Birds and Crummy Weather

The crummy weather we are having has really brought out the birds around here. They don't like the rain, wind and snow any more than I do and seem to be very hungry.
I recently read a review for a new birding book Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America and picked up a copy yesterday during our mega shopping trip to Billings. The only birding book I had was the National Audubon one and I had never been really happy with it. It did not show any photos of the female birds or young birds. I love this new Smithsonian book--it has both male and female photos for most birds, a range map for each species showing breeding, year round, migration and winter locations. The photos are awesome, very clear. That's my two cents worth! The book is very new, published in 2008.
Our trip to Billings yielded a full SUV and an empty pocketbook. We are having a neighborhood get together here at our house on Saturday afternoon, so I did lots of grocery buying for that. Our printer also gave up the ghost so I bought a just on the market HP--I'll let you know what I think when I get it set up.
We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at our favorite Billings restaurant, CJ's.
It has been cold and windy today and Michael worked outside all morning removing the forms from the concrete we poured on Monday--we have garage walls, now. On to the roof!

I just love these little lazuli buntings, they give me so much pleasure to watch. With all the cold weather, it seems like I have many more buntings than I usually do.

This lady paid us absolutely no mind this morning when we spotted her while out on our morning walk.