My Five Miles!

So it's my first post of 2019...wish it could be more exciting...but it is what it is till it ain't anymore...lol That's a line from a song I heard.  Still many ups n downs going on Ill try to share the ups.
Im participating in Jen's of I Used to Hate Birds (check my right side bar) 5 Mile Radius Challenge. (5MR) it's a year long challenge! SO  a short description...Jen is the superstar who came up with this whole idea and I hope soon it will be a part of ebird and she will get the credit for it!  So you figure out an area and using map tools you draw out a 5 mile radius and you bird the hell outta it! LoL...Join in the fun if you like!

Hope I can follow through.  I'm not good at following directions.  But I think this month's challenge is to fill in the gaps on hotspots within my 5MR.  There is only one in my radius.  So I need to go over at least once a week to fill in January!   So here is my circle. 

Sorry it's blurry I took it with my phone  my laptop won't do a screen shot...As you can see it's void of pretty much everything! Down at 8 o'clock is my hotspot, Goodale State Park.  

It's notorious for NOT having many birds!! My check list was 14 species and included one immature Bald Eagle.  He was wayyy across the lake...and at first I thought "Osprey" 

But those big orange feet gave him away...once I put my binoculars up to my eyes.

So that was fun to see.  I have seen mature ones here from time to time.  

It was a misty day but heavy rain held off while I birded.  

The wooded path around the lake...

One of 4 Ruby Crowned Kinglets I spotted...

Checked on the pitcher plants that grow by the water's edge...

Another lake view...

A double crested cormorant in silhouette

 

The most popular bird by far was the yellow rumped warblers..I think my count ended up at 8. 

of the Myrtle variety..

So I plan to go once a week this month..and fill in some gaps, at first I thought it was to fill in the gaps of my own bar graph but it is the bar graph for the Hotspot it'self.  There is def some gaps in the 2nd and 3rd weeks of Jan...but I don't think I will fill in many different species for Jan...

but we'll see.  It's popular with Warblers in Fall n Spring.   

This is something I have to avoid while birding here and not just here but across the southern USA.   If you should fall in one of these imagine how quickly they would be on you, BITING...or step on this with flip flops on, which happens to me many time per year. The bite is very painful and sometimes causes an allergic reaction and almost always an itchy red pimple.  They will swarm up onto your feet and begin to climb your body!   You must immediately begin to do the Dixxe Doodle Dance! Looks similar to a Rain Dance!

Fire Ants

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Failure and Success

There is a saying here in the south...If you don't like the weather just wait a minute... notice the difference! ON that day we had the same system that caused the landslides hit here and made everything wet! It poured for about 12 hrs and then the cold front came along and now it's more normal for Jan.  Last night 24 and today will be high in 50's that's more our normal for this time of yr...that heat wave lasted one day but it was warm in the house, 70! In fact it got so humid I had to put the AC on for about an hr.  And this afternoon, Wednesday as I'm writing this blog to post in 2 days, it is snowing!  My house is creaking from all the contraction and expansion!

With the weather being so crazy all my outside projects are in a holding pattern, (i took my dryer apart and it needs to be put back together SOON before I forget what goes where) so I went in search of another bird last Saturday at Parr Reservoir, meeting up with my sis for an afternoon of catching up and scanning a very cold lake...We dipped on the Long Tailed Duck...but we were not the only ones dipping, this guy's boat got away from him and he had to take a dip in the icy water!  Really felt sorry for him. Tip: do not launch your boat without a very long tow rope on it!

We had Pied-Billed Grebe, Bufflehead, Double Crested Cormorant, lots of Bonaparte's Gulls...and over on the other side at  Lake Monticello 3 Horned Grebes, and lots of American Coots  but all pretty distant views so I'll spare you the fuzzy photos...And this.   

The VC Summer Nuclear Plant and right next to it the Failed $9 Billion expansion project!  Hard working people have been overcharged on their electric bills to help pay for a project that has been ditched after the company went through $9 billion and the project was expected to need an additional $20 BILLION to complete it so the work stopped!! Yet the electric customers are still paying higher rates to the tune of $20 per month for the next 60 yrs!  So customers are being charged to pay for something they never received and probably never will.  The SC Congress has stepped in and they are trying to help fix this mess but I think they had a lot to do with why it failed in the first place.  Electric customers have been promised a $1,000 rebate, but the reason for this failure is just pure greed and mismanagement of the project!  It may be up to 8 years before they get those rebates, but 3 execs of the company were paid over $2 million each salary in 2016, as the project was failing they still got bonuses, and stock options!! The management turned in millions of dollars in expense reports that the SCANA refused to accept....like a $14,000 plane ride to pick up papers from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that could have been delivered by courier for a few bucks! This is what is wrong in America...one guy walked away with a retirement bundle of over $800,000 a yr plus a $2 million + dollar 401(k)...Okay I don't get it and I never will.  

So back to the birds, a report came in for Greater Scaup at the Catawba River dam spillway...(thank you Steve Patterson)

So Tuesday I drove up Hwy 97 N from Camden, SC to Hwy 200 West and the bridge and dam are right there...so I found a spot to park on the other end behind the guard rail and hiked down under the bridge to the water's edge to scan for the birds. 

The reflections under the bridge, the coolest thing!!

