After really exhausting myself on my long outing on the 24th, I figured that I should probably take my recovery a little more seriously. So on the 25th, rather than a major trip out into the field, I took a leisurely stroll down the quay from my condo to the marketplace.

There are a group of Violet-green Swallows that hang out near my condo, and a couple of them were out flying around. One landed on a cable that was holding a log boom together, and I was able to get a few shots of him there.

A little ways farther, near the rail bridge, I saw a male House Finch fly up into a tree. Normally, male House Finches have a red throat and breast, but this one looked orange or yellow. I'd never seen a House Finch with yellow coloration before, but I knew they existed. Such birds are called the yellow morph of the House Finch, or yellow-morph House Finch for short.

I can't tell if this one was really a yellow-morph, or if he had a really-light-red coloration that appears orange because of the light up in the tree, which was quite yellow. Either way, he was an interesting sight.

After the finch, I didn't see any birds for quite a ways. As I was trying to behave myself and not be out all day, I decided to not take any florals, which could have occupied me for hours.

I was only a couple of minutes' walk from the market when I found my next birds: a pair of White-crowned Sparrows foraging in the grass. Here's one of them; you may want to compare him to the hybrids from a few days before, who had yellow instead of white at the front of all of their head stripes.

I was quite pleased with the way the color came out on that shot.

My next stop was the quay, where I got myself a bottle of Diet Coke and sat down at a table outside in the shade. It was quite a comfortable day. There were lots of Rock Doves around, as there often are. A couple of them were really strutting around, puffing up their throats. I think they probably heard me talkin' about the hummingbirds last time and wanted to point out that they have some really cool irridescent plumage, too. That, and very dapper red feet.

The sun was behind the Four Rock Doves, and all those shiny specks are some sort of plant fluff. There was loads of it floating everywhere in the air that day, giving fits to all the folks with allergies. The glow around the birds was an exaggeration that I happened upon in Photoshop when I darkened the sky to make the fluff stand out a little more. I liked the effect so I kept it.

I stayed at the market for a while longer, until I had finished my soda, and then headed back home. On the way back, I found some more White-crowned Sparrows on the grass, and this pair of House Sparrows in a tree.

That's an adult male House Sparrow on the left, and a newly-fledged juvenile on the right. In the next photo, the young one is gaping, asking for food from the adult. (Apologies for the poor quality of these shots; it's pretty dark up in those trees, even in the middle of the day.)

I left Dad and Junior after Dad flew to the back of the tree.

On the rest of the way home, I found no more interesting birds; I figure that Pestilence, Famine, and co. had scared them all off.

I was happy to have gotten out for some fresh air without overdoing it. Maybe I can be trusted to follow doctor's orders.

Not dead yet,
Tom