Shenandoah Nat'l Park

  I am linking up with Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday .

July 14, 2013

Yesterday I posted that it was my 4th blog anniversary so today starts the beginning of my 5th year of blogging. And this post I am sharing last weekend's daytrip to Shenandoah Nat'l Park.  Shenandoah is one of my favorite places to visit, we hiked my favorite Limberlost trail, we saw lots of birds, we saw a baby bear along the Skyline Drive and some pretty views of the mountain ranges and Shenandoah Valley.

The mosaic above includes the view of the mountain ranges, a baby bear, Brown Thrasher, fungi, bunny, and an Eastern Towhee.

A baby bear we saw along the side of the Skyline Drive. I did not see it's Momma, I hope she was nearby.

Above, I included some of the wildflowers I found in the park.

This Brown Thrasher was taking a dirt bath along the Limberlost trail.

Not sure what these are called but I thought they looked pretty.

The Eastern Towhee was seen along the Limberlost Trail. Other birds seen and heard were the Hooded Warbler, Brown Thrasher, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Vireo's, Tufted Titmouse, Veery, Ovenbirds, Dark-eyed Juncos, Indigo Bunting, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Scarlet Tanager, Turkey Vultures and Cardinals.

In this mosaic, there is a view of the valley from the Appalachian Trail, a Scarlet Tanager and going home stuck in traffic I shot a photo of the Shenandoah River at Harpers Ferry.

A view of the Shenandoah Valley seen from the Appalachian Trail.

A Scarlet Tanager was one of the birds we saw along the Appalachian Trail. We also saw a couple of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. We had a fun day at the park, seeing the wildlife and the pretty views of the mountains. I was wishing we had arranged an overnight trip I was not ready to go home.

Our ride home on Rt 340 takes us close to Charlestown WVA and thru Harpers Ferry. Above the traffic came to a stop on the bridge over the Shenandoah River in Harpers Ferry. The view is pretty where the Shenandoah River meets up with the Potomac River in Maryland. My second blog post back in 2009  Tubing the Shenandoah River was about our fun trip tubing down this river.

I hope enjoyed my post on Shenandoah Nat'l Park. Thanks for visiting my blog. I always appreciate your comments.
Join in on the fun and for more wonderful photos please visit  Mosaic Monday and more from  Our World Tuesday
 Thanks to our host: Mary our host of Mosaic Monday and to the hosting group of Our World Tuesday: Arija, Gattina, Lady Fi, Sylvia, Sandy and Jennifer.  I wish everyone a happy week!

Birding & Hiking at Cunningham Falls State Park

I am linking up with Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday

These photos are from a few weeks ago hubby and I visited the Cunningham Falls State Park here in Maryland.

 The weather had been mild and it was a lovely day to be outside taking a walk.  Our first hike was on the trail to the waterfalls  from the parking close to the lake. I was surprised that there were no ducks or geese on the lake at Cunningham Falls State park. It is a nice trail with pretty trees and lots of boulder size rocks in places. There were also new plantings of what looked like Hemlock trees along the trail. We met up with a family hiking with their cute blue eyed Husky puppy dog. I asked if I could take a photo of their puppy, I just love dogs.

I am not sure what kind of tree these are but they do not seem to loose their old leaves. I thought maybe in spring the new leaf pushes out the old leaf.  I thought the woods looked pretty with these trees with their bronze colored leaves all around.

The birds seen along the trail were a lot of White Breasted Nuthatches, and lots of Chickadees. I think this area could see a mixture of the Black Capped Chickadee and the Carolina Chickadee. I also heard the White Throated Sparrows, Juncos, Downy Woodpeckers and some Kinglets.

The Chickadee has to be one of the cutest birds even their sounds are cute.

The Cunningham Falls is a popular place, visitors like to climb up the rocks to the top of the falls.

