Moving day

Shot these through the window by the computer. I liked the little guy drinking from the bird bath, partially hidden behind the bronze bird in the bath. The metal bird sometimes leads my wife's murderous cats to a fruitless stalk ending in that thing cats do when they're embarrassed. You know, that look that says, 'I knew that wasn't really a bird.'


The annual fall migration has started, and we have a lot of pretty and out-of-the-ordinary visitors out the window, including a few orioles who've been hanging around for a couple days. There appear to be a couple of pairs, but this one was without his lady friend when he dined this afternoon. One of the really fun things about life here in this non-fatal bird funnel is the traffic through here in fall and spring.
And, culture-vulture bonus but still on-topic, William Cullen Bryant's 'To a Waterfowl':
To A Waterfowl

by William Cullen Bryant

Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or mlarge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast --
The desert and illimlitable air --
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.