winterbadger

I am *so* out of shape.

I went out for a walk after lunch. I didn't go far (~2 miles), and I'm not exhausted by any means, but I am certainly tired and a few parts of me ache after what shouldn't be that tiring a walk. Even gentle upslopes had me breathing extra. I clearly need to do this sort of thing much more (not that I didn't know that already).

And boy, is it hot! The BIRDS are all going about with their mouths open!

Speaking of birds, I saw the usual suspects (American robins, mourning doves, European starlings, our summer visitors the catbirds, house sparrows--both male and female :-) plus a few not usually spotted. Someone who might have been a goldfinch, but tiny. Someone who might have been a young blackbird (pre-redwing)--like a grackle, but without the speckly and the iridescence. And one or two someones who might have been a northern flicker.

I saw recently but not today a real proper crow (along our stream) and a red-winged blackbird (in the fields out in the country near Bryan's mum's, when I went up there for Neta's soccer party).