Back Alley Pool Party [July 5th, 2015]

I guess this might be the first of many bird bathing follow-up posts. There was a 'surprise' birthday coffee klatch this weekend instead of the normal coffee sipping and photo snapping. Hopefully next week?
The province is currently doing its best to survive a wicked heatwave! WICKED!!!
I salute all the tireless and brave fire fighters - a lot of whom are volunteers no less - that are trying their best to get the raging brush and forest fires under control.

Folks, THE PROVINCE IS ON FIRE!!!!

The sky has been a creepy sci-fi movie orange lately, the sun is cloaked in a scalding haze and the air is nearly impossible to breathe.
I feel so sad for all the wildlife that is probably freaked out and/or burned to a crisp because of it. And sadly a majority of these raging fires are all due to the carelessness/arrogance/ignorance of HUMANS. Ya gotta love our bi-pedal superiority!

Because of this heat and the smoke and ash in the air, we got back the building and hauled out the garden hose again. This time the little guys didn't even wait until we'd cleared out. They practically dive-bombed us to get at the puddles.

Just an observation here but birds don't seem to 'mingle'. There seems to be a hierarchy. They keep to their 'own kind' when wading or dunking or splashing about.
I found it interesting to watch the different breeds(?) take their turns. The bravest of them all were the littlest guys. What I call moineaux. sparrows in English, I think. They kept a respectful distance from the big boys but still got in there and enjoyed the water too.

Note to readers: this is one of the rare times I have done any major 'cropping' of my images to get the 'subjects' closer. Normally what I post is what I shot.

The morning sun.

A couple of polished off dark roast.

I think the pigeons might be the head honchos in our alley.
They seemed to think they owned the joint.

This little moineau was done waiting her turn. Go get 'em tiger!

One of the upstairs neighbour's cat checking out the action.

She had a bathing buddy.

"Just ignore him Marjorie, we have a right to be here too!"

I think this fella(?) is still a youngster.
He had a fuzzy head and not the usual cool slicked-back crow feathers.

I hope we all survive this insane heat. In the mean time we shall continue to water the alley and keep our little friends as comfortable as we can.

A note to self: congrats to me on my 100th 21freckles blog post.