out there!!! The daffs are recovering as they always do, many were flattened out!! I will most likely keep Whiskey, I think after all that, I would worry about him and miss him. He did actually have a vole the other day, freshly caught!!! His skills are probably good due to being a street kitty for awhile. So he will earn his keep. Oh, flowergirl, there is no really helpful therapy for the auction, so you just bid away!! What you have to do is just keep thinking of ways and spots, to add more daylilies to your gardens, and that can be quite the challenge. cindy

Thanks all, its funny about Bowie and not having his coffee yet, cause that was my dilemma!! Now that summer vacation has officially started, I sit every morning ( after feeding the cats of course) on that 'new' garden seat with my morning coffee or tea, and bowie usually will sit in my lap, but lately he has been rushing to get to it first!! I can't sit on HIS lap, and I have to plead with him to get down!!! I have to go get another chair to sit on. He does know a good seat when he sees it!!! It's too funny and he looks very funny in that pic. Sharon, the cat in the other bed across from the PINK bed never causes any mischief, cause he is cement. Here's another pic of Bowie, guarding the garden, which he does a very good job of, whenever he sees a squirrel in the bird feeder, he runs over, has never hurt a squirrel but seems to know that they have their own feeder, cause he never chases squirrels out of the squirrel feeder. In the pic of Bowie, his very shy mother, we just call her 'mommy kitty' is on the other side, They were both rescue cats. Oh well, lots of fun to have the critters and cats around. Oh, I meant to post another daylily that I was so excited about, didn't take a good pic, It was the bonus Prediction from Maryott last fall and it showed itself yesterday. The last daylily is Drop Cloth which opened a few weeks ago, on a newly planted. Cindy FFO on Prediction Drop Cloth from Daylily Manor, May 7th, FFO one month later Cindy

Wonderful pictures! I particularly like the third one with the neck straight out, probably when the heron spied the frog. The size is fine - GW automatically limits photos to fit the space available. I have the Canon SX30 IS - when it fails I'll move up to whatever the latest Canon SX camera is. Claire This post was edited by claire on Wed, Aug 21, 13 at 11:17