Bull in a China Closet

So glad you all liked my little mason jars filled with twinkle lights from last year!  I have to give credit where credit is due though, my sister "M" is the one who inspired me to try it.  She puts a bowl full of lights on the mantle in her living room each year, and it really is lovely!

Today was a good day...I got things ticked off the "to do" list, including a story that was due, and I even made homemade beef stew for dinner!  And I never got out of my sweats...you gotta love a day like that!

Every time I got up to let the dogs out today, I would catch a flash of movement off to my left over near the field.  After seeing it several times, I finally paused long enough to look outside before heading out and saw this on the fence.  It was a small hawk who was happily hunting the large open field next to us and then coming back to feast on whatever he found while sitting on one of our fence posts.

Now, like any good blogger, or maybe a crazed photographer, I grabbed my camera and frantically attached my telephoto lens.  I wish I had a better telephoto lens (add it to my wish list of photography equipment) or maybe a steadier hand, but I was happy with how close I was able to get to this little fella since he was very far away!

The look on his face pretty much says it all though, I'm thinking his inner monologue was something like "what the heck is that, and why is it moving towards me?!"

So in the blink of an eye, off he flew to higher ground, and he even put his back to me as a kind of message...saying "hey I'm trying to make a livin' here...give a guy a break would ya and go back inside!"

Mr. Tide informed me when he got home that our little visitor was an American Kestrel Hawk.  It's one of the smallest hawks in North America and it really was beautiful!

Of course when I go outside I have a whole entourage.  And see the look on Miss Kylee's face?  That's the crazy look every Border Collie learns to use to scare the sheep and get them to move.  It's also quite effective at getting all wildlife to scatter when she comes outside!

Mr. Quinn isn't afraid of Kylee's "collie eye," but he still insists on coming out just to make sure that he scares away anything she misses!

Add in the fact that the cable guys were here burying cable and that means loud barking and more scattering of wildlife...are you getting the picture yet...think bulls in a china closet!

The other part of my entourage is this one.  Actually I told him to come outside to see the hawk so he doesn't really count as being an uninvited disruptor of nature!  He mostly walks quietly down to the dock and checks the fishing prospects.

After the two furry ones had scared away everything from herons to Larry the cable guy, I was left with these birds, who seemed oblivious to two very noisy humans and their dogs.

I even had to wander around to get a better shot of them, and they just continued to sit and sing.

These birds sat way high up in our dead tree and sang the most unusual songs.  I've never really heard anything like it, and I don't recall ever seeing this type of bird in our yard before, so maybe they stopped by on their migration elsewhere?!

If anyone is familiar with these unusual little birds I would love to hear what their name is, they really are perfect looking autumn birds with their black, brown, and gold coloring!

Tomorrow I'm off to a photo shoot...and I get to go out to lunch, looks like another good day!  I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday too!!