As most of you know, and have probably heard by now, parts of Pennsylvania were hit pretty hard by all the rain we've been having of late.
On a recent sunny day, something that's been quite a rare occurrence, I was able to get outside and scout around for some subjects to photograph.
I was about to head down a path that runs through the woods near the property, when a movement caught my eye. I turned towards the movement and there, in a bush was a little brown bird. I waited to see if I could get a clear shot of it, and it hopped out of the bush and onto the ground.
I couldn't believe how close it was and wondered if it saw me or if it was so intent on catching bugs that it didn't even notice I was there...
I think it was safe to say, it knew I was there....
It actually cocked it's head and looked straight into the camera!
At this point, the bug it had been eyeing, had flown off and it was now just us two...
It hops up onto one of the wooden posts lying on the ground, maybe to get a better view of it's surroundings?
...about 3 feet from me here...
...about a foot away...
I had to angle my camera to keep my foot out of the picture... I think that's what it's looking at here...
I could have nudged him with my toe!
At this point, it either spots another bug or is tired of the standoff and gives me it's back, hops past me to the other side of the path and disappears into the brush.
All of this and I'm still within sight of the house. I wonder what would have happened if I had made it into the woods?
After all the rain, and we had lots, the mushrooms popped up everywhere. Especially in the wooded areas. A friend of mine told me about these giant white mushrooms she found called "Puffballs", which are edible. They can be as small as a baseball or as large as a beach ball. I've never seen them, but have heard of them, I wonder what they taste like? I helped her find some recipes and with one, she made small pizzas for the kids. :)
Here's a picture from the web:
None of what I saw around my area looked edible, but they sure looked interesting. Take a look and let me know what you think:
It looks like something took a bite out of these:
One of the pathways thru a wooded area was covered with these:
Found these mushroom piles at the bases of trees:
We had one really nice weekend and decided to grill. Opened the top and heard squeaking. It was loud, but at first I couldn't see what was making all that noise. Then I spotted a baby mouse, turns out there were about 5 of them scattered around the grill base. Seems mommy mouse made a nest in a corner of the grill. The mice were small, no fur yet and I think their eyes were still closed, but 3 of them has made it away from the next, 1 was trying to make it's way back. I didn't want to just toss them into the woods, so I moved them to the old burning barrel which was just a few steps away and covered it with an old wooden board to keep the rain out. About a week later, I lifted the board to see if the move went well. Not only did it go well, mommy mouse actually moved the nest so that it was on top of a piece of plastic I put between the wooden board and barrel:
