The puppies (they will always be puppies to us) get a little tense (a lot?) when we go on a road trip, but they soon accept it for what it is – a doggie adventure. When they get back in the motorhome they get a snack and then they relax.
Beethoven is sitting on the sofa top while Cabela seems to be quite relaxed herself. They have done this vacation routine many times before and will be OK with it, but VERY glad and excited to get back home.
After a recent rainfall, several hummingbirds can be seen browsing the Red Bird of Paradise Flowers in the courtyard here. I managed to capture this photo of one of the tiny birds as it was sipping nectar from one of the brightly colored flowers on the Pride of Barbados shrub nearest the Plum Tree by the gate.
Canon T6i camera settings: 1/1600 second, F5.6, ISO 640, Focal Length 135mm.
Click on the image to enlarge.
A beautiful butterfly came into the courtyard this morning and was busily browsing the flowers on our Red Bird of Paradise (a.k.a. Pride of Barbados) shrubs. All three of the courtyard Red Birds now have flowers, so the little guy had a good selection to browse.
More about these flowering shrubs from Wikipedia:
Caesalpinia pulcherrima is a species of flowering plant in the pea family.
It is a shrub growing to 3 m tall. In climates with few to no frosts, this plant will grow larger and is semievergreen. Grown in climates with light to moderate freezing, plant will die back to the ground depending on cold, but will rebound in mid- to late spring. This species is more sensitive to cold than others. The leaves are bipinnate, 20–40 cm long, bearing three to 10 pairs of pinnae, each with six to 10 pairs of leaflets 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm broad. The flowers are borne in racemes up to 20 cm long, each flower with five yellow, orange, or red petals. The fruit is a pod 6–12 cm long.
Caesalpina pulcherrima is the national flower of the Caribbean island of Barbados, and is depicted on the upper left and right corners of the Queen Elizabeth II’s personal Barbadian flag. Claire Waight Keller included pride of Barbados to represent the country in Meghan Markle’s wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country.
Click on the image to enlarge.
The Mama says that I look like I have “Bubba J” teeth when I hold my new squeaky ball in my mouth. I don’t know who that is, but I like to play catch and chase after the toys. Those are the rest of my toys in the bucket under the coffee table.
The Mama got me this ball when she was at the dollar store last week. I like it. Click to make me and the squeaky ball big.
We had one of our spring-like winter days today with mostly clear skies and warmish (not as warm as we like) temperatures. While eating breakfast we could see the birds frequenting the feeders on the little hill behind the RV driveway.
I speculated that some of the birds would hang around after breakfast, so I headed out there with my camera and 300mm zoom lens. I managed to get several shots of the little flying critters including the two above. On the left is a goldfinch and on the right is a cardinal, both males of their respective species. They were both briefly “decorations” on the mesquite tree up there. Click on either image to enlarge.
Today, like many Mondays, I went up on the knoll behind the house and replenished the bird feeders. We have a Seed Block Cage, a Bell Holder, two large Nyjer Seed Finch Feeders, a smaller Finch Feeder and a Songbird Seed Feeder.
After finishing up on the knoll, the usual avian customers came out to enjoy the fruits of our labor. I got out my Canon EOS with the 300mm zoom lens and captured these three up near the feeders. Top: Curve Billed Thrasher, Bottom Left: A Male Gambel’s Quail and Bottom Right: Abert’s Towhee. The latter of the three, we don’t see very often, but it was availing itself of some of the songbird seeds after it posed in a mesquite tree. Click on any image to enlarge.
