Saturday's Critters # 568

 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!

These photos are from our trip to Alaska, after we left Denali NP we drove to Glacier View Alaska. Our next two nights were at the Majestic Valley Wilderness Lodge. 

1. Views from the lodge's balcony. At the end of our day sightseeing, the evening included a glass of wine while enjoying the view. We talked a bit with the chef and his dog sat nearby, the gardens and flowers were beautiful along with the mountain views.

The fireweed in Alaska and at the lodge looked beautiful.

2. The gardens and flowers were beautiful.

3. The Majestic Valley Wilderness Lodge. 

During the winter, people who love to ski can fly right to this lodge, they use a helicopter to drop off skiers on the mountain top to do some extreme skiing. 

4. There was a nice fire pit in the garden area. 

5. We enjoyed a breakfast buffet one morning, below are some photos of the dining room and lodge. 

6. The Gray Jay or is it called the Canada Jay now? We saw a few of these birds in the trees close to the lodge. 

7. We took a morning walk before breakfast, below it seemed like mostly Sparrows were being seen. The top left possible Lincoln Sparrow and the middle and top right are the White-crowned Sparrows. My one lifer that I saw but could not get a photo of was the Boreal Chickadee. 

Below is a view of the Matanuska Glacier, this view was right off the Glenn Hwy and close to our lodge.

8. Off the highway we saw a small pond with lots of ducks. It looked like most were the female and young Greater Scaup.

There were a few young Scaup, I assume they are also the Greater Scaup.

 

Hubby and I did some skywatching in the evening on the lodge's balcony. 

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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Thank you for sharing your critters and post!

A few More Sparrows, Part 3

January 14, 2014

I am linking up with Wild Bird Wednesday and Nature Notes

I know I am no way near seeing all 35 Sparrow's . But, I have a few more I can add to continue with my Sparrow post.

More Sparrows from my archives.. I am sharing the LeConte's Sparrow.. It is a small sparrow with a large head. It has a buffy yellow-orange face with gray cheeks.

LeConte"s Sparrow was a special sighting. They more of a rare sighting to be seen in Maryland. The LeConte's Sparrow to me is one of the prettier Sparrows.

This is a shy Lincoln Sparrow hiding in the bush. I manage to get a shot of him peeking out. They are similar to the Song Sparrow with a brown cap and  gray stripe in the middle. They also have a finer bill.

The Song Sparrow one of the most common sparrows I do see just about everywhere. The Song Sparrow has dark upperparts and streaks. Also, has the dark spot in the middle of its chest.

I try to throw in some descriptions of the sparrows I have seen maybe it will help with iding the sparrows.

Thanks for stopping by my post and for all the nice comments.

Join in and post your birdies and to see more beautiful and wonderful bird photos please visit:
 Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday and Michelle's  Nature Notes.  Thanks to our host Michelle our host Stewart.  Happy Birding and have a wonderful week!

Birding the Irvine Nature Center

With my nature center post I am linking up with Scenic Sunday and Today's Flowers
and Mosaic Monday

During the month of October, I was able to visit the Irvine Nature Center twice. Once with my bird club and last weekend I went with my hubby. Of course the nature center trails were great for birding. But it was also nice to see some of the trees looking beautiful with their fall foilage.

 I was amazed at the amount of wildflowers we saw growing on the field. It was the third weekend in October and these flowers were looking gorgeous and still attracting the Fritallary and Buckeye butterflies and Sulfurs. 

Can you find the Fritillary above, the butterfly almost blends in witht he flowers and background.

The fields are great for attracting sparrows and this is a great time of year to see new and to compare different sparrows. They are one of the hardest birds for me to id, so many of them resemble other sparrows. My lifer seen at the nature center with the bird club was the Lincoln Sparrow. I tried hard to get photos of these sparrows but they seemed very camera shy.

Talking about camera shy, can you find the sparrow hidden in the bush above?  Sparrows seen both days were the Lincoln, White Throated, White Crowned, Swamp, Chipping, Field and Song Sparrows.  I was hoping for a sighting of a Vespar or Grasshopper Sparrow. But, I was still happy with my Lincoln Sparrow lifer.

Above the mosaic, shows a sparrow, trails coming out of the woods onto the field, some fall foilage, the field of wildflowers and tons of sparrows. I was amazed at the amount of sparrow we saw here. Other birds seen were the Eastern Phoebe, woodpeckers, Hawks, Kestrel, Palm Warblers, Towhees, Canada Geese and we flushed a Snipe twice.

 It is hard to believe that this field today is most likely covered in snow. I was so happy that I was able to visit this Nature Center while these beautiful flowers were still blooming.

I hope you enjoyed my visit to the Irvine Nature Center and I hope you are able to
visit with Today's Flowers and Scenic Sunday and Mosaic Monday.  Thanks to all the wonderful hosts and thank you for stopping by to see my post.  I hope everyone has a Happy Sunday and a wonderful week ahead.