Bouncing Foxes

My friend Carolyn sent this from Minnesota.

Then You Shake It To The Left

Just follow the easy steps

Listen to the music playing in your head...

And do the Kinglet Boogie!

Sunrise

When we laid out the foundation of our house we used a compass to get the correct orientation for passive solar gain. Oddly, the compass simply wouldn't work on the west end of the house. We figured it was because of the nearby heavy metal machinery and used the direction for south that the compass showed on the east wall. It was wrong by 13 degrees. It turns out that this ridge has large iron deposits and was surface mined heavily at one point in time. When we laid out the driveway we cut into one of the iron seams. One happy consequence of this is that the winter solstice sunrise comes directly and exactly through this window.

I should mention that this window was a work by the talented artist, Glenna Alderson, working in stained glass for this piece. It is a treasured gift.

Today's Walk

After 20 years here I see new things every day. This is a "clamber" up the steep side of Walden Ridge staying on our property. I followed deer trails and decided that whitetail deer must be closely related to mountain goats. The trails went up some fairly impressive pitches and are well used this time of year. The round leaf catchfly in bloom was a surprise, although the leaves on this one are not even close to round. The humidity is rather high even with the low temperature so the smoky mountains don't show up in the shot looking over Jackie's farm.

Scariest Canoeing Video Ever

Today's Walk at Whites Creek

Every winter we get ice and it is different every year. I never tire of staring into some of the formations.

Brown Creeper...Got Him!

Finally got a rough shot through the window of a brown creeper at the suet feeder. These hyperactive little birds fascinate me but they sure don't sit still long enough to get much of a picture. 

Swinging

Pine siskins and goldfinches swinging on the thistle feeder.

This pleases me.

Firefox cam, live 24/7 at the Knoxville zoo.

Now if we can only get the Darter Cam adopted at Conservation Fisheries.
(Warning! Graphic fish sex may occur)

At the Feeders

The Magic Log is bringing in the usual suspects and a couple of favorites that didn't come by last year. Once again the red breasted nuthatches are hanging around. I'll work on getting a better shot but these guys are odd in that they will take off if they see movement within the house but will land a few feet away if you are replenishing the empty feeder. 

We have a very shy brown creeper and the odd mystery warbler I'll try to get pictures of as well. Over at the sunflower seeds the doves work very hard to get through the spikes that are intended to keep them out so that the smaller birds can feed. I keep thinking about the dove and rice dishes we used to have as a child.

Purple finch

Titmouse flashing his crest.

And I need some help with this little guy. Who is up on their winter warblers? Is it a Kinglet?