Good Monday morning to you all.
While the moon has been the big talk of the morning I on the other hand am sitting here awaiting the sun to burn off the frost and thinking about all the chores I want to do today when it warms. Think 'leaves' here.
Frost the past few nights have taken it's toll in the garden as can be expected. We were lucky to have such a long frostless autumn. The cone that did so well with the big coleus in it has succumbed.
As you can see the frost has put the coleus and other tender annuals down for the season. Even most of the perennials have given up.
All of which lead to more chores in the garden. I have already had to put a cage around these potted minature hostas. The darned squirrels keep digging them up. I hope they survive. While they are small they are mighty. The two smaller ones would be much larger if the squirrels would stay out of the pot. This isn't the only pot they dig in either. They have pulled out orchids and other plants from their pots.
The migrating robins have been in the garden gobbling up all the fruits that are available. They have just about finished off the Beauty Berries.
When the only berries left are the ones on the tippy tips of the the shrub they do all sorts of acrobatics to eat them. The picture below shows one climbing on the adjacent trellis to get at the ends. It is fun to watch them.
It is now more seasonable temperatures even if we haven't had our usual rains. Even the birds of the fields have been coming in to the water feature. The robins, much to their chagrin, have had to share the water feature with the starlings.
Starlings are so pretty in their winter plummage. They are very skittish so it is difficult to take pictures of them. Sorry about the quality of pictures. All of the robin and starling pictures are taken through one or two panes of glass.
One last bird photo. As we were out birding last week we saw a juvenile
Surf Scoter in a pond. Surf Scoters are sea ducks. I live in the middles of the country 100's of miles from the ocean or the Great Lakes. It was such an unusual sighting I thought I would share it with you. If you click on the photo it will get larger so you can see the unusual shape of the bill.
I hope all is going well in your neck of the woods. Have you seen anything unusual in your area lately? Are you about to drown in leaves?