It's Life

The weather has been extortionary this week however it's the week gas went to $4.10 a gallon.  Nothing by European standards, but to us here it's a hard blow, especially when you drive a gas hog like my van! So I kept my little adventure trips to a minimum. I think I may need to take in a little burro for future transport plans! 

So here's some photos of one out and about and some things I saw....and I will adlib some commentary about my week.  

 

This Red Tailed Hawk has half a tail...the Grackle was in hot pursuit Life is not always peaches n cream

Monday morning at 1:32 AM awoke to an Earth Shaking  sound of a train swiftly approaching faster than the speed of sound and the windows rattling...Earthquake 3.3 on the scale! Yes this area about 15 miles to my west has been the epicenter for many tremors and quakes since December, this one was the largest, followed the next night by a 2.9 after shock.

Imagine being a Cliff Swallow and your home is made out of mud...there is only one way to pick up that mud if you're a bird and that is in your MOUTH! Yuk...and all. 

When gathering mud to reinforce their gourd shaped homes the Cliff Swallow keeps his wings high out of the muck, pretty good idea!  Below  a group of Double Crested Cormorants stand atop the old Dam built in 1920...Just a few miles north of the epicenter of the Quake

This is from the water holding side of the dam...it's 3 ft below full and the lake is 64 feet deep....and covers 13,700 acres. How strong would the Quake need to be to destroy this dam? Its pretty thick at the bottom...but you can see it has cracks!

I have been  sawing up a big limb that fell out of a large dead Pine at my place...it also came down with lots of small twigs, and branches...I had it neatly stacked into a pile of large pieces and the rest I picked up and put into four large bins that took a half day to do...I used the lawn tractor with the trailer behind, put all the bins and the wood into the trailer, moved that to the van and onto the cargo rack that I put on back,  it holds 500 lbs of cargo. Tied it all on,  Spent the entire morning doing that...then unloaded  it at the solid waste center and put it in the Yard Waste bin...got back about 1 pm sat down to relax and I hear a huge crash outside...Look out wondering....

 Another Large limb fell  even bigger than the one I just removed...it will take me 10 yrs at this rate to eventually remove the 100 foot, 3.5ft diameter dead Pine!

This common Grackle has caught a lizard for his lunch...
Lizard is saying "and  you thought you had it hard."

The Squirrels destroyed my new hummingbird feeder, they chewed off all the perches, pulled out the bee stoppers and chewed holes in them...so I have been relocating squirrels to the forest where they can live a truly wild life without human interference.  So far six Seven gone, all males.  If I catch a nursing female she is not relocated...but so far it's all  males.  

This goes to show how critters learn to use what man or woman has put in their neck of the woods to their best advantage...with all this manmade stuff in the way an Osprey still builds a nest and raised young. 

A Grackle finds a bi-valve and eats the small clam inside...

Then the Great Blue Heron chases after the Grackle...

A fish is given a very amazing view of the world as he is flown around right before becoming a meal....I hope he was amazed by the sight...pretty good send off I guess..

 you can tell I am in a sarcastic mood...Sometimes you really have to see the sarcasm in life in order for it to make any sense at all...

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

X'D off Another Week.

I think the weather is about to normalize, it's been whacky tho...Heat in the morning open the doors mid day then run the fan in the late afternoon, windows shut and heavy blanket at night!

Been mostly local this week...spotted this unbothered Gr Blue Heron catching a Sunfish..

He swallowed it whole...



In  one gulp

Then he climbed up out of the water onto the shore...he stood 5 feet tall if he was in inch!! That railing is waist high on me, 

I crept down along the creek's edge to spy on this Louisiana Waterthrush  singing  in a tree...I love to catch a video of a bird singing,  so here he is...

Normally I only see them on the ground so this was a rare treat. 

I have at least 50 bird song videos...so catch a listen sometime when you got nothing to do!

The Eastern Bluebirds are getting SO BLUE it's stings my eyes to look  at them! Just Gorgeous!

They are not camera shy this is why I have a shot of one every week pretty much...

And on this day I got a shot of the elusive Female Common Yellowthroat...I showed you a male last week with his black mask...

Caught some interaction between a pair of adult Bald Eagles, they landed across the river, and I made a video of them interacting and calling to each other...I will share that video next week...its taking too long to upload for todays post.  

Wednesday I was able to get out to Sandhills, and had several First of  Year birds...like the Prairie Warbler, 

The Eastern Kingbird, and I found one on a nest as well...

The Orchard Oriole...

AND the Bachman's Sparrow..

Still considered rare, but I am finding them every year in about the same area of the refuge. There was two of them one singing by the road this one, and then another answering off in the not too far distance. 

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Meanwhile back at the homestead...the Ruby Throated Hummingbirds have arrived, I didn't catch him in the right light to get  his ruby throat to display but I will keep trying...

