An Old English Nursery Rhyme & My Fascination With Birds

      
        The rain had just stopped.  Fog hung in the air.  It's one of my most favorite times to go for a walk.

                                                  I love the perspective of reflected images.

                                                                       Vacant.

I stopped for a moment to snap a picture of a squirrel, when just beyond my subject, I noticed a flash of red.  My attention then turned toward this pileated woodpecker as it pounded a few trees in the foggy woods.

                                A flock of geese honked overhead, announcing their arrival.

Later this same day, the fog lifted, the sun came out, and I retraced my steps to see things from a brighter perspective.  This tufted titmouse chipped from a high branch, welcoming me to the scene it was in.

Something about his felled branch appealed to me.  I think it reminded me of a walking stick of a crooked old man, calling to mind an old English nursery rhyme I remember from my childhood:
     There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
     He found a crooked sixpence, against a crooked stile.
     He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
     And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

                                                A downy woodpecker searches for insects.

Continuing on my walk, I noticed from a distance away, something blue up in a tree.  What the heck??  As I got closer, I dawned on me that it was the nest of a Baltimore Oriole.  I recently learned that they favor using thin little blue plastic strips--Lord know where they find them all--that they weave into each nest.  And I'll be darned--after previously seeing two of them in-person and yet another one last night, I'm amazed that each one does indeed have the same blue plastic strips interwoven in the nest!!