Saturday's Critters # 469

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!

Hubby and I enjoy our little getaways, in this case on Nov 2nd-4th we visited one of my favorite places Chincoteague Island NWR in Virginia. We like going on these getaways at the last minute, just so we can pick the good weather days. The Chincoteague ponies are always a treat to see along with all the wild birds. 

Click on photos for better viewing!

1. Various photos from Chincoteague Island NWR, the Chincoteague Ponies, Merlin, Yellowlegs, Egret with ponies, Great Egret, Osprey, White Ibis, Assateague Lighthouse, Forster's Tern, Osprey, Sanderlings, Green-winged Teals, Bald Eagles, Great Blue Heron, sunrise

2. Great Egrets were seen in the same spot every day, one of their favorite fishing spots.

3. Merlin, this bird was seen from the trail to the pony overlook.

4. Various ducks, a good distance away for me to id them. A Bald Eagle did a fly by and caused a raucous. 

5. We found a few Yellowlegs off the wildlife drive. 

6.  After flying over the ducks that were hanging out, the Bald Eagle couple hung out on the ground for awhile. 

7.  Below one Great Blue Heron on the far left with a group of Cormorants, this was taken close to the sunset at Tom's Cove.. 

8.  A few Forster's Terns perched on the bridge leading into the wildlife refuge. 

9.  A Northern Flicker high in one of the tree tops off the trail. 

10.  An Osprey was seen each day almost in the same spot, maybe it was a good fishing spot. 

11. A Pied-billed Grebe was seen off the wildlife drive. 

I came home from 2 nights and 3 days in Chincoteague with over 500 photos and a few awful mosquito bites. These are some of my favorite birds, from the first day and half of the second day. 

12. My bonus photo is from Thanksgiving Day, my son, DIL and grandsons Wyatt and Mason came over for Thanksgiving dinner.

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!  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. 

Saturday's Critters #103

Saturday's Critters #103

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

I am sharing some more birds and critters seen during our trip to Ocean City, Maryland. There were plenty of gull species, terns and we saw some dolphins swimming by while we walked on the beach.

Some dolphins swimming by.

These two were swimming by the Ocean City inlet, they look darker than the dolphins above, I was thinking they may be the Pilot Whales.

In their usual place on the rocks and jetty I found the Ruddy Turnstones and some other shorebirds.

It was cool to watch the Northern Gannets diving into the ocean from our balcony.

While watching the sunset on the bayside, a fisherman caught this small Sand Shark. He released this small shark back into the water.

I believe these are the Forster's Terns

I was attracted to this dog, maybe because of it's cute ears. Adorable!

More Terns and gulls on the beach, just chillin.  I hope you enjoyed my critter post. Thank you for stopping by, thanks for joining in with my critter party. Most of all thank you for all the nice comments.  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.

Ocean City, Maryland

I am linking up with Skywatch Friday  and Good Fences
I hope you can join in on the fun and share your fence scenes and pretty skies.

For this week's Good Fence and Skywatch Friday memes I am sharing some more photos from our Anniversary getaway in early May. A last minute decision we continued our getaway to Ocean City Maryland after we left Chincoteague Island Virginia. That is what is great about being retired we can make last minute trips and getaways. Early May the beaches were fairly empty and we had a choice of hotels to spend the night.

This is the sunrise before leaving Chincoteague Island NWR.

Early morning light with a flock of maybe Dunlin.  I had to do some more birding at Chincoteague Island NWR before we left.

I know this is stretching the fence scene, but if you look closely you can see the wire fence ( just above the Oystercatcher's eye)  at the dune nesting area for the Oystercatchers and the Piping Plovers.

With my great zoom I spotted a cute Piping Plover seen beyond the fence area at Chincoteague Island NWR

We left Chincoteague Island and went to the Ocean City inlet, a fence runs along side the rock jetty. It was a beautiful day to be at the beach.

How did this bird know I needed a fence shot? Is there too much fencing going on here?

According to the Maryland listserve the Sunset Park in Ocean City is always a happening spot to see some birds. Above is the Common Yellowthroated Warbler. For some reason it looks like there is a double or even a triple fence in this spot.

