Day 18.148: Rainy; recap

Today was the 100th* Saturday in a row this spring that has been rainy from dawn to dusk. It didn't stop E5N1 attending two of his friends' graduation parties, but the rest of us mostly stayed in. On balance - and for this weekend only - we'd have taken a rainy Saturday in exchange for dry weather for graduation tomorrow. 

So, here is a recap of our birding at Fortune's Rocks in Biddeford on Thursday when it was dry and mostly clear.

We had a number of snowy egret flyovers

And some great blue herons too

Double-crested cormorant

Two young double-crested cormorants 

Distant great egret

A large flock of these shore birds flew by - maybe semipalmated sandpipers

There were several groups of common eiders out on the water

This Bonaparte's gull gave us a good display over the pond

The black trailing edge of the wing is distinctive

Eastern kingbird

Common grackle

Yellow warbler

Tree swallow

Barn swallow

Red-winged blackbird with an impressive beak-full of insects

* Yes it's an exaggeration, but only slightly.

Day 18.147: Baccalaureate

Tonight was the penultimate official event for this graduation season - the senior awards night known as Baccalaureate. After being honored at the arts department awards and senior assembly, we didn’t really know what to expect, but he had quite the list of honors this evening as well. You can perhaps tell that he sharpened his focus on the arts this year. 

Day 18.146: Senior Assembly

Today, we were invited to attend the Senior Assembly. At this event, the graduating class sits in the middle of the gym allowing the the three other classes to move to their new locations in the bleachers and a few invited parents are able to sit in the vacant “freshman class” bleachers where the class of 2029 will soon reside. Our attendance was a secret because - as we were told - E5N1 was being awarded with something. 

Our view

Collecting the Music Award from his choir and band teachers after they had read a very moving tribute. 

The award. It has his name on it in real life

The choir seniors and the chamber singers sang this year’s senior song and led the singing of the school song

It was a great event despite the hot day in the steamy gym and we are very proud of our soon-to-be-graduate. 

Day 18.145: Lull

Today was the last day of classes for our senior. Also, the only day this week without an evening event for him to attend (until Saturday anyway). We all needed the break this evening.

The school is getting ready to honor the class of 2025. Here is a part of their preparations ready for graduation photo-ops:

Day 18.144: Gaming

I missed the game of Wingspan this evening - Exile #2 and Exile #4 played while I attended a meeting at school with E5N1. The other day, however, a pretty close game of Kelp (Shark vs Octopus) included this moment of consideration:

Day 18.143: Awards

It’s E5N1’s last week of high school and the first event of the week was the arts awards night. 

Here’s how he scrubbed-up for that event today;

And here he was at the other end of his schooling - on the first day of Kindergarten:

Day 18.142: Baby blue

Yesterday we spotted this mystery bird at the feeder:

I think I caught a bit of young-bird fluttering from it and decided it was probably a young bluebird. It didn't take long to get some confirmation - in the form of a glimpse of some blue tail feathers, and then this;

Today, we had this rather different-looking juvenile bluebird - definitely young, but independent and feeding itself: