Saturday's Critters #116

Saturday's Critters #116

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.

More sad news to share, we lost another dear blogging friend in Smiling Sally.  Sally was the host of Blue Monday. I am not sure of the details, but I believe she has been sick off and on. My prayers go out to Sally's family. RIP Smiling Sally!

The Sandhill Cranes were plentiful during our Tennessee trip. I have seen them in Florida, New Mexico and a few in Maryland. The Sandhill Cranes stop at the Hiwassee Wildlife refuge during their travel from their wintering ground in Florida to the Canada Tundra. I know these are not the greatest photos, the birds were quite a distance away.

The Sandhill Cranes stand nearly 4feet tall. They have a long neck, long legs, their bodies are gray and they have red on their heads.

"If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere." 

You can hear some of the Sandhill Cranes as they fly in on my Youtube video above.

"Spring is nature's way of saying, Let's Party!" Robin Williams

Some White-tailed deer we saw at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge. I hope you enjoyed our visit to the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge.

An InLinkz Link-up

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!

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.

Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge

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.

If you have been following my blog for sometime you know hubby and I love to travel. Now that we are both retired we can up and leave whenever the weather is nice. This trip to Tennessee was planned just the night before we left, we wanted to take advantage of some mild weather for our drive to Tennessee. I had been watching  EBIRD the site to see if any Sandhill Cranes were still being seen at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge and we heard about a great Tennessee park called Fall Creek Falls State Park from Betsy @ Joyful Reflections.

We arrived at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge on the morning of  Feb 18th. The cranes fly into and out of the wildlife refuge daily. Numbers of  Sandhill Cranes and an occasional Whooping Crane can be seen at the wildlife refuge from November to February. We met some wonderful nice birders at the refuge, I believe the  local birders were looking for the elusive Whooping Crane. All the people and birders we met in Tennessee were super friendly and helpful.

We stayed in a nearby town Dayton, located just miles away from the refuge and not too far of a drive to the Falls Creek Falls State Park. The Hiwassee Wildlife refuge 6,000 acres is located where the Hiwassee River and the Tennessee River meet.

There were a lot of white-tailed deer in the area of the wildlife refuge. I am sharing one photo of the deer with this fence shot.

Teresa's Friday's Hunt
1. letter J
2. week's favorite
3. a cuppa

For Teresa's Friday's Hunt I am sharing my favorite photo above with the Sandhill Crane reflection.

The observation deck is a good distance from where we saw the Sandhill Cranes. You know me by now, I still had to take photos even with the great distance.

A pretty blue sky with the Sandhill Cranes in flight.

It is cool to hear the Sandhill Cranes flying in, sometimes we saw some large groups of cranes both arriving or leaving. These images do look better if you click to enlarge them.

In four days we drove more like 1,700 miles after sightseeing around the parks and Tennessee. We had a total of four days traveling, 2 of the days were taken up on the drive down to Tennessee and the drive back home. So we had just 2 days to see everything we wanted to see in Tennessee, not a lot of time.

A pretty view from the overlook of the Tennessee River and the Hiwassee Island.

Another favorite image was the moon over the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge.

I will have a lot more from our trip to Tennessee and of the Cranes coming soon.
As always I hope you liked my photos. Thank so much for stopping by and for the nice comments.


To see more pretty skies, fences and fantastic photos from around the world please visit the memes below.

Thanks to Theresa @ The Run*A*Round Ranch for hosting Good Fences. Also, thank you to Sylvia, Yogi  and Sandy for doing such a great job at hosting Skywatch Friday.  Thanks also to Teresa Friday's Hunt  

  I wish everyone a happy day and weekend ahead..