Birding and Hiking the Gunpowder River

A post for my Mosaic Monday and That's My World and a link to my you tube Mountain laurels along the trail

This week hubby and I hiked down the trail to the Gunpowder River to see the mountain laurels in bloom. The trail along the river has an amazing amount of white and pink  mountain laurels blooming. The weather was great for hiking and we sat and watched some kayakers playing around in the white water area of the river. It is also a river popular with the trout fishermen and people tubing.

I was also able to check out the birds along the river. I saw a beautiful Scarlet Tanager high in the tree tops. Acadian Flycatchers were all around and I am pretty sure I heard a Prothonotary Warbler.  One of the birds that popped up close to me was the Louisiana Waterthrush. This bird likes to nest in woodlands near rivers or fast moving streams. As you can see it has pinkish legs and a wide white supercilium. Which to me looks just like an eyebrow.

Goldie Girl got to play in the river and cool off.

The mountain laurel was blooming beautifully, I really loved the pink ones.

To see more great photos and mosaics please visit Mary's Mosaic Monday  and That's My World  thanks to Mary of Little Red House and to the group of hosts at That's My World : Sylvia, Wren, Sandy and Klaus.

Also thanks for visiting my post and I wish everyone a great week.

Birding the Potomac

For my post today I am linking up with a few memes, Mary's Mosaic Monday and Sally's Blue Monday and Marytheteach's Ruby Tuesday  You click on the link to visit these fun memes.

On Saturday we visited The C&O Canal and the Great Falls on the Potomac River. It was a beautiful day the weather and sky were perfect to be outside. I was looking birds and my hubby just enjoys the river and the falls. I can almost always be guaranteed to see the Great Blue Heron here because across the river is a Great Blue heron rookery. The Canada Geese, Mallard ducks, Cormorants and Turkey Vultures were another common sight. I did see a few warblers in the trees along the canal but they were too quick for me to snap a shot. It was neat to watch this kayaker near the Great Falls. We couldn't miss seeing him with the bright red kayak and his blue life vest and helmet.

Virginia Creeper

A great blue heron and if you look closely some turtles

A beautiful sky

Please visit these great memes listed above Mosaic Monday, Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday. Thanks to the wonderful host of the fun memes. And thank you for stopping by to visit my post and blog.