Fly, Fly Away

CHECKING OUT: Lately, we have had a mass migration.

Wednesday, around noontime, the kids and I noticed the bees behaving 'funny.' There was a beard of bees on the front of the hive, a little mound of them on the ground, and a small cyclone of them above our western most hive. I called Christian and told him I believed a swarm was in the offing.

We had things to do so couldn't sit out there to watch them leave or not. But here's a little bit of what the suspected swarm looked like.

Christian checked the hive on Thursday during the day, and reports plenty of bees still there, some queen caps, but he didn't spot the queen he'd see and marked last time he cracked the hive open. Fast forward to Thursday night and someone about a half mile away posted on a Facebook neighborhood group that they had a swarm in their tree. 

In other 'flew the coop' news 'our' bird is gone. You know, the one who was dwelling in a nest atop our folded up ping pong table. I was in the habit of looking over at it every time I took the dogs out back and one morning I looked over and the whole nest was gone! 

I quickly found it on the ground, under the ping pong table. No sign of Budgie (that's what I'd started calling her, because she wouldn't budge). No sign of egg shells or feathers or anything.

I used a pancake spatula to pick the nest up and perch it back on the ping pong table just in case.

We'll never know what became of her. Did a nest robber swoop in in the middle of the night? Or did Budgie come in for a bad landing and send the precariously perched nest to its doom? I honestly don't think she ever had eggs in it. I don't think Budgie was the brightest little Junco. 

OF COURSE: Friday midday, Kennedy came down and took the kids to the SeaTac disc golf course. It has been months since he or CJ and Annabelle have played any disc golf at all, due to winter and then COVID closing all of the parks for a long stretch.

By all (three) reports, they had a great time. 

Here's an action shot of Annabelle tossing off the 'tee.'

And at one point, CJ was clearly 'in the weeds.'

And here's a map of the course.