Feathered...Friend?

The blog is back!  Despite the new name (which I will write about later, but this first post will pretty much explain on it's own) it's the same 'ole blog.  For those of you who weren't around here in 2011, this was the home of my 365 day photo blog.  I did pretty good and only missed a few days here and there from January through August.  With the exception of a little spurt of motivation in October, it was kinda quiet after that. I took some of my favorite photos that year and felt my skills and creativity growing more quickly than ever.  After a year off, I'm jumping back into it in 2013!  I'm so excited that I have been picking up my camera more and more for no particular reason other than to try to get back into the habit again.  I've taken quite a few photos, however don't seem to have the editing and blogging schedule down yet so I'm just now getting a few off of my camera.

These were taken on Friday.  We had just picked Marissa up from school and as we were walking up to the front door I was digging in my purse for the house key.  As we came onto the front porch we noticed it was covered in bird feathers.  Like a bird exploded there...but just feathers, no blood and guts (thank goodness). Weird, but ok.  We go on up to the door and I still hadn't found my keys.  Any other day they would have been in my hand already, but I was driving a loaner while my car was being worked on so they weren't attached to the car keys.  As I'm digging I notice it.  A huge hawk sitting in our bird bath about 4 feet away.  Any of you who know me probably also know one of my greatest fears...birds.  I didn't want to scare the kids so I just kept digging...faster.  Unfortunately they spotted it.  Marissa started crying and I finally found the keys and got us inside.  I assured Marissa everything was fine and then went straight for my camera.  It was just so strange that it was so close and never flew away.  Even as we were all peeking out the window right by the birdbath and Chase was bouncing all over the place, it just looked at us unimpressed.  Creepy, but also beautiful.  We were trying to figure out if maybe it was hurt or something was wrong when we got our answer.  A few little sparrows flew into the bushes and in dove the hawk and the bushes shook like crazy.  I saw at least one fly back out, but there was also a new pile of feathers in the yard the next day.  Yuck.  At least I got some cool photos I guess.