27 March, 2016 Happy Easter! Happy Spring! Happy Sunday!

Happy beginning of Spring, at least if you’re in the northern hemisphere. And Happy Easter, if you’re so inclined. I just returned (~8:00 Sunday evening) from delicious late Easter Brunch at my sister Katie’s house in Maryland. So, like last week, I’m going to put up a few pictures from this week, and do a longer post tomorrow.

Part of the Easter Egg-citement was the lovely new arrival at Katie’s house – the energetic and outgoing Mattie. She was born in early November and will be five months old in a couple of weeks. Pictured here with Mackey and Turner and me this afternoon at Katie’s. My niece Aileen took the pictures – those dogs didn’t stop moving long!:

Mattie on the move:

Joining the pack:

Thursday March 24 was, according to reliable sources, the first day the Purple Martins (Progne subis) returned to Bryan Park. This picture is not spectacular; I’ll have better images a week from today:

The return of the Purple Martins to Bryan Park – more Spring progress! Yay!

On Monday at Bryan Park, we hiked to the Nature Preserve (near Shelter 2) and this Red-shouldered Hawk flew into a tree and landed: 

Red-shouldered Hawk in Bryan Park. The thing about raptor pictures is, they just “take command” of the image – when I look at raptor pictures, I just look at the raptor.

We watched it for quite some time, and took more than a few photographs, and hiked back out. And as we reached Young’s  Pond Dam and the Bryan Park Avenue entrance, this Red-tailed Hawk flew into another tree and landed!:

Red-tailed hawk at Bryan Park – taken w/in 1/2 mile of that Red-shoulder, ten minutes later.

I’ve got some nice flower pictures, plus some so-so osprey pictures, plus a picture of one of our “neighborhood” Red-tails – I took the picture from my front porch – plus lots of flowers, but I’m fading fast and my pillow is much more attractive than this keyboard. More tomorrow! Thanks for dropping in!

Have a great day,

Jay