I applaud Black Vultures as the house keepers of our earth! I love the fact that they clean up road kill and other nasty stuff.

Our pond is fed by a salmon spawning creek, so the vulture could very well have been after a dead fish. This is pretty early for any fish to spawn, although I do believe it is a 'pink year' (humpies) and perhaps they are earlier than the other salmon. Or any of a number of small mammals, there is a large woodlot behind the pond home to all sorts of critters (squirrel, racoon, possum, weasel, etc.)

Turkey Vultures are very common here. I would like to see a Black Vulture!

It's always fun to spot something out of the ordinary. When we visited Florida we saw plenty of vultures, but they are not nearly as common in my neck of the woods.

I see Turkey Vultures flying over the house just about every day, same when we were at the lake, they are seasonal here.

This year, the Turkey Vulture numbers seem down. We usually see more in our area.

I need to admit, we tried attracting Turkey Vultures a couple of times. Once with old meat, but a night time critter made off with it. Bummer. Try 2: Old meat, covered it at night, something dug under the metal tub. But the day before that, Turkey Vultures flew low over the yard, but inside noise freaked them out.

Try #3: This was more of an accident. I won't go into details, but our dog caught a rabbit, but didn't do the job. After my husband completed the deed, he threw it into the south pasture. This caused major drama after a few days.

Seven Turkey Vultures came to investigate, there was fighting between some of them. Nesting Grackles were not happy about their presence, so dived bombed the vultures. One foolish vulture landed on the Kestrel box and out came Mrs. Kestrel and clawed it on the back. Yes, these vultures can fly quickly when they need to. And a separate drama was occurring between two male Pheasants fighting over territory at the same time. Ah, I like birds.

Towns in the area have done things to remove Vultures. I try to understand that from man's perspective, but they should do the right thing and that is to then create or allow them habitat elsewhere.

I feel better now knowing I'm not the only one who has tried to attract them to the yard!!

I was stalking butterflies again and I saw the hummingbird! Not my greatest pictures, but my hummers are super skittish. I walked slowly but it totally saw me so I froze. In case you're wondering what the plant situation in the photo is, I have Firebush with Passiflora 'Lavender Lady' growing on top of it. The Passiflora didn't used to be that big but one of my weak spots is garden planning. I've also got a Salvia 'Black and Blue' popping up there on the left and that's a bromeliad on the right. I cropped the photo in case you're like, "But Melanie, where's the hummingbird?" The hummingbird was only eating the Firebush, FYI.



I have more Firebush in front of the house and it flew there next. It's weird how you think of hummingbirds as these tiny, little things because they can throw their weight around when they want. I watched as it nectared and it was shaking that plant all over. Of course, the only picture I got was it departing.

Melanie, looks like the hummers are loving your garden!

Well, today is our 46th wedding anniversary and we decided to go for an early dinner this afternoon but we couldn't decide where we wanted to go. We ended up at a casual seafood place along the intracoastal waterway in New Smyrna Beach called Dolphin View Restaurant which has been a favorite of ours for many years. Whenever we'd have our boat out on the water we'd call in for take out and dock at the restaurant long enough to pick it up, then we'd go anchor at a nearby island and eat lunch. We sold our boat last year so it was a little different perspective actually parking the car and eating at the restaurant but we got the same great views and the food was just as good as we remembered! We had a pleasant afternoon sitting out on the deck by the water, watching all the boats, a few paddle boarders, kayakers and sea birds. I took my camera in case we were to see Dolphins or Manatees in the water. A couple of dolphins did surface but I didn't manage to get any pictures ... they were out of sight before I could pick the camera up but I did manage to get some pictures of Pelicans, a Snowy Egret and a Seagull.

Brown Pelican's and a Seagull

Snowy Egret


A view looking north from the deck at the restaurant and boats anchored in the water across from the restaurant

Happy 45th Anniversary to you and your hubby Lin!

The photos are great and what a lovely view from the restaurant !

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY LIN & HUBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Anniversary, Lin!!!

Thanks so much y'all ... it's sometimes hard to believe it's been 46 years! We were youngsters when we got married, I was 21 and my husband turned 20 a couple of weeks after we were married.

I know Lin! It seems like your anniversary rolls around every six months. I can clearly remember when you talked about your anniversary last year. Time sure does fly!

I was outside watering container plants a few minutes ago and suddenly the Jays began to screech like they do when a hawk is in the area; all of the songbirds took off for cover but a juvenile Northern Cardinal perched at the top of the bottlebrush tree, looking around curiously. It wasn't a hawk in the vicinity but rather a Swallow-tailed Kite ... luckily it went the other way.

Ooh! Great photo! I can never get them in flight. Did you report it to the Swallowtail Kite site? I think August is when they're supposed to leave us and go south so it's interesting to see where they are during the year.

http://www.thecenterforbirdsof...

Melanie, Yes I reported this one and another one that I spotted a couple of weeks ago!

Melanie, thanks for posting that site!

Nice capture Lin!

The birds tell much if we will listen. The other day the cat was laying out in the catnip in the cottage garden. He's been doing a lot of that lately, just laying around, getting high!! Suddenly I heard a bird making a sharp sound that made me wonder what was wrong. Sure enough that cat was sitting right next to one of the hummingbird feeders!! The distress call stopped as soon as I took the cat inside. He just lost his catnip privilege!

On a nicer note, yesterday evening we turned the sprinkler on the tomato garden and the birds dropped out of the trees like leaves where they enjoyed the sprinkles. It's been hot here lately, and looks like we will be doing more evening sprinkling. I tried but no pictures this time.

Happy Anniversary Lin!! I am a but late! We celebrated #42 last week.