Mower and More

  Big day today! Sue and I drove to Shelby to pick up my "new" lawnmower. It's been really well taken care of. This is such a great deal for me!

Then we went out to eat at the Brown Bear in Shelby.

This was what we elected to take home. We'd already eaten half! Good food.

We were parked right beside the Hart-Montague Rail Trail. We were stuffed and needed some exercise, and the doggies wanted a walk. Perfect!

Two happy little sniffers. We walked a total of four miles.

Best event of the walk? Spotting a rufous-sided towhee!

On the way home, I saw a northern harrier hawk too, but no picture. And on the way down, we took a peek at the Pere Marquette river flats because there were reports of a flock of migrating white pelicans. Pretty sure we saw one straggler. Great birding day, especially since I'm not a very good birder.

In other news: I had a meeting tonight. I didn't get any mowing done, because it was starting to sprinkle as soon as we made it back to my place, and then it actually started raining.

See First Bike Ride 2017 See Half an Accomplishment

Birds

 
I've seen both of these species of birds before, but never got pictures this good. I have nothing against our winter birdies, and will welcome the robins coming north, but it was awesome to see a couple that aren't often seen where I live.

First is the northern mockingbird, Mimus polyglottos. They just barely come as far north as I live, but are much more common in the south. They are common visitors to parks and urban areas, so getting a picture of one of them isn't too difficult.



I'm much more tickled to have caught this shot of the Rufous-sided (eastern) towhee, Pipilo erythrophthalmus. This bird is easy to hear, but not so easy to see.



We spent most of today doing church activities, but there are plans to do some outside things as the week goes forward.

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