A glorious day!

I can’t think of a better title for today’s blog post. A sunny, blue sky with a high temperature that hovered around 80 degrees. I couldn’t dream of a more beautiful day. As you’ve probably noticed, I have a penchant for walking and taking pictures, and as this was the perfect day for doing both, I grabbed my camera and headed for the park.  I have my eye open for several specific birds. Today I spotted one of them: the yellow-bellied sapsucker. It is not a rare bird, but I still get excited when I see one of them. Today there was one hanging around in the bog, so I got several shots. Here are my favorites:

And if sunny blue skies, 80 degree temperatures, and the sapsucker portraits weren’t enough reason to celebrate, I was blessed with another photo opportunity. As I aimed my camera at the sapsucker, two people came down the trail and stopped to watch, and we got into conversation. The gentleman asked if I would like to take his picture. “You won’t get too many opportunities to take the picture of a World War II veteran,” is what he said. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I was honored to have the opportunity, so here are today’s portraits of WWII vet, Lud Lekson and his wife Helen (Click on a picture to enlarge them).

Lud is 92 years old and the middle son of five who all served in WWII or the Korean War. Lud served in the Merchant Marines. When I asked where he served, he answered “all over the place,” and then told me a story about meeting up with his oldest brother when the were both in the Philippines.