There is also an easy boardwalk trail to view the falls, we also walked this trail so we could see a different angle and view of the falls. This is the creek at the bottom of the falls, a pretty scene with the trees and in the background the falls. Cunningham Falls State Park is located in Thurmont, Maryland. Also, nearby is the Catoctin Mountain National Park.

I am happy you stopped by to visit my post and I appreciate the comments. I hope everyone has a great week.
To see more wonderful mosaics and photos please visit Mary's Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday

Thanks to Mary the host of Mosaic Monday and to the hosting group of Our World Tuesday: Arija, Sylvia, Sandy, Lady Fi, Gattina.

Hiking and Birding at the Reservoir

A post for Scenic Sunday 

Hubby and I enjoy hiking around the reservoir near our house. For this post I was inspired by Rainfield's blog My Journey.  Rainfield's macro shots are awesome and I love his nature photos and hikes. So during my walk I checked out all the mushrooms and I was looking for all kinds of bugs, birds and critters. My photos below are the nature scenes I saw while on my hike.

I found some colorful mushrooms along the trail, I am sure they all have names but I would need some help on their id's. Some mushrooms were orange in color and some were purple. The birds were peeping out at me while we hiked.  

Below, this mushroom reminds me of a minature birdbath. Maybe a little critterbath.

Maybe it is a bath for this tiny dragonfly.

I am not sure if these fuzzy critters take baths.

This Tufted Titmouse wanted to take it's bath in private.

We ended our walk at a spot near the lake, where we had a view of a small island in the middle. This was the first time hiking in this spot and the views were all new for us. Not a bad spot considering it is only a short drive from our home.

I hope you enjoyed my scenic nature hike. And to see more beautiful scenes please visit Scenic Sunday.  Thanks to the Holley's for hosting Scenic Sunday and thank you for visiting my blog. Have a safe and wonderful Labor Day weekend.

Birds of Shenandoah Nat'l Park

This is my post for World Bird Wednesday  and Nature Notes

This past weekend hubby and I enjoyed a daytrip to Shenandoah Nat'l Park. We left early in the morning so I could get to see some early birds on the trail. I was not disappointed with the Limberlost Trail.  I started off see multiple pairs of Eastern Towhee's, Dark Eyed Juncos, Scarlet Tanagers way high in the treetops, Cedar Waxwings, Eastern bluebirds and groups of Hooded Warblers. I was having trouble with my camera focusing on closeups this time and it seemed to work better on the tree top photos. I  took ten or more shots of the Hooded Warbler and they were all blurry. Gee, this was the first time I saw the Hooded Warbler on the ground right just  a few feet in front of me. I did get one shot of the Hooded further along the trail, there we saw more hooded warblers and a Ruby Throated Hummingbird near some Cardinal flowers at a little creek.  The birding was great. 

I believe this is a female Eastern Towhee, with a brown head instead of the black head that the male has.

Male Eastern Towhee showing the black head

I am thinking this is an immature male Scarlet Tanager. I could see the black on it wings. I saw a group of them on this tree tops. They must have been enjoying the berries.

Cedar Waxwings were staying high on the tree tops.

A couple of juvenile Eastern Bluebirds were poking around this downed tree limb.  I guess they were finding bugs to eat. One of the juvies looks like it is almost inside the hole on the tree.

 The cute juvenile Bluebirds have white spots on their feathers.

 We had a nice day in Shenandoah, seeing great birds, bunnies, lots of butterflies and two black bears.

To see more wonderful birds and photos check out Springman's World Bird Wednesday and Michelle's Nature Notes..  Thanks to Springman and to Michelle for hosting these fun memes. Also, thanks for stopping by to see my post and birds. I hope the rest of your week is a great one. Happy Birding!!!!!

Birding and Hiking the Gunpowder River

A post for my Mosaic Monday and That's My World and a link to my you tube Mountain laurels along the trail

This week hubby and I hiked down the trail to the Gunpowder River to see the mountain laurels in bloom. The trail along the river has an amazing amount of white and pink  mountain laurels blooming. The weather was great for hiking and we sat and watched some kayakers playing around in the white water area of the river. It is also a river popular with the trout fishermen and people tubing.

