All of them are very pretty. It seems short scapes are the norm this year, a lot of mine have had short scapes also but they have great looking blooms. Have a happy July 4 with the twins. Linda

both mama and papa and 3 young ones showed up today together 2 young females and 1 young male. they tried the feeders and a pan of nuts and seeds and foraged on the ground for awhile. i was hoping to get a picture with all five together but only got three at once.

Hi Donna One of my goals for this winter is to get a lot of good snow shots. If you are interested, I will be happy to share some of them. And Kenn, no, mine did not leave either. In fact, they never have. I don't think there has been a single day since 2004 that they haven't been out there. They did go through a period right after the last clutch fledged where they seemed to ignore the nest box. But now they are back to their usual morning routine: perching on the box and repeatedly going in and out. The female occasionally flies in with a small amount of grass and the male goes in and after a while flies out with a single blade of grass in his mouth. I'm not sure if it's a communication between the two of them or if it's some way to saying to any other birds that this house is taken. Here are some shots from about an hour ago. They were taken with the 400mm from about 100 feet, so with the cloudy conditions we have today, they are rather soft. At one point there were two females at the box. One was undoubtedly the juvenile, but since she has finished her moult, I can't tell which was which. The first shot is of the adult female chasing a female house finch that was snooping around the box.

I'm a morning person for sure. I get up at 6 every morning and usually wake up naturally at 5:45. No grogginess and I don't think I've ever hit a snooze button in my life! I have flexible hours at work so I choose to do 7-4 so I can take advantage and have more time in the afternoon/evening. The trade off is that I shut down around 8 pm and go to bed usually by 11. Even if I stay up really late into the early morning hours, I still can't sleep in past 8 the next day. That part is annoying.