Monacacy River Trail

I have a list below of memes I am joining for this week, and to save time I am doing one post for all. They are all fun memes to participate in...I hope you can join in with the fun  and check out some of the participating posts. Special thanks to all the wonderful host and their memes, I hope you have some time to check them out.

It was just a short ride to Frederick County, Maryland for our walk along the scenic Monocacy River. We saw the Barred Owl that has drawn the attention of a lot of Maryland birders. It sits in a tree just above and not far from the trail.

Above are some of the birds and scenes we saw during our outing. The first row is the Wood Duck couple, Second row is the Barred Owl, Third row, my guess a Red-shouldered Hawk and an Eastern Bluebird. Bottom row are the Bluebells and some turtles.

Barred Owl seen from the trail.

The female Wood Duck.

This is just my guess, a Red Shouldered Hawk, sorry about the tree branch in the way.

For Jesh's Seasons...The bluebells are blooming but they look a little damaged from the frosty night we had.

For Tom's Barn Collective I have a few drive by barn shots from our outing. I liked the barn with the green roof and brick silo.

A view of the walking trail at the Monocacy River. I hope you enjoyed our walk and my birds. Thank you for visiting and for the nice comments. As always, thanks to the wonderful group of hosts listed below.

Thanks to Jesh our host for Seasons
Thanks to Tom for hosting The Barn Collective

Thanks to Judith our  host of Mosaic Monday
Thanks to Monica for hosting NF Trees

Thanks to Michelle for hosting Nature Notes

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

Thanks to Stewart for hosting Wild Bird Wednesday

Fireroad Walk

I have a list below of memes I am joining for this week, and to save time I am doing one post for all. They are all fun memes to participate in...I hope you can join in with the fun  and check out some of the participating posts. Special thanks to all the wonderful host and their memes, I hope you have some time to check them out.

Hubby and I often go out for walks on our local fireroads, lately we have been checking on our neighborhood Barred Owl and sometimes I am looking for other birds. On this day March 30th we didn't see the owl but I found this female Pileated Woodpecker.

She was working hard around this tree, it may be her nest. This is almost right across from where we saw our Barry the Barred Owl.

 These woodpeckers have been known to drilled rectangular holes in trees looking for bugs and for their nest.

The Pileated Woodpeckers are large birds and mostly black, they have a patch of white on their wings seen while in flight. This is the female wearing the black moustache. The male would have a red line instead of two black lines on their face.

Above a view of our lake from the fireroad, a White-breasted Nuthatch, Downy Woodpecker.

From another day this is Barry the Barred Owl seen on March 27th.

Here is a peek at the lake on a dreary cloudy day walk! The trees should be turning green soon.

Above are images from my most recent walk on the fireroad. On the top row are the Pileated Woodpecker, Canada Goose, Louisiana Waterthrush, Cormorants, Geese and Great Blue herons on the nest. I hope you enjoyed our walk in the woods.  As always, I appreciate the visits and your nice comments.  Have a happy new week ahead!

As always thanks to the wonderful group of hosts listed below.
Thanks to Jesh our host for Seasons

Thanks to Judith our  host of Mosaic Monday
Thanks to Monica for hosting NF Trees

Thanks to Michelle for hosting Nature Notes

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

Thanks to Stewart for hosting Wild Bird Wednesday

Saturday's Critters #119

Saturday's Critters #119

Happy Saturday, it's time to share your critters and post. Any kind of critter will do, even a new or old post.. I appreciate everyone who is linking in with this week's critter party.

Happy Easter everyone!

These are local birds from my neighborhood and from the woods next to our home. On March 10th the Great Blue Herons have arrived landing back on their same nests as last year. There may be more Herons this time, I am noticing more nests on different trees than last year. I can see at least 4-5 nest in the woods across from yard. I can watch the Great Blue Herons working on their nest and flying by my yard with stick in their beaks.

One Great Blue Heron on a nest.

There are two herons on this nest, one seems to be looking at me. The other heron is leaning over I only see it butt and legs. There are more nest in these tall pine trees along the fireroad back into the woods.

In the woods across from our house I can watch the herons collecting sticks for their nest.

A video taken from my dining room window, I was able to watch this Great Blue Heron in the tree.

When hubby and I walked on the fireroad checking out the other herons nest we found this Barred Owl. Two different days we found him/her in the same tree. It is nice to have both the Great Blue Herons and the Barred Owl just a short walk from home. We will be checking out the progress on all of these birds through out the season.

From a different day we saw the Barred Owl again, same location as the previous sighting.  I think their nest is nearby!

Another bird sighted off the fireroad, two Wood Ducks.. The male flew away towards the lake but this female stopped and perched in a treetop. I hope you enjoyed this post. As always thanks for the visits and the nice comments. I also thank everyone who is linking up and sharing their critters.. Happy Saturday, have a great weekend!

An InLinkz Link-up

To see more beautiful birds and cute critters, check out these two memes below.

Also visit:  I'd-Rather-B-Birdin. Thanks to the gracious host: Anni.  Also check out Camera Critters. Thanks to Misty for hosting this fun meme.

