HAPPY NEW YEAR AND REMEMBER TO LOOK AT THE LITTLE THINGS

Now Carol for all intents and purposes has her back turned toward me but I can still see the gleam of her left eye. Which means she can still see me. It's a little thing but awfully important to a bird to have wonderful peripheral vision.

Look at Carol on the right. Crows tend to have expressions of clever intelligence but Carol's look, I assume due to her fluffed feathers in this photograph, looks quite sweet.

Look at male House Sparrow's extremely sharp little toenails. If he were hawk sized we'd be tempted to call them talons.

In winter, the House Sparrows not infrequently seat themselves in a female section and a male section.

I particularly like this little thing. Look carefully at Junco's mouth. I thought at first that the little point midway between the two sections of his beak was the point on a seed but after scrutinizing it, that's the tip of Junco's little pink tongue.

House Finches always look sleep deprived. See the bags under this guy's eyes? I suspect that the "bags" are more apparent because they've few feathers around their eyes in the bag area.

And here's a little opening in the fence row. Where does it go? Why is it there? If one pays attention there are a million possible adventures waiting to happen.

Donegal Browne


P.S. Lola has yet to be sighted again.

P.P.S. My daughter Sam just called, yes, at 3:30 in the morning and told me I had to see the Transformer Owl on YouTube. Well folks, I think you have to see it too. And no it isn't a little thing, well the owl isn't huge, but the transformation is! Go for it. Here's the link-- (You may have to copy and paste. Lately the links just don't turn into links on the blog for some reason.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJrupqPqKYo