Saturday's Critters # 586

Welcome to Saturday's Critters! Hello and Happy Saturday!

 If you love all God's creatures like I do and also like to blog about them and take critter photos this is where you can share your critter post. Link up your post and share your critters, join in with my critter party ! You can share any kind of critters the real ones, pretend ones, statues and paintings, a new or old post!

Happy Women's Day!  Spring forward, change your clocks ahead one hour tonight.

This post includes our walks with our dog Miney, on our local Prettyboy fire roads and on the NCR bike trail. I included one of my back yard birds the male Northern Cardinal. Miney is becoming a regular sight to see on my blog. 

Click on images for better viewing.

1. Feb 2nd, our walk on the NCR bike trail. It was a little icy but we managed. We only saw one other person jogging, taking a chance jogging on the icy trail.

2. Miney on the bike trail. She loves going on walks, Miney enjoys meeting others walking especially loves to see other dogs. 

3. Feb 3rd, Our walk was on our local fire road. We are in a routine now taking Miney for a daily walk. 

4. Feb 4th, our walk was on another section of the bike trail, we did see more people walking their dogs and jogging. I heard more birds than I actually saw, I captured one Bluebird in horrible lighting. 

5. Feb 5th, another walk on the fire road. 

6. Feb 8th, we are still taking daily walks. It is nice that we are getting more exercise while walking Miney. 

7. Feb 8th, back in the yard is a male Cardinal.  He is looking a little chubby or maybe just puffed out trying to stay warm. 

8. March 2023, I am sharing archive image from our visit to Cape Henlopen Delaware. It is a great park to do some birdwatching. 

I am linking up to Heidrun's Mosaic Monday  I hope you can stop by and visit Heidrun and check out the Mosaic Monday post.

Thanks to all my visitors and for your past and present comments. Stop back to see any replies to your comments. I appreciate everyone who loves and respects wildlife. Thank you for linking up a critter post.

Here is my linky:

Thank you for sharing your critters and post!

Saturday's Critters # 481

Welcome to Saturday's Critters!

Hello and happy Saturday!

 If you love all God's creatures like I do and also like to blog about them and take critter photos this is where you can share your critter post. Link up your post and share your critters, join in with my critter party ! You can share any kind of critters the real ones, pretend ones, statues and paintings, a new or old post!

Sorry, I will be away from my computer and will catch up with my visits and comments as soon as possible. As always thank you for linking up and for your comments! 

Feb 7-8, 2023. I am sharing more photos from our Delaware shore getaway, we stayed one night in Lewes Delaware, just a short drive away from the Cape Henlopen State Park and the Indian River Inlet Park. 

1.  Cape Henlopen Point is where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.  We watched at least 3 large groups of Snow Geese fly over our heads heading inland to the corn fields. Out in the ocean we could see the Common Loon, Gulls, on the ground near the parking lot I noticed various species like the Song Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos and a surprise lifer a Lark Sparrow. Eastern Bluebirds were nearby in a bare tree. 

2.  I enjoyed watching wave after wave of Snow Geese fly over our heads.

2A. More Snow Geese, besides the Snow Geese flying  we saw a huge flock just floating on the water. 

3.  I was just snapping away at some birds eating seeds on the ground, little did I know until later I saw the Lark Sparrow ( top right) a lifer # 504 for me.  I wish I knew at the time, I would have tried for a better photo. The Lark Sparrow has a unique head pattern of red, black and white colors. 

4. I snapped some photos of the birds at the Nature Center feeders. Most of the birds were the male and female House Finches, a few male and female Cardinals, White-throated Sparrow on the ground and a Red-breasted Nuthatch was also coming and going to the feeder. 

5. We walked to the end of the fishing pier at the Cape Henlopen State Park.  Here we could see the Cape May/Lewes Ferry, the Great Black-backed Gull, Ringed Billed Gull, Surf Scoter with Horned Grebe, lots of Double-crested Cormorants, Bufflehead duck and the lighthouse.

6. I am guessing a Horned Grebe with the Surf Scoter.

7. I thought the Double Crested Cormorants hanging out on the old pier pilings was a neat scene. 

  

8. The Great Black-backed Gulls look huge, 30 inches in length. We walked past them perched on the fishing pier, they did not move.

