Happy Monday!

 Wishing everyone a great day and a happy new week!

"Autumn carries more gold in it's pocket than all the other seasons."

Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes, Bosque Del Apache NWR, New Mexico, Oct 2013

"Fall is proof that change is beautiful."

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

Comments off, enjoy your day!

Saturday's Critters # 617

   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!

Still far behind these are late August images. I am sharing a variety of photos, my dog Miney, backyard butterflies, the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds at my feeders, a pretty sunrise and some Florida Flashback photos. 

Click on images for better viewing.

1. Aug 27, images are from my morning walk with Miney and some photos of the hummingbirds and Butterflies in my yard.  

I have been sharing lots of butterflies on my blog.  They may look familiar but they are new photos for this post. Back yard butterflies, the Fritillary, Skipper, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail. 

2. A larger look at the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. It is a beautiful butterfly.

3. Aug 30th, sunrise seen from the parking lot at the Dialysis Center. 

4. Aug 31st, it was fun watching the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds with my grandsons. I think they were amazed to see these tiny birds flying around our deck.

A closer look at the Ruby-throated Hummingbird at the feeder.  

5.  My flashback images this week are from Oct 2016, the Lakeland neighborhood birds. Even though our time living in Florida was short Oct 2016-March 2017, I enjoyed the birdwatching. We visited so many parks and beaches and bird walks around our little Lakeland neighborhood. Below are all birds seen in the neighborhood.  The Osprey on a electric pole. 

6. The Sandhill Cranes were seen all around the neighborhood, sometimes walking down the streets. Below they are near the boat ramp. 

7. A large flock of Snowy Egrets landed on the pier. 

8. A Tricolored Heron standing on the railing. 

9. The Black-bellied Whistling ducks were a favorite, I always could hear them flying in and landing on a neighbors lawn. Below they are on a pier. 

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! 

Saturday's Critters #168

Saturday's Critters #168

Happy Saturday, it's time to share your critters and post. Any kind of critter will do, even a new or old post.. I appreciate everyone who is linking in with this week's critter party.

If you have not guessed already from my other post, the Circle B Reserve in Lakeland is one of my favorite birding places in Florida. Sometimes we visit the Circle B twice in a week. Here are some more of my favorite scenes, birds and a butterfly from the reserve.

Two Wood Storks.

A Zebra Longwing Butterfly

Two baby gators.

A Roseate Spoonbill

A Pied-billed Grebe

Green Heron

Sandhill Cranes

As always thanks for the visits and the nice comments. I also thank everyone who is linking up and sharing their critters.. Happy Saturday, have a great weekend!

To see more beautiful birds and cute critters, check out these two memes below.

Also visit:  I'd-Rather-B-Birdin. Thanks to the gracious host: Anni.  Also check out Camera Critters. Thanks to Misty for hosting this fun meme.

Lakeside Sunrise

Hello,

We try to have a daily routine a walk and a workout at the community's fitness room. On this day we were up early to see the sunrise over our lake.

On one of the neighbors pier, a Great Blue Heron, maybe two Snowy Egrets and a Great Egret.

Sunrise over our lake and a Great Blue Heron on the boat house.

A Palm Warbler on the fence.

Neighborhood Sandhill Cranes

Sunrise at our lake.

A zoom of the Great Blue Heron.

I hope you enjoyed my photos. Thank you for your visit and comments on my post. Enjoy your day and the weekend ahead!


Here is a list of linky parties for part of the week, I hope to see you there.


Thanks to Theresa @ The Run*A*Round Ranch for hosting Good Fences.
Thank you to Sylvia, Yogi and Sandy for hosting Skywatch Friday.

Tennessee Sunset

I am linking up with Skywatch Friday  and Good Fences
I hope you can join in on the fun and share your fence scenes and pretty skies.

I still have more photos from our trip to Tennessee.  These are some Tennessee scenes with skies, fences, barns and some birds of course. LOL, I can not do a post and not include some birds. I hope you enjoy this post.

