Backyard Birdfeeder

I had a great photo opportunity with a hummingbird on the hummingbird feeder and an oriole on the oriole feeder at the same time that I missed because as I was getting ready to take the picture along came one of our fox squirrels...and then our cat pounced. Yeah - the kids were watching. They took it in stride. They know Princess hunts mice and that squirrel is kind of like a big mouse...a squirrel is a rodent, after all. Besides, it is a good lesson, as Mary Reed Newland writes, that the cat is being "...obedient to [her] nature by doing the things [her] instincts tell [her] to do. And in [her] obedience, [she praises] God." (p. 42, How to Raise Good Catholic Children). So here are a couple of pictures of that incident:



I think she looks more like a bobcat than a farm cat, here:



Then I finally did get a pretty good one of an oriole at the feeder. I think it is a second year male with an increasing number of black feathers on it's head. According to the description on All About Birds, "Young male Baltimore Orioles do not achieve adult plumage until the fall of their second year."