Bird brain

I can't seem to leave the valley anymore without running into hawks. Red tails everywhere. Red tail woodstock, seemingly from every high branch or telephone pole. Whole mess of them this morning. Saw my namesake flying around too, our valley's resident blue heron aloft with its majestic wingspan. I also espied another very psychedelic colored little bird in the bushes that I have never seen before and think might be very rare but couldn't squeeze off a shot with my slow camera.

I was supposed to meet with my photo group at the coffee shop as we do every saturday morning. I decided to be late, figuring that it was more important to take pictures than to talk about taking pictures. Managed to get there finally in spite of myself.