Saturday's Critters # 439

  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!

I am sharing some photos from April 13th and our walk on the nearby NCR Bike trail. 

1. April 13th some of the nature scenes included a few birds, White-tailed Deer and lots of flowers. 

2. We saw 3 White-tailed Deer running across the bike trail. I could only capture the last one running off. Can you find the deer? A blink of the eye he was gone into the woods.

3. I am not sure of this Hawk, possibly a Cooper's Hawk or Sharp-shinned Hawk. It flew across the river and landed on the ground. I am sure something was under this hawk's feet. 

4.The Eastern Phoebe has been seen near the river and bike trail often during our walks. 

5. April 15th our walk to the lake with the grand-dogs. Nothing new seen on this day the usual Canada Geese and some Double-crested Cormorants. 

6. April 16th on our deck railing the White-throated Sparrow was eating some peanuts. 

7. April 16th, our walk to the lake with the dogs, again we saw more Double-crested Cormorants hanging out. 

8. April 17th, hubby and I hiked at the nearby Hemlock Gorge area, I heard the Lousiana Waterthrush calling but it would not pose for a photo. I did capture 2 Canada Geese with a Mallard.

9. April 20th, our walk to the lake with dogs, we saw more DC Cormorants, a first time seeing 3 Terns flying over our lake and a Slider Turtle was out sunning on the rocks. 

10. One of the 3 Terns I saw flying around our lake, they seem out of place here. I usually see Terns along the coast. I am guessing with the large colorful beak it is a Caspian Tern? 

I am seeing more of our breeders moving back into our area. I have been out for walk on most days, looking for new birds and photos.

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.

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!

Key West Sunset

Linking up with NF Winged   and  Skywatch Friday

Happy 1st of May..Spring is starting to look very pretty around now, flowers and trees blooming. All we need is some warmer temps and  I will be happy. This was an early 23rd anniversary trip.

After a long drive with many stops we arrived in Key West in the afternoon. Enough time to check into our hotel , relax a bit and then head back out to see a famous Key West sunset. Key West is known as the Southernmost point of the United States. Except for Hawaii which is not part of the US mainland.

As I said in my previous post, we saw many Palm Warblers in Florida. They seemed to like posing for me and my camera.

Above is an Osprey flying by.

On this first night we avoided the crowds at the famous Mallory Square and headed to Fort Zachary State Park to watch the sunset.

I saw a lot of Laughing Gulls and  Caspian Terns on the beach and nearby rocks.

Above, as we were watching the sunset hubby noticed a sundog. It is a small one the right side of the sun.

Sunset watching is a big thing in Key West. There are many sunset cruises you can go on, we preferred staying on land to watch the sunset.

 The birds, the sailboats and the sunset made for a beautiful Key West scene.

We enjoyed this Key West sunset and I am sure the people on board the sunset cruises had a great view too. I hope you enjoyed my birds and Key West sunset.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I always appreciate your comments.

Happy Skywatching  to everyone!

To see more pretty skies from around the world please visit  Skywatch Friday
and to see more of the winged critters check out NF Winged

Thanks to Sylvia, Yogi  and Sandy for hosting Skywatch Friday! Thanks to the host of NF Winged.  Also, thank you for stopping by to see my post. I wish everyone a safe and happy weekend.

Birding HarveDeGrace, Maryland

For my Our World post and to show my Tern's I am linking with World Bird Wednesday

On Saturday, hubby and I decided to do some walking and birding at HarveDeGrace, Md. It is a waterfront town and has a nice boardwalk on the waterfront. We spent a good part of our visit watching the Terns diving into the water. They are amazing to watch as they just kind of fall from the sky and dive into the water. They kind of reminded me of how the Northern Gannets dive into the water.

The Forster's Tern is about 14 inches in length. They nest in salt marshes and on barrier beaches. My field guide has that the older juvenile has a black eye patch.

After checking out the dark spot around the eye and the beak color I am still guessing at this id. But, I believe it is the juvenile Forster's tern.

So far I have been seeing Forster's Terns, Common Terns and Caspian Terns. I am still on the lookout for the Black Terns.

HarveDeGrace, Md is a fun town with a nice park, marina, lots of antique stores and great restaurants. Hubby and I chose to eat an early dinner at Chipparelli's Italian restaurant. We were familiar wth the famous Chiparelli's restaurant of Little Italy in Baltimore City. It is nice that they opened a new place in HarveDeGrace.

A walk along the boardwalk was mostly birdless except for the Terns and some seagulls. The water was a high level and the herons we usually see were not around on this day.

The lighthouse look small in size but I always enjoy seeing lighthouses so, I had to have a photo of this HarveDeGrace lighthouse.

There were many people in the park area enjoying Labor Day weekend picnics.

I hope you enjoyed my Tern and tour of HarveDeGrace, Md. Please visit Our World for more wonderful post and photos and to see more great birds make you sure you visit Springman's World Bird Wednesday.

Thanks to the host of Our World: Arija, Gattna, Lady Fi, Sylvia and Sandy and also thanks to Springman of World Bird Wednesday.

Thanks also for visiting my post and blog, I hope everyone has a great week.

Birding The Oxbow Lake

Last Saturday my hubby and I  birded and took a hike on the trails at Oxbow Lake in Maryland. The main bird I was after was the Wilson Snipe, during the week 90 or so Snipes were reported being seen at the lake. I have been running all around Maryland for the last couple of years hoping to get a good look at a  Wilson Snipe. I guess you could say I was obsessed with my quest to see a Wilson Snipe. Well it seems the Wilson Snipe really like muddy areas and on Friday it rained and rained. By the time I got to the lake the muddy spots were mostly gone along with the Wilson Snipe.

It wasn't a bad birding day in fact I had some great sightings. One fantastic sighting was seeing two otters laying on a downed tree and on the opposite end of the tree was a Green Heron. Very cool, my first sighting of otters in the wild and I just love Green Herons.

The otters and the green heron were a distance away so here is my bad photo, the heron on the end is barely noticeable. I thought it was a cool sighting anyway.

Below the otter is eating a fish.

The Green Heron

Northern Flicker

Yellow Rumped Warbler, it is spring and the warblers are finally arriving.

Great Blue Heron with a frog for dinner

Three Caspian Terns

So my bird sightings at the Oxbow Lake were the Green Heron, GB Heron, Caspian Terns, Juvenile Bald Eagles, Unknown Hawk, Pileated Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Yellow Rump Warblers, other unidentified Warblers, Pine Warblers, Tree Swallows, Mallards and Wood Ducks. My favorite sighting was seeing the Otters in the wild.

This is my Camera Critters post and to see more cute critter click on my link. Thanks to Misty Dawn for hosting and thank you for stopping by to see my post.