Cedar waxwings (above) are plentiful in the Adirondacks, and I love to watch them voraciously consuming the serviceberries that seem to be their main diet.  These elegant birds have distinctive black eyemasks, lovely yellow bellies and tail feathers with a stripe of red tipped in bright yellow.  Below is another equally voracious hummingbird:Blue jays are also abundant in the North Country, but these skittish birds hardly ever sit for a portrait.  I was fortunate enough to capture these two in unguarded moments:

This hawk was not happy that I found it sitting on a wire — one snap and off s/he flew!Am trying to avoid the news as much as possible while up here in the beautiful Adirondack wilderness, but some items are just impossible to ignore.  So it was that on the very day that the leader of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt finally resigned after months of scandals — not the least of which is the systematic destruction of environmental protection regulations and the denial of climate science — Africa recorded its hottest temperature ever and many parts of the world continued to bake in unusual heat.  Here in the Adirondacks, where the heat wave was also oppressive, a cool front blew through with some welcome showers, and a small half-rainbow smiled over Simond Pond at Tupper Lake: