My own personal sky

Please, please enlarge these...they are so beautiful. Even with a dirty lens, the bottom one is still awesome.
I took these last night when I was thinking about leaving the strip pits. Actually, I was trying to make myself leave because it was too dark to capture anything else but the sky caught my attention and I had to make one final round and catch a few different views of it. These were two of my favorites.

I must say that I am still concerned about the Northern Harriers...in the three or four times I have been out there recently, I have only seen one, and it in the distance. I could tell it was one by the way it flew close to the ground and seeing its white patch. Since one male can have up to 5 or 6 females, maybe the females are all on nests.
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I spent most of the day with the Little Bright Eyes...I had to be there by 7:30, though I got there a little earlier than that. She slept in till 9:00...got her up and we changed her diaper. You got to understand that she loves having her diaper changed. She kicks and talks and smiles and laughs the whole time. Even if she is fussy, if you go change her diaper it is almost guaranteed to change her mood.

Anyway, changed her diaper and then tried to give her a bottle. She has a bit of a stuffy nose, and I don't know if that was part of the problem or what, but she was not as enthused with the bottle as she was the other time I got to give her one. However, once we got it down, she was just a happy, cheerful little girl.

I didn't try to take pictures, though I should have. I did have Roger's point&shoot camera in my purse. She has decided she really likes her swing, and when her mommy got back and fed her, she wanted in the floor. She kicked and kicked and talked to us...had us totally entertained.

In other news, our other daughter should be heading home from Colorado in the wee hours...they plan on leaving 1:00 a.m. tomorrow. She has been out there for some training in crisis support. I know she is looking forward to sleeping in her own bed again.

Roger is turkey hunting...yesterday was opening day. Neither he nor his buddies got one yesterday. He didn't go out this morn, but went out before I got home. It is just amazing...when we were first married, there were no wild turkeys around. Now, we see them quite often, and sometimes big flocks of them. I think the National Wild Turkey Federation has had a lot to do with getting them re-introduced to our world again.

New for me...

It was so beautiful this evening that I made a quick run to the strip pit area. I think the above are Northern Shoveler. It could be a bit better, but this image still shows enough to identify.
I got this dove the first thing when I turned down the road. Doves are just so kind looking to me...I always think of them as a symbol of peace. You really need to click on both of these to get the full effect, but especially this dove.

I go early, or early for me, to Terre Haute to babysit Lorelei for a few hours in the morning, so I need to head to bed and try to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

One more identification

I know this top photo is not in focus, but is this a blue-winged teal? I think it is from my book and also from googling it.
I am embarrassed to tell this, but it had not dawned on me that the bird below is the female version of the blackbird. It sort of made me wonder when they act so much alike, but I had never thought to look it up. But when googling red-winged blackbird, it appears several times.
I would hate to have to count the number of red-winged blackbirds out at the strip pit. I think it would be an impossible task. They are everywhere you look.
Two fellow bloggers, Tom and Leedra, identified the questionable bird in yesterday's post as the grebe, pied-billed grebe by Tom...Leedra just called it a grebe. Now if someone would just identify the one Sunday's post...I have also ran into pictures of sandpipers and sandpiper like birds that are similiar to it.

Today was a windy day...it felt like the wind came direct off an iceberg. It was dark and dreary to begin with, the sun came out for a bit and then back to dark and dreary. If I had not had things to do, I would have went out to the strip pits just to watch the changing skies.