Got it!

Sweeeeet!

My new camera came Thursday evening. I was tracking its progress, and was excited to see that it had arrived in our city at 5 AM, and was "out for delivery" at 6 AM. Around 6 PM, I had given up hope that I'd get it that day, but at 6:45, there was the UPS guy! I think the snowy roads must have put them a little behind, but wow, good job, UPS! Considering that I ordered it on Monday and received it Thursday night, I must say I'm impressed.

So I've had a little time to play around with it. I still have much to learn, but one of my favorite things so far is the feature that lets you highlight one color while the rest are in black and white. I had some drooping roses and took this picture:

Kinda neat, huh? I think I'll like this camera very much.

More neat news! This weekend, I did the Great Backyard Bird Count, a nationwide thing that Cornell University does. Regular folks do a bird count, whether it's just looking out their window or taking a walk in the woods, and enter the information on the website. It's a way to track bird populations and migratory patterns. I've been doing it for a few years now, and I look forward to it every year (being the geek that I am).

I saw the usual suspects for this time of year, with a few surprises. I saw them a few days ago, so I knew they were in our area, but they're supposed to be wintering in the south. I counted 8 robins, and 2 bluebirds. Last week, I saw six bluebirds at our heated birdbath. I love seeing bluebirds here in the winter--they're so pretty!

The most exciting thing was that I saw a bird that I had not seen before. I thought I'd seen pretty much everything Nutwood had to offer, but I saw a brand new bird--at least to Nutwood!--today! How cool that I saw a new bird while doing the GBBC! It was a yellow-bellied sapsucker, and I got such a good look at him, there was no mistaking it. At first I thought it was a downy woodpecker, but then I thought, "Hey, he has a red throat. And he looks kind of yellow. Wait a minute....!" I got out my book, and sure enough, he was a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Came right up to the suet feeder, too, then spent quite a while hanging out on the walnut tree.

Ahh, it was a good day.