“I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn’t stand a chance! How could we possibly hope to fight them? ”
– The Birds

I spent a good portion of my first day of vacation working on a couple of different photo projects, but I also had time to head over to Teresa’s house to take pictures of the nest that a robin has built on the wreath on her front door.

Part of my day took me to Ledges where I startled a turkey vulture. I got this shot of it flying away.

I also photographed the two nests that are in my backyard and the nest that is on my neighbor’s house near my driveway.

Grackle Nest

Pigeon Nest

Robin Nest

Later in the day I went to Pella with my Mom. After a brief rainy stop in their town square to photograph their tulips we went to Des Moines for supper.

We ate at Smitty’s Tenderloin Shop. Their tenderloin was a little bit disappointing. It didn’t quite live up to the hype, but it was still pretty good.

When I get to Vacation Day 5, what I’m about to write will sound hypocritical, but hopefully your memory won’t last that long.

The people that were sitting in the booth next to ours were extremely snotty to the waittress. They also spent sometime mocking the fact that the restaurant was featured in Gourmet magazine.

They were the type of annoying customer that caused us to leave a larger than ordinary tip because I got the sense that the snotty people were going to stiff the waittress.

After supper we met up with Sara and hit up Snookie’s for the first time this year.

It was a pretty wonderful Day 1 of vacation.