Notes from My Nest: Birds and Family

 Cooper’s Hawk 12-12-12

It has been very busy around here during this month of December. Beside getting ready for the holidays I have been birding all over the place with Chris and Celeste. I barely have had time to enter my bird counts into eBird; never mind having time to process photos or blog. Chris Rohrer and I participated in the Christmas Bird Count on December 16th. He has all the photos. I didn’t even bother to bring my camera. I focused on finding and counting birds. It was our first Christmas Bird Count ever and we had a great time and learned how the whole process worked.

 Juvenile Cooper’s Hawk 12-10-12

In my own yard the hawks have been hunting my feeders. Sometimes I see one almost every day. In-between hawks the little birds keep on coming. My regular yard birds at this point are Pigeons, Mourning doves, Anna's Hummingbirds, Gila Woodpeckers, Verdin, Yellow-rumped Warblers, House Finches and Lesser Goldfinches. I still see Say’s Phoebe’s once in awhile as well as Common Ravens.

 Xavier checking out the Christmas Tree 12-15-12

Our son and grandson currently live with us and it was fun watching Xavier checking out the Christmas tree and all the decorations. He spent Christmas with his other grandparents in Boston this year while we eagerly awaited the arrival of the rest of our Children from around the country. We had not all been together since 2003. This promised to be a magical Christmas and it was.

 My little Christmas Elf, Natalie!

My youngest son, Alex was the first to arrive on December 18th with his wife and daughter. Natalie charmed us all with her smile and her sweet little voice. It wasn’t long before I was calling her my Little Christmas Elf!

 Natalie and Uncle G!

 

 Grandpa playing board games with his sons.

 

 Natalie loved my ballerina Christmas tree ornaments!

 

 Her childlike joy was infectious and had us all smiling!

The next to arrive was my daughter, Renee with her husband, Randy. When Chris and Melissa arrived on Christmas night our family was finally complete! I was so full of joy and  contentment that I didn’t take many photos! Thankfully, my dear friends Chris and Celeste reminded me about this and they took photos for us! Where are they? Well, I have yet to offload them as well! I am having too many adventures to post about, LOL! There will be more to come soon, as well as the continuation of The Salton Sea Stories! Until then, I wish you all Happy Holidays and a Christmas Duck!

Doesn’t it look like it has Christmas Ornaments on its face?

Happy New Year!