Today we woke to grey overcast skies so the incentive to get out to walk wasn't strong. Instead we spent the day reading, researching where to go on sunny days and photographing the wildlife visitors to the bird table and bird feeder in our Castine garden. Oh and Dave went for a run as the weather brightened up later in the day.

We'd seen several interesting birds at the bird feeder since we've been here so when a Blue Jay arrived this morning Jill decided to get the tripod out and have a concerted effort at taking some photos. She captured some lucky shots of a mob (there were up to four in the trees at one time) of Blue Jays that were taken through the screen panel - so a bit foggy but otherwise some good pictures. The 'fog' was disappointing though so Jill set to, cleaned the glass in the screen door, opened the inside door and set the tripod up to await the next arrivals.

A constant visitor to the bird table was a cheeky (literally - cheeks bulging) chipmunk that was selectively eating/stashing away the sunflower seeds. A pair of Mourning Doves also visited the bird table. And American Goldfinches kept up a steady flow of traffic to the bird feeder. The males are a stunning bright yellow - although ours are beginning to moult into their winter plumage so look a bit scruffy. Our Castine hosts have a Spanish-themed ceramic bird bath that is ringed with three green parrots - we speculated that it would be fun to catch three Goldfinches at the bird bath. Well luck provided us with two - not bad!

We'd been excited to see the Blue Jays but even more special was a glimpse of a Hummingbird at a red geranium flower. Jill went in search of a Hummingbird feeder that she'd seen stored with the bird seed. Filled with sugar water this became the new focus of attention: could Jill photograph these fast moving birds? Yes!! Dave offered technical advice but actually letting the camera make the setting choices proved to give the best photos. Setting a very fast shutter speed as Dave suggested did capture the birds with still wings but the photos are quite 'grainy' due to the accompanying high ISO, so not quite as good quality as the pictures with blurry wings.

And later in the day as the sun begun to come out a lone Blue Jay returned so Jill also has her clear photos of these beautiful birds. The wildlife count for the day also includes a group of six or seven deer running around in the garden next door and a squirrel sitting on top of a corner post on the fence round the vegetable garden.

Have we mentioned the vegetable garden before? To-date we've enjoyed lovely tasty tomatoes, raspberries, peaches (quick before they rot on the tree and/or the slugs eat the windfalls), cucumbers (probably intended for dill pickles) and summer squash. There is also sweet corn that we've yet to try. The beans are probably now best left for seed but that's quite an array of lovely fresh fruit and veg!