January 20, 2009

The Bohemian Waxwings invaded our mountain ash tree this day and it was a delight to watch them! They are incredibly quick and are not always easy to photograph, even they are sitting in the branches. They also tend to freak me out as they dart back and forth between this tree and the trees along the side of our house. The birds will streak straight for our front room window (where I took these photos), then veer off right at the very last second. Unfortunately, some of the birds slam into the window and I feel so badly for them. When this happened a few weeks ago, four or five birds got the wind knocked out of them and lay in the snow bank below for up to 3 hours. Sadly, on this day, one poor birdie didn't make it.

The photo of that particular bird is 10 shots down, in case you want to by-pass it.

Cully has fun chasing the waxwings - it's okay, as they are much too fast for her to catch!

Poor little guy... I didn't see this happen, but heard it from another room. Thankfully, we were inside and these footprints of Cully's were already there when the bird fell. The next time we went outside, I disposed of him before she had a chance to see it.

Later on, I had to run an errand in Anchorage and stopped at the north-side Michaels and Bed, Bath & Beyond on the way home. At Mike's, I purchased some rubbery window decals to help warn the Waxwings away from our window.

Traffic light, taken through the raindrops on the passenger side window.

I assume it was due to the freezing rain, but the trip home took me more than 35 minutes for a 10 mile drive. As you can see by the blurry photo, traffic creeped along around 20 mph.

Shot of the sluggish traffic as we tippy-toe our way north on the Glenn Hwy.

~ klb