Sunny and cold

 I made a couple trips to Bramblewood and hiked the trails that go around the ponds.. and one visit on cold day at Sandhills...

                It's really pretty with all the seeds hanging onto the bushy stuff that edges the ponds...

I was under the spell of just how many types of seed is there for the birds to take advantage of...

Some plants that have a really sunny spot are still in flower...

Lots of Song Sparrow are feeding there...

They dart all over the trail and try to hide in the thickets...and they blend right in...

A Cormorant was swimming in one of the ponds, 

And far on the other side was a Great Egret fishing..

The Cattails are going to seed...

An Eastern Phoebe was hunting for insects from the tall stalks in the water. 

This Mockingbird is lucky he still has some Poke Berries to eat...

The trail meanders and winds around and figure 8's the ponds, 

Drying out....

The river is high right now...

This is a great place to take a walk on a sunny day and enjoy the plants, and some birds too....and the water. 

At Sandhills I saw this really cute Pied Billed Grebe

One awful thing I saw was this deer, who met his demise and somehow ended up in this pond very sad thing...

There was a HUNT here last week, it would not surprise me to know someone shot him and was not able to retrieve him and he made it this far..then predators are working on the carcass. 

There was a couple of Loggerhead Shrikes around....

Swamp Sparrow 

The Dark Eyed Junco's are back! 

And the first of Fall Field Sparrow was out 

I did try in the middle of the night last week to get a shot of the moon eclipse  from my deck it was behind a few trees, but I got this shot..at 4:44 am. 

This year is almost over, and I am glad...it certainly has not been the best year...

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

State Line Fields

 I took a drive to a neighboring area to visit, some  large FIELDS.

When I go anywhere it's never to a mall, a restaurant, a movie, or a grand opening, 

its either a cemetery, a sewage pond,  a corn field,  a rocky shore line, a salt marsh,  or a swamp...

On This day It was a huge wide open field, where people had been reporting the American Golden Plover.  I had not seen an A. Golden since the late 90's on a sod farm Southwest of me, so I figured it was time to see them again.    The fields were huge,  I had my scope if I needed it,  but they ended up being about 90 ft from the road so I saw them with my binoculars and I counted 18 birds but could only get a group shot of 14 so I went with a count of 14 to be safe,  a Northern Harrier scattered them after I had about 20 minutes to try for photos.  

This is a heavy crop of  4 of them grouped together, you want to look for wingtips that extend well beyond the tail, and a broad white line above the eye and in breeding plumage  that line in the male becomes almost a large backwards S down the neck and onto the chest. This is non breeding plumage birds.  This is the closest shot I got, the wind just wouldn't allow me to get a sharp focus...

You can see the big dark eyes,  I enjoyed being out in the open without trees blocking my view....

It's only a 44 minute drive, and the dirt road passes over into North Carolina...here is where I crossed the State Line..

  

Some others saw lots of Horned Lark also, I didn't see a single one! These fields were huge...I did see Some White Throated Sparrow, 

Eastern Towhee, 

And the Savannah Sparrow, 

Several  Song Sparrow 

And about 21 species all together It was a good day for a drive in the country. 

that was earlier in the week....

Today I took the painted rock up to Mary's Hill...the rock I chose is one I brought with me from Colorado, it's a very 3 dimensional rock...

This is the south end of the rock 

The view today was very nice as the last of the fall color is still hanging on the trees down the slope...

On the upper part of the rock I painted in a rainbow, 

A little hard to see I sprayed it with some gloss Finish to protect the paint so hopefully it won't fade off too fast....there's some trees, a pond, and some flowers on the rock, it's a landscape of what we always enjoyed about  the trips we made to Sandhills thru the years...

I placed it at the foot of this tall pine that over looks the hill..on the upper side of the dirt road...

See the one in  center with a long limb pointing down to the right...

And here it is....

The really special thing is as I started out this morning to drive over, a dark cloud came up fast and it began to sprinkle and I had to turn on the wipers for a few minutes then this came out...

That is the one and only rainbow I've seen all year long...

I took it as a HUG....

Hope you all have a fine Thanksgiving if you're celebrating.  

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Last but not least...

So my last post from the coast,  I enjoy seeing the sky so big when Im here...I live under a forest so Its nice to be out in the open for a while...

We had 2 beautiful sunny days, and one really cold cloudy day and one sort of had some wind and whispy clouds...

Some late blooming fall flowers in the sand...

This short trail took us out to another view point...it's located near the Castle....

More Clapper Rail...

Interesting plant...I think its a Beach Spider Lily near the end of it's bloom..

A Gulf Fritillary...

A couple of Ring Billed Gulls hunker down from the wind...various age stages, the one in back is a first winter, the one in front is second Winter...

Along one of  the boardwalks we found newly arrived White Throated Sparrows...Love their song...

And we had a lot of Blue Jay hanging out 

And a Brown Thrasher

And the first Song Sparrow of the fall for me, 

On my last day I stopped to see the Atalaya Castle, its also on the Park Grounds It was built by the Huntington's in the 1930's, the Castle and 2,500 acres of land were donated to the state to become a state park in the1960's.

It is now a National Historic Landmark, I had the dogs and it was an extra entry fee so I didn't go in but it's an interesting building...

It looks sort of gloomy on the outside, 

My last walk on the boardwalk before heading for  home.....

These Snowy Egrets were all huddled down out of the wind....

And I know you can't really see it, but right in the middle of this grassy shot below is A NEW life bird, I got a look at him but then he darted to the other side of the boardwalk and buried down in the grass, so this is all I could get....The SALTMARSH SPARROW.  

Do you see it at all?

AND I always love when a Yellow Lab drives the RV. 

Super fun lots of cool birds landscapes family and we met some nice people to boot!

I had the first fire of the fall in the fireplace tonight...so it's time to put Winter rules in play.  

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.