Saturday's Critters #83

Saturday's Critters #83

It's Saturday and it's time to share your critters.. Any kind of critter will do, even a new or old post.. I appreciate everyone who has linked up in the past and for those who are linking in on this week's critter party. And of course I always appreciate my blogging friends stopping by just for a visit.

For my critters I am sharing more birds from Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park. I am happy that these birds have a home and were rescued but it is sad to see just how many birds needed to be rescued and rehabbed.

Above the Great Blue Heron with a fish dinner and a Black Vulture nearby.

The Yellow Crowned Night Heron.

More of the breeding Brown Pelicans and a Cormorant showing off. Can you find the male Wood Duck?

Two Great Horned Owls.

The Barred Owl.

Two White Pelicans, they seem to be happy in this park and I guess it is good that they have a safe and happy home. I hope you enjoyed my visit to the wildlife park. As always thank you for stopping by, for all the nice comments and for participating with my Saturday's Critter party!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks to Tex Theresa aka Tex, I was able to add this link up button and thanks to  Jennifer for creating my photo badge.

<a href="http://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.com/"><img src=" https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3915/15299083201_9709303697_m.jpg" width="185" height="240"></a>

To see more beautiful birds and cute critters, check out these two memes below.

Also visit:  I'd-Rather-B-Birdin. Thanks to the gracious host: Anni.  Also check out Camera Critters. Thanks to Misty for hosting this fun meme.

Weekend walk_Aug 16th

  I am linking up with   Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday 


 I am sharing last weekend's walk at the Howard County Conservancy. The Conservancy is a non-profit environmental education center.. They have two locations we visited the Mt. Pleasant Farm located in Woodstock. Md.

  Mt Pleasant is 232 acres of rolling hills, home to 140 birds and other wildlife. There are the historic buildings like the farmhouse, barns, hen house and other outbuildings.

This cute garden decoration..included an Oriole fan... Go Orioles!!!!

We walked around the community veggie and flower garden, lots of birds and butterflies hanging around the gardens..The community garden is fenced in, to protect the gardens from the deer.  I took these shots thru the fence..

I loved this owl carving.. There are trails for hiking and monthly events for the whole family to enjoy.

I will share more from the Conservancy and the gardens which was nice to see the butterflies and native flowers on my next post..



As always I thank you in advance for stopping by and for the nice comments.

I hope you can join in on our at  Mosaic Monday and   Our World Tuesday

 Thanks to Judith our new host of Mosaic Monday and to the hosting group of Our World Tuesday: Arija, Gattina, Lady Fi, Sylvia, Sandy and Jennifer.  I wish everyone a happy week ahead!

Barred Owl

For this weeks World Bird Wednesday  and Nature Notes I am posting on the Barred owl hubby and I saw on a walk at Riley's Lock. The Potomac River and the C&O canal trail has been a great place for me to see birds. During this walk we saw two Barred owls together. One flew away but one stayed in a tree near the trail and watched us. We saw many other species of birds on our walk but the owl was my favorite sighting.


The Barred Owl is seen in  mixed woodlands and swamp forest. They prey on insects, vertebrates and amphibians.  Their call sounds a lot like "who cooks for you" .

The photo above shows the owl looking down, we watched as smaller birds were determined to make the owl leave and were trying to dive bomb him or her.

To see more great birds please visit Springman's World Bird Wednesday  and Michelle's  Nature Notes thanks to Springman  and Michelle for hosting and thanks for stopping by to see my post.

Nature Center Visit

Click here Watery Wednesday to see more watery shots from all over.

Wordless Wednesday  click  link to visit the Wordless Wednesday links.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit, I hope you enjoyed my nature center visit and the Barred Owl. Thanks to the host of Watery Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday

To see more Wordless Wednesday click here Wordless Wednesday

Thanks for stopping by

A more current birding walk

Wow, I just noticed that this is my 100th post. I was thinking my blog visitors might be tired of seeing my Costa Rica vacation photos so I am posting a mosaic my more recent birding walk. On Saturday, hubby and I took a quick walk to a local park where the birding is usually good. This time of year I can usually find some warblers moving thru. No luck though with the warbler sightings. We did see a few Red Eyed Vireos and a lot of Blue Gray Gnatcatchers. A large flock of Bluejays flew over and different species of woodpeckers were heard during our walk. The best sighting was of a Barred Owl. Two weeks ago we saw a pair of owls in the same spot, I believe they are nesting nearby. This is a pretty park with a stream and  lots of pretty yellow wildflowers growing along the trail.

This is my entry and to see more visit Mary at Mosaic Monday  Thanks to Mary for hosting Mosaic Monday.

Barred owl

This is one of the two owls we saw two weeks ago.

Closeup of some of the wildflowers along the trail. To see more yellow click here Mellow Yellow Monday and a thanks to Drowsey Monkey for hosting Mellow Yellow Monday.

After this past winter I love to see all the green and the reflections of the trees.

 Thanks for stopping by to see my post.