A couple of days ago I was hit out of the blue with a cold, the symptoms of which I am medicating so I am more or less functional. This cold in combination with nearly unceasing rain (nothing like the horrible amount of rain Texas is beginning to get now) and the need for me to work on revising my book manuscript have limited my birding to occasional backyard birding. I am happy to say that I have edited and re-edited the manuscript so it may be getting close to being ready to return to the publisher. There’s lots more to be done as I make a final selection of the photos and paintings to be used in the book. I also have plans to do a painting specifically for the cover, which hopefully will be good enough to be used for that purpose. Though ultimately satisfying, the process of getting a book published can be painful.
The birds, ‘tho wet, have been hungry. Following are pictures of a Downy Woodpecker, and various Steller’s Jays and Black-billed Magpies, many of which are looking rather messy nowadays. The jays spend much of their time sitting on the porch next to the door waiting for me to come it to feed them peanuts. Although a couple of them are tame and feed happily on my hand, when I had a camera in one hand to try for a video of them, they were quite spooked and only briefly came to my hand after much hesitation and bouncing around on the handle of the weed-whacker.
Lynn Barber's Birding Blog 