Birding is fun

My monthly post is up at Birding is Fun 

I hope you can visit me there!

 As always I appreciate the visits and comments.
Happy Birding and have a great day, Eileen

Chincoteague Island

  I am linking up with Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday 

September 22, 2013

I took off work on Friday so hubby and I could enjoy an overnight trip to Chincoteague Island, Virginia. Chincoteague is one of my favorite places to visit. My excitement started as I was seeing some cool birds along our drive on the eastern shore of Maryland. There were a few hawks along the highway, gulls flying along side the car while driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, awesome sighting of a Great Horned Owl on an electric pole, a kingfisher perched on a wire, cattle egrets seen on a cattle farm near Pocomoke City.

During our stay at Chincoteague Island we enjoyed the gorgeous weather, beach, birds, ponies and pretty scenery.

Above are the Black Skimmers, a Little Blue Heron, Egrets and the Chincoteague Lighthouse.

The boardwalk at Tom's Cove, surfer, Chincoteague ponies and the pretty beach.  We had cool sightings of dolphins swimming by and playing around in and jumping out the waves.

More Skimmers, Godwit, Terns and some Willets and along the side in the photo is a Little Blue, Snowy Egret and a Tricolored heron and the bottom is a Green Heron.

On a later post I will share my two lifers...the rare sighting of a Bar-tailed Godwit and a Sandwich Tern. The birding was awesome. I enjoyed seeing all the shorebirds.

Spending the one night we were able to watch the sunset, the moon rise above the ocean and see a beautiful sunrise.  After watching the sunrise we checked out some more of the shorebirds as we headed back to our hotel for breakfast. Not ready to go home we hung around the Chincoteague NWR. We took a walk on the woodland trail and did one last stop to check out the Tom's Cove area which was were I spotted my lifers. I will post about my Chincoteague lifers on another post. Even on the drive home, I was able to watch an eagle lift off the Nanticoke River and fly next to our car for awhile as I drove over the bridge. I had a great weekend, how was your weekend?

As always, I hope you enjoy my post and 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!

Around the Yard, Sept 18

I am linking up with NF Winged   and  Skywatch Friday

September 19, 2013

My favorite time of the week is seeing skies from around the world. I am linking up with Skywatch Friday. Will you be joining in on the fun and post your sky photos. Also, I have a few birds for NF Winged. These photos were taken from Saturday thru today.

A view of the sun setting from our deck.

My cute hummers were still zooming around me on Saturday. I was happy to see three of them at my feeders.

Beside the pokeberries the birds seem to love these devil's walking stick berries. We planted a few bushes in the yard just for the birds.

The male Goldfinch is still showing off his pretty summer colors.

Hubby is sharing his sunset photos from our lake.

It was a pretty pinkish sunset with beautiful reflections!

The water turned a beautiful pink color.

Hubby has a great eye for a gorgeous sunset, what do you think?


  Happy Skywatching everyone!

Thanks for visiting my post and  blog and I always appreciate your comments.

To see more pretty skies from around the world please visit  Skywatch Friday
and to see more of the winged critters check out NF Winged

Thanks to Sylvia, Yogi  and Sandy for hosting Skywatch Friday! Thanks to Monica the host of NF Winged.   I wish everyone a safe and happy weekend.

Backyard Warblers

I am linking up with Wild Bird Wednesday and Nature Notes

For this weeks featured bird I actually a variety of warblers that stopped by my yard for the last week or so.
 I believe I have already shown the Chestnut-sided warbler but I have a few others that I am excited about. It seems the warblers are really attracted to Pokeberries. They LOVE them.

 A fall Black-throated Green Warbler.

A fall Cape May Warbler

A Cape May Warbler at the pokeberries.

Another Chestnut-sided Warbler.

Another Chestnut-sided Warbler

This Goldfinch looking bird is really a Tennessee Warbler..The beak is one way of id-ing a warbler. 

At times I was seeing two Cape May Warblers together, but it was hard trying to focus on one bird with the pokeberries and leaves in the way. I believe I had some other warblers moving around my yard, a few times I would see a warbler disappear into our weeping cherry tree before I could id.

Looks like the warblers also found the crepe myrtle to be a favorite like the Scarlet Tanagers in my previous post.

All of these photos were taken from my deck or my dining room window. It is pretty cool to be able to see all these warblers right in my yard. I am wondering what warblers I was missing all week while I was at work. These shots were taken Friday evening, Saturday morning and some more on Sunday.  I am lucky I did not have to travel to see them, they all came to see me or more like eat our pokeberries.



Join in and post your birdies and to see more beautiful and wonderful bird photos please visit:
 Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday and Michelle's  Nature Notes.

Thanks to Stewart for hosting Wild Bird Wednesday and thanks to Michelle for hosting Nature Notes.

Thanks for stopping by and for leaving your nice comments. I always appreciate your visits.
I wish everyone a happy week ahead and Happy Birding!

It's migration time

  I am linking up with Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday 

 September 15, 2014

I know all my blogging friends and readers are not addicted to birds like I am, so I appreciate everyone stopping by to see my post. Migration time is an exciting time if you are a birder. It is time to see birds you may not see all year, the birds are moving from their breeding grounds to their wintering grounds. And if you are in the right place at the right time you may see these birds stopping to refuel along their flyways.

On Saturday, I was home hearing a lot of bird activity in my yard. I noticed a lot of movement in our Crepe Myrtle bush tree.

I was flipping back and forth on my id. My first thought was a juvenile Scarlet Tanager. I saw the dark wings and I was trying to get a photo of the bill facing in a direction that would help my id. If you look in a guide book, the Orchard Oriole is the same color and dark wings . The only difference to me is the shape of the bill.  They are the Scarlet Tanagers with big thanks for a confirmation from another Maryland birder on facebook.

Above is what my Crepe Myrtle bush tree looked like on August 24. It is growing straight up and is very tall now. We planting the Crepe Myrtle because we love the pretty colorful blooms not knowing the the birds love them too.

Fall time is a confusing time, the fall birds and juveniles can look totally different than the adults that you are use to seeing. The juvenile male Scarlet Tanager is yellow with dark wings like the female but the adult male is a bright red with black wings.  Back on the subject, migration is timed primarily by the changes in day length. Migrating birds navigate using celestial cues from the sun and stars. The availability of food and the changes of habitat and weather also have an effect on migration.

Scarlet Tanagers everywhere..very cool!

I never seen birds eating the flowers off of a plant I thought maybe they eat seeds and bugs off of the flowers. I was watched as they ate some of the flowers. After they left most of the Crepe Myrtle flowers were gone, just like the birds. Not to be seen again till next spring.

I am used to seeing the Scarlet Tanagers one or maybe two at a time but, there had to be close to 15 Scarlet Tanagers in our Crepe Myrtle tree. In my next post I will share some of the Warblers that also stopped by on Saturday. I loved that I was able to see all these birds in our yard and not have to travel to see them.
It was a great birdie day and exciting sight to see, I wish you could have been here with me to see it in person.

As always, I hope you enjoy my post and 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!