Today is a great day for anything… as long as it takes place outside in this glorious weather. The high humidity of last week has disappeared, leaving us with sunny skies, a low 51% humidity and gentle southeasterly breezes of 10 mph. This afternoon I will dive into neglected sections of the gardens but this perfect morning was meant for biking.

Waking at dawn, the morning still in shadows, I could not pass up a few photographs of a fiery sunrise over the North River.

Next, a little breakfast for Jack and Maggie who were obviously more interested in catnapping than food at this early hour.

Then it was bike time.

Water, check. Binoculars, check. Six of us met while the dew was still on the grass to bike & bird through Ware Neck.  And we were off, taking to the paved roads and the side roads and the private lanes and shortcuts and long cuts where we knew the birds may be. Our birding aficionado, Read McGehee, led the way, pointing left and right and stopping the group to hear distant calls. A few of the special birds identified this morning, were:

ovenbird (New World warbler)

kingbird (a flycatcher)

red headed woodpecker

white-eyed vireo

red-eyed vireo

wood thrush

red-tailed hawk

brown-headed nuthatch…..   plus all the regular birds we see every day.

I arrived home close to the lunch hour and opened the front door to bacon aromas wafting from the kitchen. There I found mister gardener preparing a mouthwatering déjeuner to welcome me home, a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich with the first juicy red tomato from the garden. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Ann Hohenberger, The Garden Club of Gloucester