@Gard - of course your walk to get groceries counts!
@seabird - I love that in spite of your anxiety, you noticed “the sun felt good, there was a cool breeze, so a really nice day.” Are the birds all gulls or are there other shore birds? Do you know what ones?
Yesterday, I walked with a friend. It was muggy and really hot. The natural wooded park is below a lovely garden that is lovingly tended by volunteers. There are many flowers there that I am not familiar with, and others that I recognize. We saw giant hibiscus, giant hydrangeas, and sunflowers that have grown to about 8 feet+ tall. I’m thinking late summer is related to tall stature and big flowers…?
There was a group of photographers standing around — all with long lenses, pointed at one particular raised bed of purple flowers. And then I saw it…a hummingbird. We only get one kind around here, the ruby throated. This was the female. She stayed for about three minutes and flitted off. Ten minutes later, she was back, but at a different spot, and then came over to the purple flowers again. It’s this year’s first hummingbird for me. I was very happy to see her!
On our “walking” part of our outing, we stopped to feed the critters, the squirrels and chipmunks, chickdees, and nuthatches. Once again, I had a Downy Woodpecker come to my hand…this time it was the male, with his lovely patch of deep red on the back of his head. As much as my friend and I wanted to do more actual walking, we were literally soaked and icky feeling from sweat and humidity. We found a shady ledge, sat and chatted. It was relaxing to be in the woods and sitting in the shade.
I’m up quite early today — the sun isn’t up yet, but the eastern horizon is a gorgeous rosy orange hue. I can see the moon and there is one star still out. Very faintly, I can see the edge of the downtown horizon with its landmark buildings. There is a slight risk of thunderstorms again today, so if I am going to walk, I will need to do that earlier in the day. Will update if I’ve gotten the walk in.