Since the humans are still recovering, it is far more interesting to look at the back yard, where lots of things are happening.

The turkeys are just going into moult, which means they spend hours preening in the back yard.  Lincoln, the big tom, is still trying to assert his dominance, but for most of the hens, preening is far more interesting.

When he gets tired, he walks over to the water feature for a drink, and often will step right into the middle while drinking water falling off one of the shelves.

All of the preening takes the energy away, so they will often hunker down for a little rest.  If we are sitting quietly on the patio, they continue all of their activities while ignoring us completely.

They also ignore the coons at the feeding ground as long as everyone can eat peacefully together.  Three adult coons visit the berm buffet, but last week one of them brought her kits for the first time.  One is in the tree, but she does have five in all, and they are very healthy looking.

They are also very cautious, and if Mom shows any sign of being alerted by something they are quickly up the tree.  The first time she had them out, they were really uncertain about climbing and descending the tree, chirring and crying every step of the way.  Now they are old veterans and can go down head first.

The phoebe has set up a second clutch in a new nest (they can build one in just hours, and refuse to use an old nest), so we once more have a nursery.  We’ve had to move the patio table and chairs to the other side, so she is less distressed about us sitting too close to the nest.

The male hummingbird was displaying today (he swoops up and down in a big U shape), so perhaps there will be another crop of youngsters there too.

We haven’t had any real hot weather until now, and last week one of the nights’ lows was 7.4.  So much for the hot summer they predicted.

Cheers for now!