Right away I saw lots of Double Crested Cormorants and Ring Billed Bulls on the rocks sunning.  No that is not white paint! And yet ebird said my count of 200 Cormorant was high....they have never seen these rocks...a couple of birds don't make this much staining. It's heavily used. 

Lots of Cormorants periscoping on the surface..

And right out in front of everybody is the small flock of Greater Scaup...Yippie!

Males and females.  The book says, look for a rounded head, with a green sheen to the face, a black tip on the bill end, a stocky neck, a cross hatched back, white sides extending to the primaries, and the female has a wide white band above the bill! I'd say this fits that description.  

A shaky closeup they are pretty far away...

A lifer and one that has eluded me since my Florida trip in Feb of 2016, so I am really happy to be adding this sighting to my memory, and not just my list!

Back at the van, this Yellow-Rumped Warbler was all over me. Take my picture!! There was 3 others egging him on too. 

yellow rumped (myrtle) warbler

Another fun day searching for the jewels in life, and I made a  new friend he bellowed out a greeting!

                                                 

                                                                              HOWDY!

This post is a little shorter than my normal run off at the keyboard, so I wanted to add this little blurb to point y'all in the direction of this artist...you may already know all about him...Robert Wyland.  I like his style, it's big, bold, bright and he has an environmental message of protecting our cherished oceans and ecosystems.  His prices are way out of my league, but you can catch him painting on PBS they are now running Wyland's Art Studio series.  I can't support him financially but I can spread the word...that there is another message out there coming from better messengers! 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

SO, What's UP?

Okay October went so fast, and now it's November already? I've been laying low...doing what has to be done and resting when I need want to. I recently told my sis that I live a very exclusive life, meaning many things are excluded...haha...to me it's a luxury to have a couple good meals a day and a comfortable place to lay my head.  Simple is what I strive for, sometimes the outside world draws me off and destroys my tranquil existence. For now I have restored hozho, balance. 

 Here's what's up in my little world...with some photos of a recent soul soothing walk around my local State Park, Goodale.  My version of the Navajo's Blessing Way. 

                                           calming water

After dinner Laptopping:

Most of my net time is spent creating a blog post, reading and commenting on your blogs, uploading photos to Flickr, arguing politics on Facebook, reading and responding to email, and visits to Find A Grave, Ancestry, and eBird. That and a few searches sums up my interaction with the outside world! 

          

             good reflections 

daylight hours:

Are mostly used up doing chores around the homestead, chopping wood for the nightly fire, keeping twigs picked up  out of the yard, and doing some painting at Mom's, getting her screen porch spruced up a bit, so when she returns home she will be super surprised!  Speaking of Mom she is doing very good, still in good health and recently celebrated her 93rd birthday!  There's  the occasional trip to town for supplies, I always have bins full of twigs to drop off at the trash dumpsters and occasionally I bump into people I haven't seen in a long time. 

                                        Bright cheerful colors

New Toys:

A new angle grinder is now in my shed! (thanks Mom for the birthday money) Very handy for sharpening tools, and I'm sure I will find many more uses for it.  Got it for 20% off at Harbor Freight.  It is an inexpensive one but I don't figure to be using it on a daily basis so it should serve me well. 

AND:

For my birthday I received: the complete box set of all 6 seasons of Breaking Bad! Absolutely loved/love that series...it is fun to go over it frame by frame. The fact it was filmed in beautiful New Mexico is a bonus too.

AND: a new portable DVD player to take along when I 'm out traveling...if you recall I blew the other one up in a charging mishap.  The new one has blue tooth earphones! SO if that jerk (you know the one I'm talking about) is running a generator I will still be able to hear my DVD of the night!

                                     a peaceful Eastern Phoebe 

 Some recent evening activities:

Watched almost the entire PBS series on the Vietnam War.  I knew classmates who were drafted and sent away to Vietnam from my high school back in '69 and '70.  I wore my POW bracelet, and I just wanted the war to end.  This documentary put the entire era into sharp focus... conclusion: It was a complete waste of life on all sides.  :o(

Currently watching the PBS Frontline Report on Russia and Putin I hope this can help me understand that issue more. Being informed is important to me.  

AND just for the hell of it....watching The Walking Dead new season (8) has begun!! YAHOO.  It's a wonderful hour of mindless mayhem, where one can cheer for the good guys even tho the line between good and evil is very blurred.   Our heroes are fighting back  against Negan and his authoritarian regime.  

The leader Rick made a speech.  

"those who would kill, take, steal, and carve out the world only for themselves, we will destroy"

Wow, we need someone brave enough to say that in real life!  I'm wishing for a super hero? 

                                           a  quiet still cormorant 

 I'm having a visitor! It's going to be wonderful, my baby sister is coming for the whole weekend!! I am excited! It's kinda quiet around here these days just me and the dogs...so some laughter, and some chatter and to actually have someone speak back when I'm talking will be kinda nice! We have planned a day trip for Saturday so hopefully I'll find something of interest to put in this blog!

Next thing you know it's gonna be Thanksgiving, and then the silly season and then a new year. 2018 wow.  In February I will celebrate the 10th anniversary of this blog! I must do something mindblowing to commemorate that milestone. 

How's your daily grind going?

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.