This was such a pretty picture, I had to use it. It’s a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, feeding at one of Joy’s stations. I chose to use it for this week’s Pull Up, because watching birds calms me. I’ve had a stressful week, and there’s no tellin’ when the stress is going to end, so I need something to calm and center me right now. And today, it’s this pretty birdie. I have the same breed that visits my feeders, too, as well as Baltimore Orioles and Indigo Buntings. We also have the “normal” birds – Chickadees, Goldfinches, House Finches, and a huge variety of Sparrows. And then there are the woodpeckers – Downies, Hairies, and Red-Heads, and a Flicker or two. We even had a Pileated lurking around here for a while last spring – that was really cool.
What about you? How was your weekend, and how’s your week shaping up? And what do you do when you’re crazy-stressed out, and need some ‘chill-out and center yourself’ time? Oh, and do you feed the birds? What kinds do you have, frequenting your feeders?
Us Girls..Our Views 
I have the occasional Indigo Bunting but not very many. I’d love to see a whole tree full of them. The color is so gorgeous.
I don’t do the bird-feeder thing because the not-so-pretty critters generally get into them. Sometimes another person here tries it, but always with the same result.
I’m not really a bird-watcher, so I probably don’t know the names of all the birds I see. The most common ones to see in my backyard are robins, sparrows, cardinals, blue-jays, doves, goldfinches (I think), woodpeckers, and crows. Sometimes if you’re lucky you’ll run across a hummingbird in these parts, and hear an owl at night. Wild turkeys hang out in the woods behind my kids’ school and sometimes they come out and pick a fight with the cars (that is hilarious). We also get some ducks after a rain, and some carrion birds if a critter has died nearby. None of these is particularly soothing for me to watch.
What I do to chill out is clean or oganize. If the weather is right, I will go outside and watch nature, but most of the time the environment is not conducive – it’s too cold, wet, hot, populated, noisy, or the insects start coming after me. I rarely have enough time to go for a hike or walk nowadays. Maybe someday!
The weather has been pretty nice this weekend, so we got some park time while I wasn’t working. I got some organizing done – got my work papers off my dresser and into some relatively attractive file bins, cleared probably a thousand sent emails (only 1829 to go!), and a few other things.
I’m kind of on a roll for getting caught up on work stuff, so I hope this continues through the week. I don’t like having too many balls in the air at the same time. Besides, the big annual applications are to be released soon, so the less backlog I have going into that, the better. I also have a couple of in-person meetings this week, which always seems to set me back.
I don’t have anything else exciting going on this week. I hope everyone has fun!
We see bluebirds quite often. Occassionally a ptinted bunting too. They are beautiful.
Oh, I forgot my bluebirds! They are nesting in the box attached to my pasture fence right now.
I don’t get very many bluebirds. I wonder if they don’t come up this far. I’ve never seen them in Canada either.