Bluebirds, Persimmons and Flaming Autumn Leaves... (a photo-essay)

Hello to all of my wonderful Gather friends! I hope your Wednesday went well -- mine was full but really quite fun and I saw so MANY picture-worthy things today, I thought I'd come and share them with all of you!

My presence was required mid-morning in Sebastopol (about a 45 minute drive from my house) at a meeting of the historical society where I serve on the board of directors as we are in the midst of picking nominees for possible board members for next year(always an exhausting process... ) and, to reward ourselves afterwards, we'd all decided to have lunch together in a VERY cosmopolitan and well-appointed garden restaurant, wine bar and bistro just down the street from Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Farm where the meeting was held. 

Here are some of the other board members talking outside the Caretaker's Cottage at Burbank's Farm after the meeting was over:

There was about an hour and a half's worth of time to kill between the end of the meeting and our lunch reservation time, so, first, I took a quick walk around the Farm looking for photo-worthy subjects...

Those of you already familiar with some of my other photo-essays about Luther Burbank's Farm probably know by now that there's nearly always SOMETHING of interest there at the Farm to take pictures of and today was no exception, of course...

Right away, I noticed a lot of the fruit of the American persimmon trees were ripe enough to eat! YUM!

Here are some of these little gems still attached to one of Mr. Burbank's trees:

Here's a closer shot of a couple of them:

I picked up about 3 dozen or so ripe ones -- like this one -- that had fallen to the ground :

I've got it in mind to make "persimmon bread" with them! Don't you LOVE that color? I do! :o)

By contrast, this is what the fruit of the only Japanese persimmon tree at the Farm looks like:

This time of year, you really can't beat the brilliant colors of the LEAVES of the Japanese persimmon tree, though... They're positively ON FIRE!

Aren't they GORGEOUS? :o)

After I got a few photos, I got in my car and drove down the street to the restaurant. There was still some time to kill before lunch so I left the car in the restaurant parking lot and walked a little ways down the street...

All of sudden, I noticed that there were all kinds of birds in the ornamental pistachio trees that line the sidewalk... To my delight, I discovered they were cedar waxwings!

I just LOVE the waxwings! They have the CUTEST little black MASKS edged in white that make them look to me like they're going off to a masquerade ball!!

And the bright yellow on the tips of their tails is amazing!

They were really going after those pistachios!

I also noticed this strange little bird in one of the pistachio trees:

I've pretty much decided now that it's an immature "starling" after looking at it up-close, though...

Then came the neatest surprise of ALL! There, in one of the trees across the street was a WESTERN BLUEBIRD!! I just love this next photo of the bluebird in the pistachio tree... The contrast between the sprays of pistachio seeds, the gold and red leaves and the blue feathers of the bluebird, I think, makes for a VERY cool shot:

There were actually a FEW bluebirds flying around...

This next one tried kept trying to eat the pistachios while fluttering in front of them like some kind of hummingbird!

Then one of the bluebirds flew into a little Japanese maple tree in the front yard of the house I was standing right in front of!

And I was able to get an even CLOSER shot of him!

(Isn't he CUTE peeking out from behind a leaf at the camera? ...lol...)

Here's another little type of bird that I don't believe I've ever photographed one of before:

I'm pretty sure (after looking through my field guides) that it's a "Western Slope Flycatcher"... LOVE that pretty yellow!

I walked back up the street to the restaurant and, right out in front, there were some type of quercus (oak) trees with really pretty red leaves:

And, flanking the entrance to the restaurant were two really cool lion statues. Here's one of them:

Lunch was very tasty, indeed! I had a chicken sandwich with nice fresh veggies on peasant type bread, a salad with viniagrette and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc...

YUMMY! ;o)

Well, my precious Gather friends, those are the things I saw today on my little "outing"  to Sebastopol -- I was really JAZZED about the bluebirds!!! How COOL! :o)

'Til next time!

 luv,

jean