Another banner day

Turns out both my brother Greg and I have bosses who were nice enough to let us get an early start on the holiday weekend, so the two of us made plans to order a pizza for dinner after he'd gotten into town. It was an absolutely gorgeous day here today, so I sat out on my front step—camera in hand, of course—as I waited for him to arrive from Albany, taking a few photos as I enjoyed the sunshine:



This robin is framed by the lilac bush right across from my front door:



After Greg got here, I asked if he'd be interested in going over to Howell's with me, just to see what the place looked like. He agreed, and although I grabbed a pair of binoculars for him I think we both figured that, Murphy's Law being what it is, because he was going to be there with me we probably wouldn't see anything more interesting than a blackbird or two.

As we drove in I spotted a heron wading fairly close to shore—I'm convinced it's because it's the first time in more than a month I haven't had my camera out on the seat next to me as I arrived at the pond. By the time I'd pulled over and had my camera in hand, it decided to take off for the far end. So, no photos there. I went and parked in my usual spot, then walked back to where I'd left Greg. As we stood there, I pointed out the spot on the opposite shore where I'd first seen the gray fox the other day, then indicated the path it took along the bank. Then I noticed a movement, and then... well, without the photos to prove it I doubt anyone would believe what we spotted:



If I'd been thinking quickly, I'd have immediately wished for a big bag of money to fall out of the sky in front of us. Instead, we just had a damselfly land on Greg's hand:



Loved the coloring on this one I spotted later in the reeds:



The heron made a return pass over our heads, but decided against coming back down to earth:



A little while later I heard a kingfisher making noise further along the shore, so we took a walk down the road to see if we could spot it. No luck there, but I did realize there was something different about the submerged log I'd seen the mergansers on—it was now the new hot spot for sunbathing, at least among turtles:



At this point, I was ready to ask Greg to drive to Vermont every night after work if it'd guarantee me so many wildlife sightings—and that was before the wood duck and her ducklings put in their appearance:



Not a great shot, but you can see one of the ducklings climbing over the fallen branc:



Finally, I'm pleased to announce I no longer feel bad about missing the wood ducks on the other side of the pond the day I was photographing the swallows, as neither Greg nor I saw the turtle on this log as we followed the progress of the ducks along the shore:



Now Greg's never going to believe me if I happen to post about not seeing much on a future visit...