Since nothing new is happening in our nest, and I’m completely paranoid about bothering Gazelle too much now that she’s incubating eggs, the kids and I decided to go for a nature walk. We headed off into the woods, the munchkins toting their magnifying glasses while I lugged along my biggest lens.

We found a cool vine all twisted around a tree limb. For all I know, this vine is murdering the tree slowly. What do I care? Not my tree…and it is interesting to look at.

My daughter spotted this brilliant pink flower in what looked like a blackberry bramble. I always thought blackberry blossoms were white though. So, I’m not really sure what this pretty little thing is.

Then the kids and I heard the sound of a chickadee (one of the only bird calls I recognize) and trooped off to investigate. At this point, I’m pretty sure people started calling neighborhood watch on me. We located the Black-capped Chickadee and watched three of them hopping around, chasing each other and generally being adorable. What makes these things so cute? Is it their giant heads? Or that they are fluffy little balls of joy?

I took a whole bunch of photos as they moved from tree to tree. And since I had on my longest lens, I looked like I was shooting thru the windows of the houses across the street. Stalker alert!

I was totally unaware of how nuts I probably looked until after I was done getting my shots. Tunnel vision on the cute birds. I even got this little guy/gal? nibbling on a bud.

The way they were flying around sure seemed like flirting to me. I hope I didn’t interrupt their love triangle too much.

Overall, a delightful little walk. A lovely way to take our minds off the eggs that won’t be hatching for another week or so.