Muskrat in the Mud

 

Bricks

 

Crow (Possibly a Fish Crow)

 

Violet

 

Crocus

 

Views of a Hawk

Recently I saw a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), which seems to be the only kind of hawk that I ever see.   It was sitting in a tree by the river on a cold and very windy day.  

This was probably my best picture.

This would have been a good picture if I had gotten all of the bird’s head into the frame.

And this might have been a good picture if it had been in focus.

Holiday Seasonal Stuff After the Holiday Season

 

It is more than a month since Christmas, and some people still have their Christmas lights up (although, as one can tell from the above picture, they are hard to photograph).

At this point, do the people who have these lights even think of them as Christmas lights, or as some kind of general winter lights?

I don’t like Christmas lights in January, because they remind me that the Christmas season is over, and it won’t be back for a long time. 

A similar phenomenon that I noticed in the fall is that some people will put out Halloween pumpkins, and then after Halloween the pumpkins become Thanksgiving pumpkins, and stay out until the end of November.  But then other people put out their Christmas lights before Thanksgiving, and so there is a period of overlap in which some houses have pumpkins, and adjacent houses have Christmas  lights.  

That is a contrast of textures, or flavors, or whatever, that I really don’t like.  

Squirrels do seem to like the pumpkins, though.