Happy Monday!

 Wishing everyone a great day and a happy new week!

"Water is the driving force of all nature."

"Time flows away like the water in the river."

Great Falls National Park, Potomac Maryland

"We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone."

Comments off, enjoy your day!

Saturday's Critters # 546

 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!

A short break from our Arizona trip and photos. I have some birds from my yard and neighborhood.

1. Some of my daily yard birds, the Northern Mockingbird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Northern Cardinal, White-throated Sparrow and the Blue Jays. 

2. The next five mosaics are from our walk on the C&O Canal trail and at Great Falls NP in Potomac Maryland. 

Some blooms off the C&O canal trail,  a Yellow-rumped Warbler, a Mallard on the trail, a distant look at some Terns flying over the river. 

More from the C&O Canal trail , American Goldfinch, Hooded Merganser, Carolina Wren, Louisiana Waterthrush.

The Slider turtles were plentiful in the canal off the C&O trail. 

Lots of wildflowers seen off the C&O trail at Great Falls and a cute doggie.

3. Back in my yard, the Carolina Chickadee took up residence in one of our birdhouses.  

4. A morning walk to our local lake, Prettyboy reservoir. We saw the usual birds, the Canada Geese, Double-crested Cormorants, Eastern Bluebird and some first of the spring wildflowers. 

5. Our walk at the Hashawha Nature Center, we saw some spring flowers blooming, an Eastern Bluebird, Canada geese with the goslings, not sure if the bird third down on the left is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Gray Catbird, Red-winged Blackbird, geese family on trail.

6.  These are photos from another morning walk on our local fire road, the Pink Lady Slippers are starting to bloom and the Big Leaf Magnolias are blooming, there were the White Dogwood trees blooming, I captured the bottom of a Baltimore Oriole high in the tree top, we also saw some wild pink Azalea blooming and a view of the lake from the trail.

On the same day May 3rd, we saw the Black Bear right off our local fire road. It was not far from my neighbors yard. I think it was the same bear that knocked over our trash can on our deck and bent a shepherds hook pole and tore apart my hummingbird feeder. 

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.

Here is my linky:

Thank you for sharing your critters and post!

Our World, My World

Happy Monday!

 Can you believe it is October already?  The days are flying by, much too quickly. Hubby and I continue to stay active, as much as we can. Walking and birding on the good weather days.  On this day we drove to Potomac Maryland to walk on the C & O Canal Trail. 

 

 We parked at Violette's Lock and walked just past Rileys' Lock on the canal trail.  First birds I saw after getting out of the car was the Great Blue Heron near the canal and there were lots of Double-crested Cormorants hanging around the Potomac River.

 

Cormorants at in the Potomac River.

 

 

 

It was a slider turtle day, the sun was shining and all the turtles were hanging out on rocks and tree stumps in the canal.

 

 

 

I can usually always find the Green Heron at the C & O Canal, this Green Heron was fishing/hunting for food while standing on a tree stump sticking out of the water.

 I thought I was going to go the whole summer/fall season without seeing a Green Heron.  I am glad these herons are seen along this trail.

 

 

 

More images of the Potomac River and the canal side of the trail. There is a Great Blue Heron rookery along the river, so quite a few  Herons can be seen all along the river's edge and at the canal.  I was not able to get a photo of the Bald Eagle flying over our heads. 

Just across the Potomac River is the state of Virginia, I believe the huge white building is part of a golf course country club?

 

 

 

Views of the C&O Canal trail, various wildflowers, turtles, Seneca Creek, lock keeper's house

 

 

We wanted to leave time to drive down River Road to the Great Falls NP and walk some more there.  I will share photos from the national park on my next post. 

 

We are hanging in there, happy and healthy.   I hope everyone is safe, happy and healthy. 


What's happening in your corner of the world? Please check out and visit the following memes and links. I hope to see you there.


 
Thanks to Angie the host of  Mosaic Monday

Thanks to LadyFi  the host of Our World Tuesday!

Thanks for visiting and commenting, have a happy day and a great new week!

 

 

Birding the Great Falls

Linking up with NF Winged   and  Skywatch Friday

 Last weekend, hubby and I decided to take our walk at the Great Falls National Park in Maryland.

It was a beautiful day, the sky was blue with pretty white clouds. It was a pretty sky for my skywatch post. And the birds and Zebra Swallowtail are perfect for NF Winged.

I love this scene with the clouds reflecting on the Potomac River.

Above is some of the wildlife we saw along the river loop trail. The Goslings, Zebra Swallowtail butterfly, Hairy Woodpecker and a Bald Eagle. Also, seen was a white-tailed deer and the Prothonotary and Yellow-rump Warblers were teasing me. They would pop up in front of me and as soon as I lifted my camera they hopped away. I heard many Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers and Great Crested Flycatchers.

A pretty sky with a Great Blue heron flying by. There is a heron/cormorant rookery on the other side of the river.

A view of the river and sky from the Great Falls overlook.

Great Blue Heron at the Potomac Rookery.

Above a pretty Zebra Swallowtail seen along the river loop trail in Great Falls. I hope you enjoyed my post and walk along the river.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I always appreciate your comments.

Happy Skywatching  to everyone!

To see more pretty skies from around the world please visit  Skywatch Friday
and to see more of the winged critters check out NF Winged

Thanks to Sylvia, Yogi  and Sandy for hosting Skywatch Friday! Thanks to Monica the host of NF Winged.  Also, thank you for stopping by to see my post. I wish everyone a safe and happy weekend.