Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Hello, Happy Monday! 


Can you believe it is August already? The summer days are flying by. During our recent road trip to Maryland's Eastern shore we made a quick visit to the Blackwater Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. Cambridge Maryland is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from home and we crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge almost at the half way point. 

On the road heading toward Blackwater NWR we passed this field of sunflowers. The farm has a stand selling veggies and fruits. They also had a field where you could pick your own blackberries.

The Blackwater NWR wildlife drive is 4 miles long, it has various spaces to pull over and watch the birds and wildlife. Blackwater NWR is designated as an Important Bird Area. 

One of the first birds I saw heading toward the wildlife and refuge was this Red-headed Woodpecker. 

The Osprey nest can be seen from our car. There are 2 juveniles along with the 2 adult ospreys on this nest. 

A view of the Blackwater wetlands, there are terns perched on this posts. See if you can find a turtle toward the middle center of the photo. 

This is a closer look at the turtle. It is big, we saw 5-6 turtles in this area. 

Great Blue Heron

We sat in our car and watched this family of Bald Eagles together. The juvenile looked like it was throwing a fit over missing the meal. 

Pretty view of the wetland and sky. 

"Kindness is choosing love over hate, light over darkness, compassion over judgement."

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!

More from Bombay Hook NWR

Hello,

Not much happening around here lately so I have a few more photos to share from our visit to Bombay Hook NWR and some from our ride home.


An Osprey flying by holding a fish.

Below are my not so good attempts at fence photos,  a GB Heron behind a fence and some egrets with a juvenile BC Night Heron all standing on a fence.

More egrets on the fence, also hard to see but the dark looking bird on the fence is a juvenile Black Crowned Night Heron. A few more Egrets perched in a distant tree.

A pretty summer day and sky at the wildlife refuge.

This may look like a repeat but I took a lot of photos of the Egrets seen along the wildlife drive at Bombay Hook NWR.

On the way home we decided to stop for an ice cream at the Brooms Bloom Dairy. They had a sunflower field you could walk through, if you do not mind the bees. I like the flowers and clouds in the shot below.

Enter at your own risk, there were bees all around the flowers.

The farm, barns and silos at the Brooms Bloom Dairy

While eating our ice cream, I took this blurry shot of the silos.

Below a drive by shot on the way home, a barn and fence scene.

As always I hope you enjoyed your visit and my post. I appreciate your nice comments. 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.
Thanks to Tom the host of The Barn Collective 

Sunflower Sky

Hello,

During the last weekend of July we dog sat our grand-doggie Nibbles while my son went to visit my sister in North Carolina. I think my sister will have to start taking reservations for her new place near the beach. These are some shots from our backyard and some of Nibbles, the trumpet vine blooms and a sunflower sky shot.

Our trumpet vine or what I call the monster cousin-it bloomed like crazy this year.  The hummers love these blooms.

I like my sunflower sky. The one and only sunflower we had growing in our yard this summer.

 I hope you enjoyed your visit and my post. I appreciate your nice comments. 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. I have a few fence and my deck railing for Tex's Party and some pretty sky shots.

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

Goldfinches & Sunflowers

I am linking up my Goldfinch post  to the Friday Ark and Camera Critters  Both are great memes for the animal and bird lover. The American Goldfinch is a year round bird for me.  The male Goldfinch is a beautiful bird, such a pretty bright yellow in the summer months. The female is pretty but a much duller color. They have such a sweet sound, I love to hear them in my yard.

Watching and feeding my yardbirds is one of my favorite things to do. The sunflowers growing in my yard are from the birds dropping the seeds. They love the Black Oiled Sunflower Seeds also known as BOSS. And now it is a treat to see the birds pecking at and eating the seeds on my sunflowers.

On this day I was able to catch the American Goldfinch perched on top of the sunflower and chowing down.

I like to leave the flowers in our yard even after they are past their beautiful flowering stage because I know the birds like to eat the seeds from the dead flowers. The Coneflowers are another flower popular with the birds in the fall time. In a small way it helps me to cut back on my bird seed purchases, if the birds are eating the seeds from my flowers.

I chose to plant coneflowers in our yard because I read that the birds love the eat the seeds in the fall.

To see more wonderful birds and critters please visit the Friday Ark and Camera Critters.  Thanks to the host of the Friday Ark and to Misty Dawn of Camera Critters. Thanks also for visiting my post and blog. I always enjoy your comments. I hope you all have a great weekend and try to stay cool. It's HOT out there.