Saturday's Critters # 600

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!

Tomorrow is Father's day, I wish all Fathers in blogland a very happy day!

Wow, 600 Saturday's Critters posts, thanks to all who participate and share their beautiful critters!

Click on images for better viewing.

1. April 27th, NCR rail to trail walk. I captured a Hawk flying over the trail.  It was a pretty blue sky day. 

2. April 28th, below are the spring blooms in our yard: the Columbine, Dogwood tree, Redbud tree, white Azaleas, Pink Azalea and light purple Creeping Phlox.

Miney on the fire road and a Pink Lady Slipper starting to bloom.

The Merlin list of birds I heard while taking Miney for a walk on the fire road. 

3. April 29th, hubby and I went on a bird walk at the Cromwell Valley Park near Towson Md. I saw lots of Robins, the Gray Catbirds were calling and a Eastern Kingbird was perched near the parking lot. 

Cromwell Valley Park is a great place to see the Baltimore Orioles.  We saw a few and heard even more calling. 

Here are lists of most of the birds we saw and heard at Cromwell Valley Park. 

4. April 30th, my backyard birds are the Peacock on our deck railing and the pair of Bluebirds. 

5. May 1st, a walk with Miney on our local fire road, I keep my Merlin App on listening to the birds while walking. The Yellow-breasted Chat is not often seen here, it is listed on the chart. Maybe it was flying over?

I look forward to seeing the Pink lady Slipper orchids growing along the local fire road. This plant had two blooms and was the first plant to bloom. 

6. May 2nd, another walk and a different section of the NCR trail. There were some wildflowers blooming, my favorite are the wild pink azaleas. I am pretty sure the bird in the last row is a Northern Parula, I heard him calling. 

Back at home I saw the Gray Catbird in the back yard, standing on the top of the Bluebird house. 

7. Flashback images from June 2018 and our road trip to Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky. I saw a few warblers while walking on the trails in the park. Below is the Chestnut-sided Warbler.

Below is the Yellow-rumped Warbler.

"The birds of hope are everywhere listen to them sing."

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! 

Happy Thankful Thursday

Happy Thankful Thursday!



On May 5th and 6th we toured and hiked more of Mammoth Cave National Park we also took a tour of the Diamond Caverns just outside the park entrance. We hiked on the Green River Bluff trail had beautiful views of the river and forest in the park. 

The Green River a day after the big rain storm. The river is muddy and not the green color from the day before.

One of the few raptors I saw on my road trip. I am not sure of the id.

A female Eastern Towhee

Diamond Caverns is a public cave outside the Mammoth Cave National Park. Diamond Caverns has been offering tours for 155 years.

The some of the ceiling in the Diamond Caverns.

Below are various cave formations found in the Diamond Caverns.

The water dripping constantly keeps the cave growing.  I think the drips on the bottom right look neat.

The shapes and formations are beautiful.

Amazing drapery formation was very pretty.

We did not see any of the bats in the caves, I would not mind seeing them hanging from the cave ceiling.  White-nose Syndrome is a disease that is killing bat populations and spreading in the USA. The loss of millions of bats is bad news as they devour millions of insect pests and have a role in pollination.

I was thankful there were lights inside this cave and our cave guide was great.

I am thankful for the beauty above and below the ground.

I am thankful for all your visits and comments. 

Thank you Michelle for hostingHappy Monday, enjoy your day and new week! Thankful Thursday

Thank you to the hosts of   Skywatch Friday

Thanks so much for visiting and for your nice comments on my previous post. Have a happy day!

Mammoth Cave National Park, Frozen Niagara

Hello and happy Monday everyone.

These are photos from our road trip and visit to Mammoth Cave National Park on May 4-7. On May 5th hubby and I had reserved a cave tour called the Frozen Niagara. The tour lasted 1 hour 15 minutes, we were taken by bus to the cave entrance.

Mammoth Caves are known for their big rooms, this Frozen Niagara tour took us into an area that has some pretty cave decorations.

This was the wettest day on our trip, Kentucky received 3 inches of rain and it was the day of the Kentucky Derby. A rainy day was a good day to be inside the caves, no rain there!

 Not too many steps on this tour, we picked this tour because it described as one of the more decorated sections of the cave. 

A Cave Cricket, important for the cave's ecosystem.

Outside the cave at the Sloan's Crossing Pond, we took a short loop walk around this pond in the park. I did see a couple of Wood Ducks with ducklings. They hid quickly in the reeds.

Rain drops keep falling on my head, lol. Are you familiar with the BJ Thomas song?

Honeysuckle

 The following day hubby took the Historic Tour which was two hours, during that time I went on an easy hike and did some birding. 

I hope you enjoyed my post and photos. I wish everyone a great new week ahead.

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

I hope to see you there. Thanks to the host today. 

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

Mammoth Cave National Park

Happy Monday everyone! I wish all a great day and new week!

These photos were taken May 4th & 5th.
The Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky was one of the highlights of our road trip. Mammoth Cave NP is located at the Cave City exit off of Route 65. We picked a hotel off of Rt 65 in Bowling Green Kentucky which was 26 miles from the park entrance.

Tours through the cave are so popular we reserved our tours a month or so before our trip. The Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world, with over 400 miles explored. We spent 2 nights and 3 days in the area, exploring the cave and went on some hikes in the park.

Images are from  our first afternoon in Mammoth Cave NP, we walked down the trail to the Green River and to see the opening for the Historic Entrance of the cave. I noticed a lot of wildflowers along the trail, wild turkeys were seen on the road into the park, birds nest , Indigo Bunting silhouette, trail sign.

This is the trail down to the Green River and to the Historic Entrance of the Mammoth Cave.

Down the steps is the Historic Cave entrance. Hubby had a reservation to take the guided tour the next morning.

The Green River, it really is green.

Not open to the public, but below is a wet entrance/exit into or out of the cave. It reminds me of a trip & cruise we took years ago, stopping in Belize we went on a river caving excursion.

We saw a few deer laying on the ground off the trail.

The wild turkeys were one of the birds we saw often, mostly along the park road.

I will share more of the Mammoth Cave tours on another post. Hubby is a spelunker, which is a person who likes to explore caves.  We have also been to Carlsbad Caves in New Mexico, you can check out my post on Carlsbad by clicking on the sidebar link.




 I hope you enjoyed my post and photos.

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!

I hope to see you there. Thanks to the host today. Enjoy your day.

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