Some Shenandoah birds and critters

I am linking up with one of my favorite meme's Camera Critters. I have always been an animal lover.....from dogs, cats, birds, turtles and frogs, And the big critters too horses, cows, deer and bears. It is wonderful to see these critters and enjoy them.

These are some shots from our Shenandoah Nat'l Park trip on June 2nd.   We started somewhat early on my favorite Limberlost trail by 9:30am. It is a great trail to see some birds closeup in the underbrush. I was happy to be seeing lots of Redstarts, Towhees, Robins and Blue-headed Vireo...I should start carrying a notebook with me to keep a list of the birds I see. I know I saw and heard more birds but I can not remember them all, a notepad and pen is important for the next time.

 My only shot of the Blue-headed Vireo. This Vireo has a blue head, white throat and a greenish back. The sides are washed with yellow-olive and also has strong wingbars.


As we walked along the trail I stopped every once in awhile looking for birds, I looked up the hill and turned to hubby and said look there is a black bear. He was amazed at how calm I was just turning and saying quietly that there was a black bear. I was really excited it was only the second time we have even seen a bear while walking on a Shenandoah trail. We have been there hundreds of times too. We stood and watched the bear until it was out of sight, very cool.

So we continued walking along the trail hoping to see the bear cross over the trail. no luck there. So I went back to looking and listening to the birds.

 We heard a lot of Eastern Towhees, this female Eastern Towhee was the only one that came out into the open. She did not seem to care that we stood and watched her. We finished the loop trail and headed back to our car, we were ready to head down to the Big Meadows store for some lunch.

 At the parking lot we saw this group of riders on their horses. You can arrange to take a trail ride at Shenandoah, something we never seemed to have time for, we usually prefer to hike.

If you want to know where your winter birds go in the summer we saw lots of Dark-eyed Juncos near the camp store. We ate our lunch and headed back onto the Skyline Drive for our next hike, it was a new one for us called the Upper Hawksbill. It is the highest part of the Skyline Drive and the views were beautiful. Back in our car  and driving on the Skyline Drive we came across our second bear sighting. This one was just walking along side the road.

I have always enjoyed seeing bears, I just love them. This was a first time we had the bear to ourselves. No other cars came around so we were able to stop and watch the bear for awhile without more cars coming to scare it away. I believe we were still in the middle section of the Skyline Drive and heading home when seeing the second bear. We still had the north section of the drive to go. We stopped at some overlooks and we were still looking for deers and bears on the north section before heading out of the park.

Our next sighting was seeing this cute fawn and its momma along the road. I stopped my car to watch them for awhile until a bike rider came along and they ran away into the woods.

Almost out of the park and close to the entrance gate another black bear ran across the road right in front of my car and went right into the woods. It was moving quickly but we still stopped and watched till it disappeared into the woods. Wow, I could not believe we had sighted three different black bears. There are times we go and do not see one, so I consider myself really lucky on this trip.

I hope you enjoyed my Shenandoah critters and to see more beautiful and cute critters please visit Camera Critters . Thanks to Misty Dawn for hosting and thank you for stopping by to see my post. I wish everyone a safe and HAPPY weekend. Also Happy Birding!!