little robin redbreast

I think most of us associate robins with springtime. But, I photographed this handsome fellow today. while we were both taking a short rest in the shade. He seemed quite content with having his picture taken, allowing me to snap quite a few shots of him. 

~photo by Inside the Pomegranate~

springtime, officially

Yesterday was the Spring Equinox - the 1st official day of spring - and though it feels like it could be summertime, there's something nice about spring officially starting. 

I love the signs of spring - the greening of the grass, robins with their orangish-red vests hopping around with their skinny little legs, bulbs eagerly poking up from the ground growing everyday taller and taller, and early bloomers like forsythia is unabashed, full-on color. 

I came across this quote that I think sums up springtime perfectly:

Spring has returned.

The Earth is like a child that know poems.

-Rainer Maria Rilke 

a robin with his orange vest

hyacinths popping up from the ground

forsythia, in full bloom

I hope that wherever you are, you are enjoying the new season.

turkey the bird, not the country...

Before I left for Turkey, I was out for a walk in the nearby University of Wisconsin Arboretum. It's a place that's less than a mile from our house and provides an instant calm as it surrounds you with copious amounts and varieties of trees. I stumbled across these wild turkeys and was quite surprised to see how close they'd let me approach to take their picture. 

Scientific classification, Genus: Meleagris

Turkey (the birds) are native to the Americas. So, did you ever wonder where the name turkey comes from? The birds were erroneously identified by early European settlers as a type of guineafowl, which were also known as turkey fowl because they were imported to Europe from Turkey. The name stuck after all of these years. And interesting enough, the Turkish word for turkey (bird) is hindi which means Indian (as in India). It is thought the Turkish name arose from the early misconception that India and the New World were one in the same.

Sounds like these birds have had a bad case of mis-billing throughout the years and throughout cultures.

goldfinches and coneflowers

Isn't this little goldfinch in his bright yellow coat a handsome little fellow? He and his friends love to frequent the purple coneflowers we have growing in our front yard. They make for excellent bird watching, and they'll be visiting the coneflowers for their seeds long after the blooms have completely faded.  

American Goldfinch -
male in breeding plumage