9. At the Indian River Inlet we saw Cormorants, Black Scoter, Common Loon, Long-tailed Ducks, Brant Geese, Surf Scoter and another Loon.  We missed seeing just by a short time a group of Razorbills hanging out at the inlet. 

10.  The Long-tailed Ducks are a favorite of mine, I usually can see them in the winter months along the Mid-Atlantic coast. 

I hope you enjoyed the birds I saw on our little visit to the Delaware shore. 

Thank you for sharing your critters and post!

Thanks to all my visitors and for your past and present comments. Stop back to see any replies to your comments. I appreciate everyone who loves and respects wildlife. Thank you for linking up a critter post.

If there are any problems with the linky, you can leave your link in the comment section, I will fix it as soon as I can.

Here is my linky:

I am also linking up to Anni's blog party found here I'd Rather B Birding   Anni always has some beautiful birds to be seen on her blog, check it out! Also, I am also linking up to Heidrun's Mosaic Monday  I hope you can stop by and visit Heidrun and check out the Mosaic Monday post. 

Happy Monday!

Wishing everyone a great day and a happy new week!

"The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to get sharper."

"Take time to enjoy the simple things in life."

The Point at Cape Henlopen State Park, Lewes Delaware

"We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone."

Comments off, enjoy your day!

Birding Cape Henlopen, Delaware

  I am linking up with Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday 

December 8, 2013

This post shares some of the sights hubby and I saw while birding Delaware last weekend. We stopped at so many different places in Delaware, I took tons of photos. Some are scenic and lots of birds photos of course  ;)

I was kind of hoping to see some  Snow Bunting on the beach at Cape Henlopen. There was not a Snow Bunting in sight only a few gulls hanging around.

The beach at Cape Henlopen State Park, it is just around the corner from the Cape May/Lewes Ferry.

A few gulls and a Horned Grebe

The House Finches perched in a tree near the nature center's feeders.

Above the House Finches look like ornaments on this bare tree. And the Brown-headed Nuthatches are so cute, they were one of my favorite sightings.

We were walking back up the trail when this Turkey Vulture flew low over our heads. It was a pretty sky but a very cold day on the beach.

Even though is was a cold day and I missed seeing the Snow Buntings we still had a fun time walking on the beach. I did get to see my favorite Brown-headed Nuthatches..  I hope you enjoyed our walk around the Cape Henlopen beach.

I was happy to take some photos of my great - nephew on Thanksgiving.. Baby Neill is so cute and was one of my favorite guests for Thanksgiving this year...

I have starting a new MEME called Saturday Critters..posted early on Saturday Mornings...join in on the party and post your cute critters.

As always, I hope you enjoy my post and thanks for visiting my blog. I always appreciate your comments.

Join in on the fun and for more wonderful photos please visit  Mosaic Monday and more
 from  Our World Tuesday

 Thanks to our host: Mary our 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!

Delware birds

I want to wish everyone a very HAPPY & HEALTHY NEW YEAR. And to all the birders and ME (ha-ha), I wish many great bird sightings in 2012.




For my last Camera Critters post for 2011 I have some of the birds we saw last week in Delaware.
One of my main birds to look for at Cape Henlopen, Delaware are the Snow Buntings. In the winter they can be seen around the dunes at Cape Henlopen State Park.

Across the bay from Cape Henlopen Park we could see the Lighthouse at Cape May, NJ. The entrance to the Lewes/Cape May ferry is right next to Cape Henlopen State Park.

 I did see the Snow Buntings flying around the dunes. It was kind of funny, while we walked toward the point on the bay side I could see the Snow Buntings flying toward the ocean side of the point. So we walked around the point to the ocean side and again saw the Snow Buntings flying toward the bayside. I was beginning to think they were playing games with me, like my dog wanting me to chase her and play keep away. Well, I did not see the Snow Buntings on the ground but I did see two groups in flight. Another bird that can be seen at Cape Henlopen is the Brown Headed Nuthatch. I could hear these birds all around the Nature Center. Sometimes, they would land at the feeder take and seed and fly off quickly. As far as photos of both the Snow Bunting and the Brown Headed Nuthatch it was not happening on this trip.

My only Brown-head Nuthatch photo is a silhouette. You can see their cute little bill.

The white tailed deer could be seen from the nature center's parking lot.

