Feeling the heat

Although it wasn't quite as bad today as it got last week, it was still hot and humid enough that hanging out inside and moving as little as possible was definitely the most appealing and sensible course of action. So that's exactly what I did for the majority of my day.

I did go out long enough to pick up my mail, and upon my return even managed to take a couple of photos before the heat drove me inside. The apartment next to me is empty right now, so I stood under the small porch roof that sits over the front door and hoped some birds would come in to the feeder before I finally caved. Lucky for me, a few did.

This sparrow's beak was already open when it landed, but as I far as I could tell it wasn't making any noise. So I figure it was probably a bird's version of panting to try and keep cool:



I shot this through a gap in a maple tree, going for a framing effect. I'm not entirely sure it worked all that well, but I figured I'd share it anyway.



I finally emerged from my apartment again around 6:30 to try and take a few more pictures, since the temperature had finally gotten back down to the low 80s. As I surveyed my surroundings, I noticed that a group of clouds was about to cross in front of the moon. I snapped a few pictures as they did so, and this was the one I liked best of the bunch:



A fallen bird's nest I spotted across from my apartment:



Just as I finished photographing the nest I heard a familiar chirping, and looked up to see a male Cardinal land on the bit of lawn next to my apartment:







It didn't fly up onto the bird feeder, but I'm hoping now that it's discovered there's food to be had that at the very least it'll be a more frequent visitor—maybe even return with some friends.

After the Cardinal took off, I walked back over towards my apartment. There were a couple of Goldfinches on the feeder, and for whatever reason they weren't bothered by my presence until I'd gotten fairly close. So I decided to wait right there for a few minutes and see if they'd return now that I was no longer moving. I'm not quite sure how I managed it, but I got a fairly interesting head-on shot of one finch as it did just that:



While I was going through my photos, I noticed that in several of the images the feathers on top of the bird's head were standing up a bit, almost as if someone had run their finger across it the wrong way. Since in other photos—sometimes even the next photo—the feathers were lying flat, as usual, it made me wonder if it was another means for the birds to cool off a bit:





A male looking up at the female that had just landed on top of the hook:



Finally, I got a kick out of how the finches' positions ended up making it seem as if there was just one bird with a really long neck sitting on the feeder: