Saturday's Critters # 615

  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!

Various photos from our walks on the local fire roads, the NCR trail and a few from our yard. 

Click on images for better viewing.

1. Aug 12,  our walk to the lake with Miney and hubby. It is nice hubby is feeling up to more walks.  

2. Aug 12th, it's been hard capturing a bird with my camera. I usually hear more than I see now.  I did get a few shots of the Downy Woodpecker. 

3. Aug 15th, a walk with Miney and Michael on the NCR trail. We saw lots of what looked like swamp sunflowers along the trail. 

4. Seen on the NCR trail, there were lots of these flowers. I am guessing they are the Swamp Sunflowers? 

5. Eastern Tiger Swallowtails were enjoying our Buddleia bush. 

Sometimes Miney is on a long lead and will walk out on the driveway when the gate is open. 

6. Aug 17, we took another walk on the Prettyboy fire road, hubby and Michael rested on a downed tree across the trail. 

Aug 17, a mama deer with her fawn on our driveway. The spotted babies are so cute. 

7. Flashback 2013, New Mexico birds. One of my favorite birds seen in New Mexico was my lifer the Greater Roadrunner. 

8. Flashback 2013 New Mexico the Black Phoebe lifer.

Flashback back 2013 New Mexico, at the Carlsbad Caverns we saw my lifers the Cave Swallows.

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.

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Various Swallows

Hello,


I am sharing various swallows we saw while visiting Washington State and some other Swallows seen while on other trips. I have a mix of Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, an awful photo of the Violet-green Swallow, a distant look at Cave Swallows.  I am always working on getting what I think is a great shot of any bird I see. When it comes to a new bird, I will keep what I think is an awful photo just to record the time I actually saw my life bird.


Barn Swallows on their nest under the pier. The Barn Swallows have a steel blue upperpart and a rufous forehead, chin and throat.

Barn Swallow collecting mud for their nest. The building a cup nest from mud pellets.

Two Northern Rough-winged Swallows. These swallows are brown above and white underparts. Their throat is white with a brownish gray wash.

They usually nest near streams, we saw these birds next to the Hoh River in the Olympic National Park.

This swallow photo below  is not my best, I will still have to work on getting a better shot of the Violet-green Swallow. I was able to get an id confirmation with this photo and that is why I am keeping it for now.  This swallow has long pointed wings, has a glossy green color on top of it's head and white cheeks.

Below, a Tree Swallow sky. Swallows are fast flyers and it is very hard for me to get a clear shot and closeup of a moving swallow.

Tree swallow talk. These swallows have a iridescent blueish-green upper part and white underparts.

Below are the Cave Swallows seen as they excited the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. They nest in natural caves. They have grey-blue upperparts and brown-tangerine forefront. It is hard to see their colors in my photo.

Other swallows seen in my area are the Bank Swallow and the Cliff Swallows.

Thank you for stopping by and as always I appreciate your comments.

My list of memes for today, I hope to see you there. Thanks to both of the host below.


Thanks to Michelle for hosting Nature Notes
Thanks to Stewart for hosting Wild Bird Wednesday

Birding Carlsbad, New Mexico

I am linking up with NF Winged   and  Skywatch Friday 

 I think by now everyone knows I went to New Mexico on vacation. One major attraction for hubby was seeing the Carlsbad Caverns and I figured there had to be birds there for me to see. The first day was mainly a travel day and on the second day we visited the Carlsbad Caverns and the national park. I am sharing some birds from the park for my NF Winged entry and I have some sky shots from around the Guadalupe Mountains.

We were up early and on our way to the Carlsbad Cavern National Park when we stopped to watch the sunrise.  

There were many New Mexico birds that were not lifers, like the House Finches above.

The Guadalupe Mountains and the moon seen from the road going into the Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

The Cave Swallows were a lifer.  It was fun watching the Swallows going in and out of the cave.

We hiked into the natural entrance of the caverns, 750 feet down. It was a steep one mile  hike for the Natural Entrance and  took us a little over an hour then we arrived at the BIG room which was another one mile walk.

I was able to watch this American Kestrel while it was watching the Cave Swallows.

For a scenic shot and showing off the pretty blue sky, I am sharing the view of the Cavern hole ( near the left middle of the photo and the seating for the bat flight program. It was cool to experience the bat flight, swarms of bats coming out of the cave.  As more bats poured out of the cave, I could look up in the sky and see the previous swarm of bats. The bats fly around at night eating within 30-50 miles of cave and then return early in the morning. The Cave Swallows wait for them to leave and they go back inside the cave for the night. Photography was not allowed during the bat flight program.

It was cool to watch the moon setting behind the Guadalupe Mountains. I hope you enjoyed my Carlsbad birds and my sky photos. We spent the first three nights in Carlsbad and visited the caverns and park a couple of times.

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

  Happy Skywatching 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 Monica the host of NF Winged.   I wish everyone a safe and happy weekend.