That's the wildlife we saw on our most recent nature hike along the Perkiomen Creek as we enjoyed blissfully low humidity, refreshing temperatures, and blue skies before another round of tropical weather hits. After recent rains the creek was running high and little mountainside streams were pouring down to meet it. I don't remember seeing the two pretty little trailside waterfalls the last time we walked there, but that's probably because they were non-existent at the time.

Three weeks ago I had photographed two fawns grazing in a field along the path. When we looked for them this time in the same location, we spotted only one of them. I hope no harm has come to its sibling. I never see chipmunks in my backyard, but since we were only about 15 miles from home while spotting one on the hiking trail, it may just be that chipmunks prefer a woodsier setting than I can provide.

The two unidentified raptors were soaring above the rain-swollen creek. I haven't tried to identify them yet, but they seemed to have light colored feathers at their wingtips (which seemed to be open much like fingers on a hand), and their tails were rather short and somewhat boxy, rather than very rounded. Since they were soaring over the creek, it seems likely that they were looking for a meal of fish.

Well, I think I'm caught up on things for now. I can't believe I've been able to get all these posts in without the screen freezing or IE shutting down. I'm certainly not complaining as I had expected I'd be heading off to the library again.

~~Leequi

Let us know if you ever ID those raptors. I'm wondering if they could have been Black Vultures. The "finger wing tips" is an IDing mark of vultures. The Black Vulture has white near their wings as well as a shorter, square tail.

About your computer problems. I have been tearing my hair out with problems too. My biggest trouble comes when I try to post on an iVillage board. The darn computer freezes up. I haven't had any shutting down problems. Have you updated your virus protection? There are few new ones that have symptoms like you describe.

Rose

I've been having internet problems, too. The past couple of days I keep getting the "cannot display web-site" message every time I've tried to get on this site and ivillage, and others. Frustrating! But this morning I could get to my sites. So who knows?

I haven't gone to the books yet, Rose, but you may be right about my unidentified raptors being Black Vultures. Our first thought (before using binocular assist) was that they were Turkey Vultures. That was ruled out after checking them out closely. I'll let you know after I've done my research. Your description of the Black Vulture seems to fit.

As for dealing with the computer problems, Norton says we're up-to-date with software we installed last fall and has been updated regularly. We did a scan last night and it says no viruses were detected. I'm still of the opinion that all the ads that are coming through (we do have a pop-up stopper enabled) are causing the problem. Dh takes care of the "things that go wrong" on the computer and although I've been talking to him about "Ad-Aware" or "Spy-Bot Search and Destroy" for months now, he's just starting to listen. He has just recently tried to download "Spy-Bot S & D", but wasn't successful. (Last year he was unable to download the most recent Norton and finally we had to take it into the shop to get it done.) He's also inclined to believe that any problems we're seeing are connected to sites that I visit. He's of the belief that any of his favorite sites are pure and uncontaminated with anything that could be harmful to the everyday PC user.

Already this AM Internet Explorer shut down on me while I was posting here and I've seen more messages of errors, fatal exceptions, page faults, etc. and more page freezes and disconnects recently than I'd care to see in a lifetime. Other times I can't even get my browser to open. All very frustrating. Even when all is working well everything is soooooo slooooooow. I wonder if there is any kind of a common bond between problems I'm seeing and those that you, Rose, and Lois, are experiencing.

Well, good luck to us all as these difficulties do take away from the pleasure of the total online experience.

~~Leequi