Friday Foto Friends: Special Friends and Wings in Flight

Ruby Throated Hummingbird in Flight

First of all, thank you all for your prayers in the past few days for our cousin Janice. (Click HERE for that story)    In case you didn't see the update to her story, here it is:

"June 28, 2018, 7:55 a.m., Janice passed into the arms of her Savior Jesus Christ. I'm sure she was welcomed into heaven by her parents, her husband Paul, and her son Quentin.  She will be greatly missed here on earth by her one granddaughter and many other loved ones and friends.  Thank you all for your prayers."

I've thought about her being carried by the angels into heaven...and thought about how we can't see them bearing her up...but the Bible tells us it is so...You can read more about that in the book of Luke 16:19-31. 

I was watching our hummingbirds here as they fly to and fro from feeder to feeder, and they fly so fast that you really can't see their little wings moving until they start to land or take off again....
I tried in vain to get some pictures of them flying the past couple of days, but they just refused to cooperate, and would fly off before I could get my camera focused.

 This picture above was taken earlier this spring, along with the previous one at the top. Those are the only ones in flight that I've been able to capture.

The rest were taken in the past couple of days at my kitchen window:

 These are female Ruby Throated Hummingbirds, and thus they don't have the brilliantly colored ruby throat that the male has.  I haven't seen our males lately...they seem to go away in the summer and come back again later before they disappear for the winter.  Maybe they escort the ladies here and then come back to escort them away again...gallantry and chivalry still exists, at least in the hummingbird world. And you should see those males fighting with each other over their territory! Talk about wings flying!!

Hummingbirds aren't the only thing I've been watching the past few days.  The deer have been pretty active in the neighborhood as well. Here are a few pictures I've managed to capture recently:

 These two above were feasting on grapevines in our back yard one evening. I was watching them from our bathroom window, and they apparently could see me...

 I caught this one by surprise early one morning on my walk...

 And this one was close behind the other...

Here is another young doe passing through the Secret Garden last evening...she was trying to keep it a secret, but I saw her...

And then she appeared coming out of the garden and trying to sneak beyond the fence to get out of the yard to safety...

 Oh, there were two of them...sorry it is blurry...

As they headed out to the road, I went a different way, and looked down the opposite direction and discovered this young buck looking anxiously back towards his sisters and waiting for them to catch up:

 However, as they emerged out into the road, there I was between them and their brother, and they didn't know what to do...

And to make matters worse, here came a  neighbor on an ATV "walking" his dog...so now, what to do?

The other doe ran back into the woods but this one looked at me as if to say, "Could you please get out of my way so I can escape?"  And so I did...

And then I went through our back yard out to the front and saw this big doe waiting for all her children to come join her out on the road...Looks like she was calling to them...

While I was writing this above (Thursday evening), I thought I should check outside and see if we have any current "visitors", and here is what was waiting in the front yard (in the rain):

I decided to step out the back door and see if I could sneak around the house and get another picture of her, but she apparently caught my scent (or heard my noisy steps) and took off flying past me to the next yard and parts beyond:

Talk about wings in flight!

This is a good place to stop:

"It is God who arms me with strength,

and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of deer,

and sets me on my high places..."

Psalm 18:32-33

And now let us fly over to Deb's place at Breathing in Grace and see what our other Friday Foto Friends are doing:

Have a blessed day, y'all!!