Sunflower Forest

The new photo options here on Blogger are besting me, I can't figure out how to separate the photos and add regular prose instead of captions.  It's making me very grumpy and discouraging me from posting at all - GRRRRR.  But I'll try to make it through this instead of giving up, I don't have time to figure it out right now.

I'm also grumpy because I was certain - CERTAIN - I had more photos of my little flocks of birds and of my towering sunflower forest this year.  Can't find them in my photos, can't find them in my cameras.  The holiday gremlins must be out in force already.

So, take my word for it.  I have, had, towering massive sunflower forests this year where I'd originally planned a very low height faery meadow.  Nature sometimes doesn't always agree with us on land use.  I have to say her plan was lovely.  It's past it's prime now,  some of the stalks I had to whack my way through or cut out as they were falling over and we couldn't get from one side of the yard to the other.  But the birds still love them and are still visiting and feeding and they're so much prettier to look at then the neighbor's ugly fence, that I've kept as many up as possible, tying them up with twine when necessary, making a sort of sunflower waddle fence.

These pics were all snapped through smudgy windows (yeah, talk to my hubby who leaves water marks on them) or screens, so forgive the quality.  I can't take photos of them from outside because the minute I open my door they all flutter away in a bit bouncy scatter.



Every year I let the sunflowers have their way with the gardens (every year I swear I won't) and the reward is every autumn the yellow finches appear in flocks and delight me with their antics.  This year I actually had some in the garden all summer. 



This autumn the finch were joined by these rosy birds.  Amongst the lost photos were ones that showed the two different birds together so you can see that these birds are twice the size of the tiny yellow finch.  I don't know what they are.  I think of them as sparrows but perhaps they're finch as well.




Upside down? Sure, no problem!



I like the whimsical focus on this pic, flowers to the foreground.




He blends in nicely with the fence.



It's hard to find them hiding in there. It's actually easier to look for the bouncing flower heads then to look for the birds themselves.

And that, my friends, is as much as I can fight with this new blog program without using bad language.  So, off I go.  I'm thinking of decorating what's left of the forest with some Halloween decorations and lights so we can look out the window and enjoy it for a few weeks more.   Whaddya think?  A giant spiderweb?  Spiders bigger than the birds?  a few dangling skeletons????