Spring has certainly sprung!

Easter weekend has been an awesome weekend weather-wise. Yesterday was nice and sunny, and today was as well - today was a record-high temperature for Stamford of 76/24 degrees.

The weekend started with an early finish on Friday, meaning that I could leave work at 3. Liz picked me up and we headed to the beach to go for a walk. We saw quite a few birds at the feeders, and unfortunately left the feeder area at the wrong time and ran into an absolute know-it-all fruitcake of a woman. We just couldn't get away from her...

Here are a couple of pictures of a Downy Woodpecker that we saw at the beach.

I was really happy with the last photo (click the photo for the uploaded size - which is resized to about 50% of the original crop) - I had been watching the birds, and between the feeders was a fallen tree. I crept into the fallen tree and gradually worked closer to the feeder. The woodpecker knew I was there but didn't seem to care. When I got to about 3 feet away it hopped to the other side of the feeder. I went to the other side and it hopped back to the original side. I decided I would leave it alone and started to walk away - as I did it took off and flew onto the fallen tree, and then into the still standing trees around the grove.

Also there were some squirrels feeding off the food being dropped by the birds.

On Saturday we went for a 3 hour hike at Trout Brook Valley a bit to the north of here with Richard. The hike was nice - it wasn't too warm, there was a nice breeze, and being near a reservoir there were a lot of streams trickling down through the trails.

Liz and I during the hike

While we were walking we found the occasional muddy/puddly patch from recent rain. Rather than find a way around this puddle I decided to jump it. It was more of a long stride in the end than a full-on jump.

When we arrived home Richard said "Hey, look at that bird!" There was a bird sitting right next to the driveway - it was a Blue Jay. A few days ago I said to Liz "I want to get a Blue Jay photo this summer." It turned out that it came sooner than expected. The Blue Jay is probably my favorite non-raptor. They're loud and somewhat obnoxious in volume, but I think they look cool. They are also good at mimicking the calls of the Red-Tailed Hawk.

This morning we woke up a little late and I saw another Blue Jay out the back. I grabbed the camera and walked out onto the back porch. I was greeted by a wide range of bird noises and sightings. Liz came out after I saw something interesting (below) and we ate breakfast outside. While out there we saw Blue Jays, several woodpeckers, Cardinals, Robins, Titmice, some Sparrows, Squirrels, the interesting creature below and lastly a Red Tailed Hawk. While the hawk was around the other birds were quite silent.

This is a possum! It's the first possum that I have seen in the US, and it is quite different to any possum that I have ever seen.

Following a haircut (Liz cuts my hair these days) we got our shopping done and sat out on the porch. A bumblebee decided to hover around the place for a while. Can I just say, fast moving bumblebees are tricky to manual focus on!

The plan for tonight is to bake/roast a ham. Apparently hams are a big thing for Easter here, but I'm not sure why. Liz is making hot cross buns at the moment, so it appears that the weekend warmth is soon to be joined by weekend deliciousness!