Saturday's Critters # 601

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!

Happy Summer everyone! Our first week of summer is supposed to be really hot and humid.

My critter post is a mish mash of birds and of course our dog Miney, there may be a bonus image thrown in and some flashback photos.

Click on images for better viewing.

"My favorite weather is bird chirping weather."

1. May 3rd, the Peacock was sitting in a tree in the back part of our yard.  

I took Miney for a walk on the local fire road.  

A bonus image from our visit and lunch with our son and family, it is always a joy to spend time with our grandchildren. They are growing so fast. 

2. May 5th, we took Miney for a walk along George's Creek. 

Foraging among the rocks in the creek, I found two Sandpipers, the Spotted Sandpiper and possibly a Solitary Sandpiper on the top row. 

On a parking lot near the boat dock I found a family of Canada Geese, the gosling is adorable. 

3. May 6th,  We walked on a different section of the NCR trail, I captured an Indigo Bunting in awful lighting. It is was nice to see some wildflowers and the wild azaleas blooming. 

My Merlin app for our walk on the NCR trail, I heard a lot of great birds some new summer birds have returned. Most of the birds listed are either breeders in our area or they are moving through, more north of us. 

Most of these bird sounds I can recognize before the app announces them. On the list below is a winter bird in our area the Brown Creeper, maybe he has not headed north yet? 

I have have become better at iding the Baltimore Oriole sounds and have been hearing them on every one of our walks lately. 

4. May 7th, another walk with Miney to the front section of the lake. I saw three Double-crested Cormorants, I heard more birds than I actually saw. I did get a glimpse of an Osprey flying away. 

5. May 8th, below on the top row is the Gray Catbird and the Eastern Bluebird in my yard. The rhododendron is growing next to our house and driveway. It has lots of beautiful blooms.

6. May 8th, we enjoy our walks with Miney on this day we took a walk to the lake. I am into a routine of using the Merlin App to see what birds are around my area. 

7. May 8th, below are two larger images of the Eastern Wood Pewee and the Scarlet Tanager. 

The female Scarlet Tanager is lovely, she is yellow-greenish with dark wings.  They usually stay high in the tree canopy. We are lucky to have these beautiful birds breed in the forest around our home. 

8. Flashback June 2019,  I miss the Great Blue Herons nesting in our little Prettyboy Neighborhood. 

The Heron's nest were in trees across from our driveway, I could stand on my deck and watch the herons and their chick in the nest. 

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.

Check out  Catblogosphere.com

Here is my linky:

Thank you for sharing your critters and post! 

Our World, My World

Happy Monday everyone,

 Happy Memorial Day!

 Remember and Honor! 

I wanted to thank all our military, veterans and heroes who serve and or died protecting our country.  I also want to thank all the front line workers who are serving us during this pandemic, they are heroes too. This Memorial Day weekend is unlike any other I have experienced.

 I am always happy to take a walk in our nearby forest on the fire roads. These are some photos and the birds I saw on a recent walk.

Below in the mosaic top row on left is the Worm-eating Warbler, top right is an Ovenbird. Lower left the Ovenbird again and a Pink Lady Slipper is the wild orchid growing near the fire road.

 Below the Worm-eating Warbler is seen on some hilly section along side the fire road, they have a strange sound. They have a striped "buffy" head. This Warbler is a breeder in my area, I am thankful to see them in the nearby forest. You can hear them at this link Bird-sounds.net_Worm-eating-warbler

 The Ovenbird below is one of the loudest birds in the forest. I can hear them from my yard.

It is hard taking photos of the birds sitting in high in the trees, my neck hurts just looking up at them.

A view of our local fire road trail, a small creek runs into the lake in this spot.

 I am thankful to still see some of the Great Blue Herons in our local heron rookery.  I was starting to think they all were gone.  These photos were taken from the nearby fire road. I can hear them making their clacking noises from my deck. They can be loud but it is such a happy sound!

One more time sharing the Pink Lady Slipper orchid are beautiful to see and find along our fire roads. Hopefully no one pick this pretty and somewhat rare and wild orchid.

Maryland road to recovery from Covid-19. Maryland has had close to 47,000 positive Covid 19 cases and 2,277 deaths.  We are currently at Phase one, some counties and cites are opening and some are still closed. It depends on if there are more new cases each day.  My county is open, small businesses, retail and salons are open using the safety precautions and no large gatherings are allowed..


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!

Our World, My World

 Happy Monday,

I hope everyone is safe and doing well. I am happy now that our neighborhood fire road trails are open now.  It is great not having to drive somewhere just to take a walk.  

It seems this year is not the best year for our neighborhood Great Blue Heron's nests/heronry .  Early in the season we counted 6-8 different nest. This was the last time we saw one Heron near a nest.  It is sad to say they have left, I am not sure if it was due to cold weather, high wind storms, heavy rain storms or a different reason.  

 This time of the year we look for the Pink Lady Slippers, they usually come back in the same spot every year.  We saw them one day and I took these photos.  We went back to see them again, it appears like someone picked at least 2-3 of the plants, maybe on Mother's Day? 

