So here's what I am wondering about. You know birds -- free and able to soar anywhere they want. No boundaries, nothing can hold them back (maybe bad weather) Any tree a potential next. Any shore a home.

This Ring-billed Gull was among a group that spent each day in the parking lot of the local shopping center. Who knows where they went at night, but each day, rain or shine they would sit in the parking lot for hours.

Now I don't know about you, but me? I would not pick a parking lot to hang into if I had wings to get me to a sea shore.

Guess dumb decisions ain't just a human thing.

--steve buser

Breeze brothers

One last summer image -- two wind walkers sail across Lake Pontchartrain sharing their passion of letting the wind sustain them. In the far background are the downtown buildings of New Orleans -- just shadows in this drama.

I was in a playful mood today on Pixel Eyed -- my other blog. Felt like I had to give Whoopi some acting lessons.

-- steve buser

I could only find one breeze brother on City Daily Photo blogs today:

Indian summer is over -- Moscow Daily Photo

But check out these shots:

Sailboat on lower Hudson River
Random Stuff -- (you have to click on the photo to see it larger)

Wave waiting

You've got little ritual's you do down at the beach, don't you. Spread out the towel, dip the toes in the water.

These guys have a pretty regular routine at the Mandeville lakefront on Lake Pontchartrain. They line up on the pier and wait for the waves to wash over their feet. Of course, the occasional wave will scare a few of them up into the air as it lurches at them. But there is always the brave feathery beast who wins that game of chicken.

Maybe this is the avian form of surfing. A way to pass a hot summer day.

--steve buser

Some Other Daily Photo Sites you will want to check out today
Nottingham -- urban art
River Falls -- wet sunflower
Greenville -- New Orleans style jazz at the Piazza
Quincy -- Belfast Maine harbor area building

Feathery fisticuffs

Apparently there is such a thing as bird manners, because these flighty fighters took great exception to the fact that the feathery fellow on the left didn't share his food. They were squawking and swirling a good ways away from me. It was pretty apparent that a real fracas was going on, so I started to wander over toward there. Suddenly they swooped up, buzzing each other in flight and landed their 100-decibel free-for-all near me.

It wasn't just the two birds in this aerial feud, either. There were about 25 of them in this feather-filled fray.

I smell a good business opportunity, though -- a class on basic manners for birds. Maybe we could call it "Share to Soar."

-- steve buser

High fly

I was just feeling a little flighty today -- thus this picture of one of the birds that hang around the Algiers ferry.

-- steve buser