Taking Time to Breathe

Rushing here and there, loading and unloading automobiles, keeping eyes to the grindstone. Then yesterday hubby sticks his head in the kitchen as I put away food and mentions we have a prothonotary in the woods on the side of the yard.  To the average person, this does not sound like much news.  To the average bird watcher, it is perhaps, at most, an interesting comment.   To Tabor, this is really exciting, and a perfect excuse to push the pause button in my crazy life these days. 

I saw my first prothonotary in 2009 and watched it as I ate lunch in a canoe that rested at the side of a river. It is a big deal to see the first of a species that others have know about and have seen forever. I am always a little behind the times and last to the banquet served up by Mother Nature.  If you go to the link above you will see that my photos were very small that I posted, belying my excitement at that time.

Throwing milk into the fridge, I grabbed my camera, hubby grabbed the binoculars and we began a bird-watching feast.  These birds nest along rivers in the holes of trees and I have never seen them in my yard...EVER!  (Yes, photos are noisy, grainy and not up to National Geographic standards...but I was soooo thrilled to see him!)

If it was not for his loud and piercing song of love, we would not have been able to zone in on him in the lime green jungle of spring.

He hopped from tree to tree in search of his mate.

Tra 

"Hey, Babe, where are you?"

"Tra, la, la, la la!!

Pausing on occasion to groom his lovely yellow-peach chest so that if she stopped by he would be looking HOT!

Pausing every once in a while to give me the eye as I snapped my camera.

Flying the eve of my house and facing the river giving it all he had.

Finally a bit exhausted and pensive as he rested on the stem of my clematis lost in thought about where to fly next.  Still looking HOT!