'not all who wander are lost'

I've just lived through an interesting weekend of sorts. Saturday I spent the morning 'birding' with three members of the local Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas Project, who helped me learn the ropes of collecting data from the bird activity in my 'block.' These women were experts at identifying bird behavior, song, habitat, nests and were unstoppable. You see, I had been, umm, slow at gathering this data because I really didn't know how to find my block which sits several miles north of St. Paul. I listened and walked and made notations. As I was being eaten alive by a huge batch of mosquitoes in a wooded area, one flew into my eye. I've never had that experience! I couldn't get it out, and apparently slept with its remains somewhere in my eye and after some robust dousing, got it out.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we had a huge storm pass through last evening with tornadoes dangerously close to the Twin Cities, one landing just a couple of miles from me. I'm dodging flying lawn chairs and lightening to remove the hanging pots from their hooks because a pair of house finches have a nest in my geraniums. Little did I know the female was sitting on the eggs when I brought the pot indoors, at which point she abandoned the nest and spent the next hour flying around my house! Long story short, I locked up my cat, and finally successfully shooed her out. This morning when I hung the pot outside again, two more eggs were in her nest and there she sat. I couldn't resist a snapshot before she got back on.

For this week's Camera Critters, I submit the nest with these gorgeous turquoise eggs along with a shot I captured of a rather miffed blue heron forced to leave his fishing hole when I came into view. I could hear him grumbling as he flew away.

Lastly, besides silly animal tricks, I have included one of my favorite summer flowers Heavenly Blue Morning Glories. There are many more beauties to see at Today's Flowers.