On May 10th we took a walk to the lake, along the way I look for any wildflowers or blooms.  The White Dogwoods seem to be doing well this year.  I saw these white wildflowers close to the ground and some purple blossoms on the top of a tree near the parking lot.

 These look like the Lily of the Valley blooms, seen near the fire road. The wildflowers are a happy sight to see!

 The recreation activity has opened at our parks and reservoirs, that mean hiking and fishing. This mean more people on the trails, more trash left behind and more vehicle traffic around the lake.

A walk to the lake includes a view of  the Bald Eagles nest, we did not see any eagle activity. If there were any eaglets we could not see them.   We will go back again to check to see if this Bald Eagle's nest was successful. 

 It is nice to be able to take a walk to the lake, it was a chilly windy day.

"Our very being, essence, health and happiness depend on Mother Earth."  

The is the view of the lake, across the way is the Bald Eagle's nest..

Between our neighborhood Great Blue Herons disappearing, the pink lady slipper orchids being picked and seeing no activity at the Bald Eagles nest, it seems like all is not well in our neighborhood.

May14th update, I am hearing some sounds coming from 1-2 Great Blue Heron nest, so we did loose a lot of nest over the last couple of months. Also on the same day, I found some more Pink Lady Slippers growing off the fire road. I hope no one comes along and picks these beautiful wildflowers. 




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!

Our World, My World

 Happy Monday everyone,

I hope everyone is taking care, staying healthy and avoiding the Covid-19 virus.   We are trying to stay positive and remain calm, I really wish for things to be back to normal.  

These are images from around my yard,  from the last week of March. I am glad I have the bird feeders along the deck right outside the window. I hope you are not tired of seeing my birds and photos.  

My first Brown Thrasher of the season, seen on March 30th.  

 A Red-bellied Woodpecker seen at the suet feeder.. 

 Below the Brown Thrasher and the Red-bellied Woodpecker are taking turns at the suet feeder.

 We just have the daffodils and forsythia blooming right now, we are seeing daylilies and iris growing well.  A Cardinal sits in one of our pine trees and across the driveway I can watch a Great Blue Heron on the tree top.

A feral cat likes to drink out of our pond.  Usually it runs away as soon as he sees me but this day he watched me as I was watching him..  

I can watch the Great Blue Herons fly and land in the trees, near their nest. 

Happy Passover April 8 to all those who celebrate!! Wishing you and your families Peace, Good Health and Happiness!


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!

Our World, My World

 Happy Monday everyone!

 I hope everyone is feeling well, taking care. We recently did our food shop getting most of what was on our shop list. Hubby and I are well, taking our walks locally. Sometimes we see others walking on the fire roads. Most of the time it's just us, the trees and the birds. 

Around our yard, hubby has cleaned the leaves out of the ponds. The rabbit statues are placed in their spot in the garden. We are seeing a lot of frog eggs in one pond. 

 Living next to a forest, we are constantly having leaves fly into our yard.  Our bunnies do not care about the carpet of leaves.  BTW, I have been seeing at least 2 live bunnies in our yard. A chipmunk too!

 

A real bunny on the side of the fence.. baby bunnies will be coming soon.

A look at our local Great Blue Herons on their nest. These are views from the local fire road near our home.

A pretty sky, a peaceful and calm day in the neighborhood.

 Some scenes from our fire road walk.  A few more trees came down, we had to climb over them or walk around. We have been having some windy days.

 A view looking up, from our fire road walk through a pine tree forest.

 This hawk has been hanging around the yard, it look large maybe a female?  I was guessing at the id, a Red-shouldered Hawk.  The same day I saw a smaller hawk on the side of our yard, maybe a Cooper's or the Sharp-shinned hawk. I was not able to get a photo of the smaller hawk.

My wish for you, stay calm and healthy.  Enjoy life and be happy! 


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!

Our World, My World

 Happy Monday and a happy March!

I hope everyone is doing well, Spring is officially March 20th. Only a few weeks away, this Sunday we willing be springing forward an hour.  I like the longer daylight. I do wish they would stop this changing of the clocks. The last frost can be up till mid May,  we usually look for hardy plants for our zone  6.

"Despite the forecast, live like it's Spring."

These are images from the last week of February, we took another walk on the local fire road, birds seen on my deck and the Great Blue Herons perched/hiding in the pine trees. The weather has been ranging from the 50's down to the teens at night. 


Scenes from our local fire road walk below, a neighbor has a black bear cut-out on their property, the fire road, our lake, another view of the fire road and pine trees and a feather I found on the trail.

 This trail to the lake is 1.8 miles round trip from our house.  Not a long walk but the views are great.

 The birds seen from my dining room window, on the deck a Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse and a squirrel, the Mourning Doves were on top a swing in our yard.

  These two Mourning Doves were perched on top of a swing we have in our yard, they are sweet birds.

On Feb 27 we had high winds and rain, I am hoping the herons and their nest are ok. The trees were swinging back and forth in the winds. The herons photos below are taken from my kitchen window and deck on Feb 26th.

I am not sure how many herons and nest we have here in our neighborhood, but I am seeing more each day. 

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.


Check out My Corner of the World  Thanks to Betty the host. 
 
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!