Summer Tanager Surprise

 

Hello yellow! A fall visit by a female Summer Tanager was not on my October calendar, but it happened and I couldn’t be happier.  Let me know next time, and I’ll make sure the jelly dish is full. 

The camera on my feeder recorded video at around 7:30 in the morning on Oct. 9. When I later reviewed the day’s birds, I knew this wasn’t one of the usual suspects. The bird identification app I use called Picture Bird said Summer Tanager when I entered these two screenshots from the video. 

Here’s the read out from Picture Bird. I knew this was a female of the species because I have, on a few occasions photographed the all-red male Summer Tanager. 

Here’s a male Summer Tanager I encountered in June 2021 at the Hollings National Wildlife Refuge in the ACE Basin south of Charleston.

Here's my post from that excursion. 

Book It- Summerville Book Festival a Big Success!

 

Summerville's Hutchinson Square has become the town's hub of activity. So it was the ideal locale for the second Summerville Book Festival held on Saturday, Feb. 28. 

I joined some 30 other authors for the event organized by Main Street Reads, a bookstore located directly across from the square. 

Shari Stauch (center) owns Main Street Reads. A Chicago native, she has had quite an interesting life and family. Shari used to be a touring pool player and has written four books about the game. She is also a literary agent and advisor. 

I probably would not have learned about the book festival had the Charleston Post and Courier not recently included the Summerville Journal Scene newspaper, which it owns, in the Wednesday paper we have delivered to our house. 

Shari and I met a couple of years ago when I was a speaker at the Summerville Rotary Club. I remembered that after seeing an article she wrote about the upcoming book festival in the Summerville newspaper. 

I'm always eager for opportunities to sign and sell my books. This festival required authors like me who wanted the chance to display outside like this to pay a "booth" fee of $35 plus purchase a $90 business license from the town. Like my booth? 

So I needed to make some sales to offset those expenses. And that I did, and then some. I had a very good day. It was a long one, from setting up by 10:30 to departure at 4. Many thanks to Alesia for helping with the setup and breakdown.