The deer didn't seem to mind me taking their picture.

I had a tough time trying to focus on what I believe is a Cooper Hawk perched in a tree off the seaside trail at Cape Henlopen. Forget the bird, I think I did a good job focusing on the pine tree branches. LOL!

Two female House Finches were chowing down at the nature center's feeder. I was a worried that one of these house finches could have the eye disease.

We were not the only people at the beach we did see a couple of horseback riders and a fisherman driving his vehicle on the beach.

Please visit Misty Dawn's Camera Critters . Thanks to Misty for hosting this fun critter meme all year round. Being an animal lover, I have enjoyed visiting everyone's critter post. 

 I hope to see even more cute critters in 2012.

Thanks for visiting my blog and for commenting thru 2011. I appreciate all the visits and comments.

Happy New Year to everyone, Be safe and have fun! Happy Birding!!!

Wordless Wednesday..The Loon

To see more Wordless Wednesday and to see more of Watery Wednesday  Thanks for stopping by and I hope the rest of your week is great.

Birding the shores

Hubby and I decided to take a last minute trip to Delaware and the Maryland shore. I was hoping to add some lifers to my list. So we left early in the morning on New Year's Eve and drove to Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware.  The first bird I saw on the trail to the beach was a Hermit Thrush..a lifer for me. The Hermit Thrush ..my field guide says it is grayish brown, eye ring and spotted chest. Cool, I was off to a good start adding to my lifer list for the end of the year.

In the mosaic above pictures included are the sunrise, Cape Henlopen dune, Hermit Thrush, White Winged Scoter, Red Throated Loon and the Cape Henlopen beach.


As we got to the beach I started scanning the dunes and beach for the Snow Bunting, a bird I have been wanting to see since I started birding. We walked along the beach and I was able to pick up two more lifers..the Surf Scoter and the White Winged Scoter. Then we drove down to the point, a place where the Snow Buntings have been seen in the past. Walking along the beach a large flock of birds flew  past quickly and I just had a feeling that they were the Snow Buntings. An awful photo enlarged and cropped did verify they were the Snow Buntings.  I do not like including a bird as a lifer unless I get a good look at the bird. It would have been great if they could have stopped and landed but no luck there. So this winter I will still be on my quest to see a good sighting of a Snow Bunting. Here is a link to Cornell's All about Birds with some facts about the  Snow Bunting .



Below, is my quick point and shoot shot of the flock of Snow Buntings. They flew by so fast, I as surprised I ended up with any of the birds in my photo. I thought it would be one of my famous blue sky shots. The male Snow Bunting is mostly white and has dark wing tips.

Since we finished kind of early at Cape Henlopen we decided to do a loop and drive to Ocean City Maryland and Assateague Island. Ocean City's inlet is usually great for birding. We stopped for lunch at a place called Dumsers famous for their ice cream. We had started with delicious seafood bisque (it was filled with scallops, shrimp and crab meat) and hubby had a crab cake and I had a tasty barbeque pork sandwich. A great place for lunch,  I would highly recommend Dumser's on Coastal Hwy. After lunch we were onto the inlet to check out the birds there. The birds I saw at the inlet were not lifers but I enjoyed seeing the Common Loon, Purple Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones and Sanderlings. There was still some snow around, this was the first time I had seen snow on Ocean City's beach. We even saw a snowman near the jetty at the inlet.

In the mosaic above, pic's of some cute birdhouses on the dunes at Ocean City, Purple Sandpiper, Common Loon, Snowman and the sunset at Assateague Island. We were making so many stops we decided to spend the night and continue having more fun at Ocean City and Assteague on New Years Day.

Above is one of Assateague Island famous wild ponies. Assateague Island and the beach is another spot known to have Snow Bunting sightings. Hubby and I enjoyed another walk down the beach looking for the  Snow Buntings. I was determined to find a Snow Bunting before the end of the year.

Above is the beautiful sunset we were lucky to see at Assateague Island. Even though I did not see my Snow Bunting hubby and I had a great New Year's eve.

I am linking up with Mary's Mosaic Monday  and to show off the pretty blue skies check out Sally's Blue Monday  and That's My World . Click on the links to visit these fun memes. Thanks to both Mary and Sally and the hosting team at That's My World for hosting and thank you for stopping by to see my post.