Also seen at the Sunset Park, one of my favorite bird species the Terns. I think these may be the Forster's Tern.

It was a full moon during our little getaway, it was nice seeing it rise over the ocean.   I hope you enjoyed my post and photos. Thanks for stopping by and for the nice comments.


To see more pretty skies from around the world please visit  Skywatch Friday
and check for more fence shots at Tex's Good Fences

Thanks to Theresa @ The Run*A*Round Ranch for hosting Good Fences and thanks to Sylvia, Yogi  and Sandy for hosting Skywatch Friday.    I wish everyone a happy day and weekend ahead..

Chincoteague Island

  I am linking up with Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday 

September 22, 2013

I took off work on Friday so hubby and I could enjoy an overnight trip to Chincoteague Island, Virginia. Chincoteague is one of my favorite places to visit. My excitement started as I was seeing some cool birds along our drive on the eastern shore of Maryland. There were a few hawks along the highway, gulls flying along side the car while driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, awesome sighting of a Great Horned Owl on an electric pole, a kingfisher perched on a wire, cattle egrets seen on a cattle farm near Pocomoke City.

During our stay at Chincoteague Island we enjoyed the gorgeous weather, beach, birds, ponies and pretty scenery.

Above are the Black Skimmers, a Little Blue Heron, Egrets and the Chincoteague Lighthouse.

The boardwalk at Tom's Cove, surfer, Chincoteague ponies and the pretty beach.  We had cool sightings of dolphins swimming by and playing around in and jumping out the waves.

More Skimmers, Godwit, Terns and some Willets and along the side in the photo is a Little Blue, Snowy Egret and a Tricolored heron and the bottom is a Green Heron.

On a later post I will share my two lifers...the rare sighting of a Bar-tailed Godwit and a Sandwich Tern. The birding was awesome. I enjoyed seeing all the shorebirds.

Spending the one night we were able to watch the sunset, the moon rise above the ocean and see a beautiful sunrise.  After watching the sunrise we checked out some more of the shorebirds as we headed back to our hotel for breakfast. Not ready to go home we hung around the Chincoteague NWR. We took a walk on the woodland trail and did one last stop to check out the Tom's Cove area which was were I spotted my lifers. I will post about my Chincoteague lifers on another post. Even on the drive home, I was able to watch an eagle lift off the Nanticoke River and fly next to our car for awhile as I drove over the bridge. I had a great weekend, how was your weekend?

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!

Edwin Forsythe NWR part II

Today is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to say a thank you to all the Firefighters and Police who put their lives in danger on that day and every day and to honor all those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attack. My prayers go out to the victims and their families. It is one day I will never forget.



For my post this week I have some more birds from the Edwin Forsythe wildlife rufuge in New Jersey for my  Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday.



I know by now everyone knows I love to go birding. For me birding is peaceful and relaxing. These photos are from last weekends visit to the wildlife refuge. We saw some great birds and had a great time. Here is a list of some of the birds we saw at the refuge: 4 Clapper Rails,  Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets and Cattle Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Black Crowned Night Heron, Caspian Terns, Forsters Terns, Black bellied Plovers, Glossy Ibis, Semipalmated Sandpipers and Plovers, Sanderlings, Dowitchers, Yellowlegs, Black Skimmers, hundreds of gulls, Osprey and Swallows. I am sure there are some birds I am forgetting, there were so many.

One of the 4 Clapper Rails we saw.

In my mosaic below I have photos of the terns, gulls, glossy ibis, black bellied plovers and egrets.

Cute juvie Tern...I believe this is a Forsters Tern

In this photo, I believe the large group are the semipalmated sandpipers, swallow, clapper rail, osprey and yellowleg.

Below just three of the  Glossy Ibis we saw.

To see more wonderful Mosaic and photos please visit  Mosaic Monday  and Our world Tuesday.  Thanks to Mary of Mosaic Monday and to the host of Our World: Sylvia, Sandy, Gattina, Lady Fi and Arija.

I hope you enjoyed my birds from the wildlife rufuge and I hope everyone has a great week ahead. Thanks for visiting my blog, I appreciate your comments.

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.