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.

Something fun for Watery Wednesday

Watery Wednesday, picture should be clickable.




Hubby, some friends and I all went tubing on the Shenandoah river in Harpers Ferry. The tubes were multi color and made an interesting scene on the river.


To enjoy pic more Watery Wednesday photos, please click my link.

River Rider

Yesterday I spent the day with my DH and a group of friends tubing on the Shenandoah River near Harpers Ferry. We opted for the lazy flat river over the more exciting white water trip. The weather was wonderful and after getting our tubes on the river we could tell we were not the only ones who waned to go tubing. The river in front of us was filled with a rainbow of colors, the colors of a hundred or more tubes.

I do have to say the flat river option was very slow...it was slower than the lazy rivers at the themed water parks. The white water option also looked slow. The water levels in July are just not high enough to make for an exciting white water trip. Needless to say as were floating down the river I was enjoying the company of friends,the scenery and of course the birds. I was also amazed at how many dragonflies were on the water and on us as we floated down the river. I thought it was kind of cool to have the dragonflies land on our legs and arms while we were tubing. I guess they wanted to hitch a ride down river.

Being a birder I couldn't help but notice the birds flying around the river and in the sky above me. Some of the birds were various species of Hawks, Swallows, Great Blue Heron and the Baltimore Orioles seemed numerous. A highlight was seeing a Green Heron low over the river in front of our tubes.





We decided our next tubing trip will have to be a more exciting trip. Something that will make our heart beat just a little faster.