A warm fall day with a side of birds

The weather's rather warm for this time of year--low 80s--but it was still a beautiful day.
Morning to the left of me:


Morning to the right of me:

Another beautiful day in Central Pennsylvania!

Saw the first white-crowned sparrow of the season:

He didn't let me get any closer, so I'm on full zoom, which is a bit fuzzy. I just don't know what to make of my photographs sometimes. I wonder whether I'm expecting too much of the camera. It seems like even when I only use the optical zoom (not the digital), I still don't get what I would consider a sharp image. Is that just caused by hand movement, or is it just the nature of optical zoom? I knew digital zoom was making up pixels as it zoomed and thus was by definition a bit blurry, but I thought optical zoom was better quality. Anyway...

After work as I drove downtown to pick up Kat, I saw this character on the side of the highway:


He's so beautiful. I'm guessing adult red-tailed, but Stokes isn't that helpful in distinguishing age. I know from Birdchick's and Susan's blogs that some raptors' eye colors change as they mature, but I can't remember whether red-tails fall into that category, and again my Stokes doesn't say anything about eye color. Besides, it's hard to tell from these photos. It seemed reddish gold to me from the ground through the binocs. Perhaps someone can confirm age and who knows? maybe even sex? Come on, you raptor goddesses (read: Susan).

For some reason, as I pulled into the parking lot behind Kat's building, I had a strong craving for Mexican food. Sadly, this is the kind of place that passes for a Mexican restaurant in Central PA:

Apologies for the rear-view mirror reflected shot (traffic was heavy--home game for PSU), but honestly--it is pretty backward when you've got a taqueria that serves espresso. Gees, get your "ethnic" thing straight, people.