Spotted a red shouldered hawk in our backyard this morning. Actually, Bill spotted it first. When I heard him yell, “You gotta see this – Come here IMMEDIATELY!!!” I thought that Ben must have taken his first steps. Instead I ran in to find Bill staring out the window at this red-shouldered hawk. It’s a miracle that the bird stood still long enough for me to drag out the tripod.

Sometimes I miss living in the city, but not when I have beautiful backyard visitors like this one. When we lived in the city our backyard visitors consisted of small rats, medium rats, and large rats. Now our list of visitors includes a turkey vulture, a fox, an opossum, loads of chipmunks, squirrels, and rabbits; hummingbirds, cardinals, blue jays; and now this majestic hawk.

Here’s a cardinal I spotted while visiting our friends, Matt and Karla. Matt and Karla have what I think is the cutest idea: His and Her blogs. Her blog is called MentalMother, and his is called MentalFather, and they both blog about their beautiful daughter, Ella. Hey, I just thought of something. They should register MentalDaughter so that when Ella is old enough to blog it is ready and waiting for her.