Monarch butterfly! This is the only one we have seen this year and it was in our backyard. (For all we know, there might have been dozens of them, but maybe they came down when we were at work!)
Have you seen any?
We only see the rose breasted grosbeak as it migrates in the Spring and Fall. Richard was able to get a photo of the female as it was drinking water from our small bird dish on our patio this week. (It has the top of the watering can in front of it.) I tried very hard to get a photo of this bird myself but when I saw it, it was eating the berries off the beauty berry bush and it just would not hold still long enough for me to photograph it!
Have you seen any birds that you don't normally see? Chances are that they might be migrating!
Above is a a photo of the postcard that I mailed to my Dad...I sent him another one that he never received. It was reported on the news tonight that a postal employee had dumped several batches of mail on the side of the road in Atlanta! (There was the postcard that my Dad never got, I bet!) Oh well, good thing I thought to send him two, so at least he got one!
Have you ever had mail to go astray and you have no idea what happened to it?
My friends, I have been a bit under the weather this week...nothing serious but I hope to be better soon.
Keep looking for birds and butterflies...and I will ask my Dad to keep looking for that other postcard!
Hi Kay, I loved the Monarch photo and the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The Monarch's were around at our local garden for a while, but have never seen the Grosbeak. As for mail, a couple of items have gone missing from my family in Germany. They sent me a gift and a card in a separate post that never made it here. Also another friend mentioned that they had sent us something and we never got it. This year has been the only problem we have ever had with mail in the 24 years we have lived in our house. That we know of at least. One was registered and we went to the post office but they basically shrugged their shoulders. Hopefully nothing else will go amiss. Sorry to hear you are under the weather and hope it won't be long before you feel 100 percent better.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your well wishes, Denise!
DeleteOur regular mail man is great, but the one who subs for him...watch out, we get the wrong mail all the time! Not given up hope on the post card yet, one time, a birthday card from England took 5 months to get here, it had gone to Asia and had all kinds of markings on it!
Dear Kay, I hope you're as right as rain again very soon and are not coming down with anything serious.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were out walking on Sunday, we saw butterflies, but I don't think there was a monarch among them.
With regular parcels and cards going back and forth between me and my Yorkshire family and friends for more than 15 years, so far only once a parcel my mother-in-law sent did not arrive. She always has my sister-in-law alert me by text message to something being on its way, and as soon as it is here, I let her know. With cards for Christmas and birthdays, we don't cross-check, but I usually get so many that I don't think there are any missing.
Usually our mail gets to where we want it to go, whether we are here or in England but not that post card this time! Still, Richard posted a birthday card to Peter on a Tuesday and he received it in England on the Friday, that was extraordinary!
DeleteAnd thanks for your well wishes! "Right as rain, I so much know the meaning of that now." x
The butterfly photo is particularly magnificent. An odd mail thing from long ago was when I was doing an internship wihile I was in seminary in the '70's. I was living in Carter Lake Iowa, serving the church there. It's the only part of Iowa west of the Missouri River, and is really part of Omaha. Anyway, that summer, I got a letter in my mail that was addressed to my Uncle Don in Mason City Iowa, a couple hundred miles away. Our family name is Evans which is a very common name (we're everywhere) and I am not a Don, and why it would come to me, since the postal service would hardly know that I was his nephew, is just weird. Where I live now, the mail gets mixed up all the time.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't know, I bet SOMEONE must have known the family! At one time in this small county if there was something from England, even it it had my address incorrectly, they would forward it to me, I guess someone at the post office remembers me!
DeleteAnd so happy you like the butterfly photo, we were pleased to see it!
Great shots of the monarch and the grosbeak - I have never heard of the latter, but know very little about birds! I have often had post go astray and it is a complete puzzle to me as to how it happens - unless there's something obvious like an employee dumping it, as in your example. This also assumes that all the postal staff are literate, which I accept could be a weakness in the system, and that people receiving mail delivered in error actually return it or take it to their neighbour. Most of the time the Royal Mail, in common with most other large organisations, seems to be in denial about making any mistakes, too, which doesn't help solve the problem!
ReplyDeleteWhat! You don't know your British birds! Why, I love the English robin, the blue tit, the chaffinch, the blackbird, goldfinch, the great tit, the long tail tit, the magpie, the jackdaw, and not forgetting the sparrow...it is the same sparrow we have here, and we call it the English sparrow!
DeleteRichard's Dad got a birthday card from us in 3 days...it must be the Royal Mail that did that!
Lovely photos of birds and butterflies! A treat this morning, heard a Barred Owl calling, "who cooks for you, who cooks for you".
ReplyDeleteWe have excellent mail service and a well run local post office. Hope you feel better soon.
Oh, lucky,lucky you! I did a post about the Barred Owl once, I need to go back and read it!
DeleteYou have an excellent mail service! Oh good, next time, would you mail my Dad a postcard? Thank you! HA!
I really haven't seen anything unusual here but earlier on we did sight a Monarch on the flowers. We often get Snow birds from Canada, but haven't seen any yet. Hope you are better soon !
ReplyDeleteWe were very, very pleased to see that Monarch! And I am the one who spotted it! :-)
DeleteI have been troubled a bit by a few things but still have to keep doing the same things every day anyway!
Some of my clients have gardens, and i see butterflies and bees when i'm working there, but i'm awful at identifying them.
ReplyDeleteWe have had mail go astray, and sometimes it's because we've had mail thieves. One time, Grandpa mailed an invitation to someone, and it was returned to him a year later, torn up and with only the return address legible -- it had gotten caught in the postal machinery that sorts it all. Why it took them a year to get it back to him i will never understand.
