Out of doors

We've had some beautiful sunshine and some awful rain in the last few weeks.  On one of the sunny days I noticed a bit of color in the yard.  The daffodils were really pretty considering how much water they had to deal with.

The forsythia shrub really suffered, although it looks fairly decent in the sun. 

Then last weekend I went outside well after dark to let the puppies out and discovered a little gray bird huddled on the corner column of the porch.  I have no clue what kind of little guy he is but, it turns out, he has a friend on the other post.  How they hang on all night and not fall off leaves me stumped.





Not knowing what kind of birds they are can drive a person nuts, so I decided to try to find out using What Bird.  At first I thought I could identify them the quick way, but I ended up having to really break down the attributes and think hard to (perhaps) figure it out.  In the end I think they are house wrens.

copyright whatbird.com 2007

I think they are still young, maybe half-grown.  I also think they will look like the brown throated wren in the center of the picture.  

So what started as a post about what's going on out-of-doors in our area ended up a search for a bird on my front porch.  

In the meantime I hope you didn't look too closely at my poor pictures.  Not only are they fuzzy and out of focus (it's hard to take pics when your trying not to disturb the wildlife) but they also show how badly we need to wash the house. 

Did you see the little green frog in the top of the first pic?  That little guy has hundreds of family members making a mess on every bit of wall and window. Plus the birds--both crazy and cute--are leaving their own messes.  

Remember the crazy redbird banging on the window?  That fool still comes everyday, several times a day.  I'm so tired of cleaning up after him that I just may put out something to scare him off.  I could say it's for his own safety, but I really do not want every window flagged.  I don't have much use for lots of showy materialistic things, but I don't think I'm okay with tacky either.