I was also able to check out the birds along the river. I saw a beautiful Scarlet Tanager high in the tree tops. Acadian Flycatchers were all around and I am pretty sure I heard a Prothonotary Warbler.  One of the birds that popped up close to me was the Louisiana Waterthrush. This bird likes to nest in woodlands near rivers or fast moving streams. As you can see it has pinkish legs and a wide white supercilium. Which to me looks just like an eyebrow.

Goldie Girl got to play in the river and cool off.

The mountain laurel was blooming beautifully, I really loved the pink ones.

To see more great photos and mosaics please visit Mary's Mosaic Monday  and That's My World  thanks to Mary of Little Red House and to the group of hosts at That's My World : Sylvia, Wren, Sandy and Klaus.

Also thanks for visiting my post and I wish everyone a great week.

Cascade Loop

These some shots from our recent trip to Washington state. Hubby and I drove around the Cascade loop stopping in various places. After flying into Seattle we hopped right into our rental car and drove to our first nights stay near Marblemount. This part of the drive is next to the Skagit River and is very scenic. We stopped at the overlook for Diablo Lake which has a beautiful torquoise blue color. Even the rivers were a beautiful shade of blue. The color comes from the surrounding glaciers grinding rocks into a fine powder which creates this brilliant torquoise luminosity. Even on the dreary and rainy day we were there the lake's blue color really stood out.

The rivers and trees were just beautiful.

 Some of my other photos included in my mosaic were of some Cedar Waxwings that were in the nearby trees along the overlook. This was the first time I actually saw some juvenile Cedar Waxwings. They were cuties.  The Cedar Waxwings and the Red Breasted Nuthatches were the most common birds we saw. And during our 9 days there we must have heard or saw thousands of them.

I have to mention my dear hubby stood over me holding the umbrella so I could get these shots, isn't he nice. Even the poor birds look wet but still cute. The rain did not stop us from taking walks on the trails the umbrella worked perfect for these times too. After leaving Marblemount we drove onto our next stop along the loop which was Lake Chelan which will be on another post.

We did stop at the town of Winthrop for dinner, which is like an old western town. A neat place to stop and check out the stores, eat dinner and get an ice cream.

To see more cool mosaics visit Mary's Mosaic Monday and to see more of Sally's Blue Monday
thanks Mary and Sally for hosting this fun memes.

I am also link to That's My World.  My vacation in Washington State was going around the Cascade Loop and was my world last week and a half.

Also thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you enjoyed my post.

Shenandoah

These are some shots and sights we saw during our Saturday visit to Shenandoah Nat'l Park. Along the Skyline Drive there are these beautiful yellow wildflowers. They remind me of the Black Eyed Susan but the center is not black.

We hiked two different trails,  first was the Limberlost trail and is my favorite trail 1.3 mile loop. We were able to watch several deer and fawns on the trail as we walked. The deer did not seem to mind us at all and stood next to the trail as we walked by. The trail was very birdy, with warblers bouncing all the the trees. The warblers are quick movers and hard to focus on to get a good shot. I did manage to get this bird, it stayed still long enough for my photo. It has a yellow color along the side of its wings.

After the Limberlost trail we made our way down the Skyline Drive to the Big Meadows campstore to get lunch. Across from the campstore we saw this cool looking buck. The deer at Shenandoah do not seem to mind people and do not spook easily.

After lunch, we decided to hike the trail called Dark Hollows, this is a nice trail heading downhill to the waterfalls, but it is a steep hike coming back up to the parking lot. Dark Hollow is 1.5 miles and has a nice cascading waterfall.

I am linking up with



Mary's Mosaic Monday


and



Drowsey Monkey's  Mellow Yellow Monday



and


That's My World




Thanks to the host of these fun sites and thanks for stopping by my post. Have a great week!