I see that people will also steal packages off porches when people are at work. Man, that is so low.
DeleteAnd I also have had mail ripped to shreds by machinery..and they will forward it to me with the note telling me so! Gee thanks for that! HA! :-)
I hope that doesn't happen to me. I would not want my checks in the mail to go astray.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't even think of getting checks in the mail, I don't think I could risk that, best to get it where you have to sign for it, I should think. You must be okay where you live!
DeleteHi Kay! So you might remember that I count the days until the monarchs arrive. We call the space between ours and my neighbors' house "Butterfly Alley" because we've both planted a butterfly bush and I have a native wildflower garden (Hubbell's garden) that attracts all kinds of bees & butterflies. Well, the monarchs never came this year. I won't lie....I spent a lot of time out in "Butterfly Alley" on the lookout. Not even one. It's the first time that's happened. I was absolutely crushed and heartbroken. A year is a LONG TIME TO WAIT. I just hope they're okay and were only scared away by Hurricane Matthew. You know what's funny? We had a hurricane last year the same week the monarchs normally arrive but a few still made it. I really wonder why they didn't come. Makes me so sad....
ReplyDeleteI do wonder about the Monarchs this year. I was hopeful that I would see more...but it was just that one lone butterfly. I hope you enjoyed other butterflies this year, we had a fair number of the gulf fritillary and they were gorgeous!!
DeleteNext year, my dear, there is always hope and always next year!!
I spoke too soon, Kay.....there was one Monarch today!!!! You cannot imagine how happy I was!!! Have a beautiful weekend!!! XOXO
DeleteAnd I couldn't wait to tell you about it!
DeleteAnd I am happy for you! Thank you for telling me this good news of your Monarch sighting! x
DeleteNo Monarchs, I wish we did, the closest we get is the Gulf Fritilllary. Some migratory birds have been stopping by, but I don't know what they are. Hope you're feeling better soon. The change of seasons always drags me down.
ReplyDeleteYes! We loved seeing the Gulf Fritillary!! You should get a good look at your birds and identify them by the pictures on the internet, so much better than trying to figure them out from bird books!!
DeleteHope we get rain this weekend!!
I'm glad you sent your dad two postcards given that one disappeared. I'm not one to sending mail myself so I can't say I've ever had anything disappear on me. I don't get many birds or butterflies either. I see pigeons and crows all the time though.
ReplyDeleteYou must live in the city. Even so, you should go to a park, I know you will have birds and butterflies there!
Delete(Well, maybe not too many butterflies now, but you know what I mean!)
I love butterflies and birds. When we sit outside they are chirping and singing in the trees, the birds that is. Butterflies are so graceful flying around, gives you a sense of serenity! I saw that about the mail on the news, that's awful h0pe they find out who did it, what if my inherited check for millions of dollars was there...LOL
ReplyDeleteHa! Yes, that was my check thrown away by the side of the road too, Sylvia! :-)
DeleteLost letters and papers are a common thing for me. I have come to sort of expect it. Feel better soon.
ReplyDeleteI still haven't given up hope for my Dad to get that card, maybe it will come one day and he will be so tickled!
DeleteThanks for the well wishes.
I really love birds and butterflies. Sadly, I've only seen a couple of monarchs all summer. And it's gotten awfully quiet around here since many birds have flown south. It's kind of sad, really. But they'll be back again in the spring to liven up the area.
ReplyDeleteThe monarchs need to visit you just so you can take your great photos of them!!
DeleteNice photos. Having worked in the Post Office here years ago I'm amazed that more items don't go missing. You can be jailed here for dumping mail in uniform.
ReplyDeleteI hope that guy who threw away the mail will be thrown in jail. That is truly a disgusting thing to see, they even showed it on the national news tonight!
DeleteAs I've mentioned previously the Monarch butterfly is called "Wanderer" down this way.
ReplyDeleteI hope you're feeling better now. :)
Yes, I love that "Wanderer". Lovely.
DeleteI just looked this up and the Monarch butterfly is really a North American butterfly but it has been in Australia since about 1871! I read about it just here-
http://australianmuseum.net.au/wanderer-butterfly
You always make me want to visit Australia!
Last year I was very excited to see more Monarchs than I had for several years, but this year I haven't been seeing them. So sad.......How terrible it is that a postman would just dump mail rather than deliver it. But I must remind myself of all the ones who do their job rain or shine. I'm remembering "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" . I just look that up and discovered it is a translation from something about mail delivery in Persia about 500B.C.
ReplyDeleteBe well!
Yes indeed, our mailman is a star! Now, I must say, the one who substitutes for him...THAT is when we get the wrong mail, or else, our mail goes missing. I hope we never lose Jeff, best mail carrier in the world!
DeleteYes. I work for a commercial printing company and we printed a magazine for a local school and no one ever got it in the mail. It cost $12,000 to print. We have proof from the mail house that it was accepted at the post office, so we even went to the main branch of the post office and they let us walk around with an escort to look for them. They never surfaced. Someone got rid of them - we are sure.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very upsetting thing to think of, that someone in the mail service would just dump something, rather than to do their job and deliver the mail.
DeleteWhat happens in a case like this? It must have been too late for the school to have it re-printed. If it happens again, call one of those consumer folks on TV, you might be on the news!
There used to be so many of them here in Hawaii, but I hardly ever see them anymore. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteAnd about mail? Yes, there was a package of coffee I sent someone who never got it! Not happy about that. There was also a big box I sent to my son in Maryland that somehow landed in Micronesia. It eventually got to my son, but he said it looked like it had been around the world a few times.
ReplyDelete