Have I mentioned lately that I love it here?

One of the wonderful things about moving to a new place – 800 miles from the old place – is new birds for the life list.

Just this week, a Bullocks Oriole visited us two mornings in a row. James got a few pix, but the bird was quite nervous and kept at a distance when she could see us.

The Black Headed Grosbeak who joined us a day later was considerably less shy, and even seemed to be posing at times. Unfortunately, James was still asleep – so you have to make do with my blurry photos for this guy.

As you can see – he got a bit possessive about the feeder block. The sparrows were not impressed.

And then the day before yesterday I was thrilled to see a woodpecker on the little tree beside the feeder. After some discussion – and she was good enough to visit again later in the day for a photo op – we think she is a female Ladderback Woodpecker. I’m glad we got a few photos. We had a male Ladderback who only stayed a day. So I don’t expect this female to stay long either. We don’t have very many trees on the place!

The last one isn’t very good, but it sure shows why they call them Ladderbacks! Unfortunately, none of the ones showing her hanging upside down in the tree came out!

I hope I get time to post this today – and hope even more that I have good news tomorrow. We are headed to Las Cruces to see if we can beg, borrow, or steal (rent/lease/buy) a laptop with wireless capabilities so I can blog more often. I have quit the job at Denny’s, and plan to take a couple of weeks to catch up with some work around the ranch before I even look for anything else. Meanwhile, if I get the laptop, I’ll go to work with the hubby – sit in a back booth and use the wireless. I’d really like to spend some time on my websites and get them all back in some sort of shape and order. After a few weeks, we’ll reevaluate and decide if I want to look for another job. Meanwhile – I’ll get to bird…

Good birding!