For my week's favorite for Teresa's Friday's Hunt and Tex's Good Fences meme above, this big guy came to greet us and was scratching his head on the fence.

These cows were mooing at us and a few of them walked over closer to us.  I was leery of getting to close, this fence did not look that strong.

For Tom's Barn Collective a barn with the rolls of hay outside. Sorry for the quality my drive-by shots are never clear.

I hope you are not tired of seeing Sandhill Cranes, they seemed to be all around during our visit. A nice Tennessee birder told us we could find more Sandhill Cranes at this cow farm. He was right on we found the cranes, cows, fences and a barn. I hit the jackpot here.

We saw a good number of Sandhill Cranes at the farm. They were spread out all around the farm. There is some kind of fence on this photo above.

This barn looks like it needs some help, it was nearby the cows we saw.

For my skywatch entry it was near sunset we were back at the Cherokee Removal Memorial park to see the Sandhill Cranes and the sunset. I like the colors in the sky above.

For Teresa's Friday hunt, above is my week's favorite photo. I love this sunset and reflection on the river.

Edited to add a photo of a Killdeer for the letter K

Teresa's Friday's Hunt Week of March 11...thanks Teresa

1. starts with the letter K...I saw some Kestrels along the road and Killdeer on the field with the cows but no photos.
2. week's favorite
3. Flower...my plant zone is slow to see flower here. Maybe some daffies coming soon.


 "Live for the moments you can not put into words." unknown

As always I hope you liked my photos. Thank so much for stopping by and for the nice comments. To see more pretty skies, fences, barns and fantastic photos from around the world please visit the memes below.

Thanks to Theresa @ The Run*A*Round Ranch for hosting Good Fences. Also, thank you to Sylvia, Yogi  and Sandy for doing such a great job at hosting Skywatch Friday.  Thanks also to Teresa Friday's Hunt    Thanks to Tom for hosting The Barn Collective

  I wish everyone a happy day and weekend ahead..

Trail of Tears, Tennessee

I have a list below of memes I am joining for this week, and to save time I am doing one post for all. They are all fun memes to participate in...I hope you can join in with the fun  and check out some of the participating posts. Special thanks to all the wonderful host and their memes, I hope you have some time to check them out.

Hello, I am sharing some scenes from our visit to Tennessee Feb 17-20th. It was an action packed trip from sunrise to sunset each day. We did some sightseeing beside birding, I know you are surprised about that. It is not always about the birds. I hope you enjoy the photos. The first and last days were taken up just for the drive to Tennessee and back home.

During our Tennessee trip we visited the Cherokee Indian Removal Memorial and Museum. The park was built as a memorial to the Cherokee Indians who were removed from their homeland and forced on the journey west known as the Trail of Tears. This area had 9 encampments of thousands of Cherokees that waited weeks to be sent across the river at Blythe Ferry. In 1838 around 9,000 Cherokees were forced to leave their homes and march west toward Oklahoma.

Our shadows at the Blythe Ferry crossing..the start of the Trail of Tears.

"How do we ever prevent the greed and lust for power from causing another Trail of Tears?" The memorial wall on the left side memorializes the 1835 census of the Cherokee. The map shows the actual trails showing the different routes taken by the Cherokees on their journey west.

A look at the memorial. 

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. " Jimi Hendrix

A message above is from Chief Chadwick Smith of the Cherokee Nation.

Yes, here are some of the birds seen around the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge and the memorial park. The Sandhill Cranes, Eastern Bluebirds, Mockingbird and  a Yellow-rumped Warbler. I hope you enjoyed my post. As always, I appreciate the visits and your nice comments.  Have a happy new week ahead!


As always thanks to the wonderful group of hosts listed below.

Thanks to Judith our  host of Mosaic Monday
Thanks to Monica for hosting NF Trees

Thanks to Michelle for hosting Nature Notes

Thanks to the hosting team of Our World Tuesday!