And my Doe Friend Tulip, paid a visit she is going into her 2nd summer. 

She has a malformed or healed injury to oft hindleg, but she has managed just fine, a little limp always but she can run jump and do anything the other deer can do.  And she is sooo lovely. She will probably have her first fawn next May...Because she does not appear to be with Fawn, but she could be.  Females chase away their male offspring after the spots are faded, but female fawns sometimes stay in a family group up to two years....Tulip was with 2 others on this day one was a young yearling female and an older doe, maybe that was her mother and sister. 

See ya next week! 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

HIT or Mismanagement...

Well here it is Thursday again and My blog comes out at Midnight tonight so I better get busy and create a post!  This week sort of got away from me.  

So the first part of the week I was  not 100% then latter part of the week it rained, right there in the middle of all that I went in search of harmony.  Did I find it?  Some of it found me right here at  home. 

I see deer almost daily in my field

 One of the coolest spots I found was on my way to somewhere else.  I have taken to driving the even farther back way to get to Sandhills because US 1 is so busy with log trucks and other semi's I like to mosey, they are in a hurry.  SO I take the back way and even bypass 2 small towns that are only one block long LOL...I know I've drifted well beyond hermitress. 

So I pass through this area where there is some big Ag fields, and open space and I saw these Spanish Bayonets' in bloom.  

And some really Big garlic plants.  I believe this was an old homestead lot as I saw some old foundations here and there.  

And all this lovely stuff is growing under the watchful eye of the Blue Grosbeak up on the wire, 

And the Eastern Towhee on a prickly briar stem...

Once at Sandhills, I spooked a Great Blue Heron up a pine tree...

And a stop at Pool D gave me a look at a young Eastern Phoebe learning how to hunt on his own...I know they had their nest under the boardwalk of Pool D.  

And this shy Grey Catbird hid in the shadows but couldn't resist singing and gave away his location...

I pulled over and watched this Red Headed Woodpecker showing off his brilliant feathers. 

The ponds are kept too deep for waterfowl to flourish...why you ask? So hunters and fishermen can get a boat in the water...too shallow they get stuck...hmmm 

I was on my way to Dove Field A,

...where I never  see any Dove, actually I saw NOTHING there.  It was rather bleak.  Sometimes I have to wonder at the "managed" areas, there is nothing there to see.  But I came to ride my bike across the field and back.   The last time I was here grasshoppers were everywhere and  American Kestrel...today since they plowed up the field Nothing! The field is "managed" so white men with guns (Im on the verge of a rant)  can come to kill Dove...in the process they kill everything that is natural and even the Doves don't fall for it.  BAD management is at the root of why this Refuge has so few success stories in the area of waterfowl and grassland species. They are managing for the WRONG activity.  Plant some millet lets get some Painted Bunting, and some Dickcissel and some Blue Grosbeak in here and Birders will come by the hoards.  Hunters are has beens!!

Almost came a "dirter" here...my start and end point is over at the green tree line in the distance.  

They are growing quite a bit of Wild Onion, in other areas where they burn, then let grow what nature has put there birds are there.  Those areas are marked no Hunting.  So my ?? is does Hunting provide good habitat management? I don't think so. 

And on the edges where the tractors couldn't go some passion flowers

Over on the verge of the field where some natural grasses were growing an Eastern Kingbird was keenly looking for a meal...

Observing wildlife and birds is my hobby and my passion...it makes me happy and it fills me up with good feelings, I don't think setting wild life up for slaughter is a good thing.  WHEN will this tide ever turn left?  Just goes to show the current way is not the best way.  SO Many of our refuges are being mismanaged for the purpose of hunting.  IF they were managing for observation  and continuation of the species more people and more wildlife would benefit, currently a few white men in pick up trucks toting guns have more SAY then a middle aged couple in a Subaru. 

 According to the report I read  put out by the Fish n Wildlife Service in 2016, 43 million people identify as birders, they are on average earning $70,000 a yr and spend $80 Billion dollars in the process. Where as HUNTING:  13.7 Million considered themselves as hunters and spent $12 Billion annually. OK big difference, and yet where is the political clout?

After my dusty ride there and back and some near misses in deep sand,  I drove to lake Mays and had a sit by the water and ate a snack before driving home.  

So in closing I guess what I am saying is let it be known what side of the aisle you're on, we've been fed this line  of misinformation long enough that Hunters are the ones funding our wild spaces, I call BS on that one! Just one more Incorrect piece of info that is driving policy in this country.  

Speak your truth..

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

WoW Great Week!

This week started with a trip to the airport..

To pick up my sis who is visiting! Im so happy to have her here with me.  I have become quite the hermit and it's good for me to have to speak in entire sentences again! Not to mention she is just a  fantastic person to spend time with. 

Monday took sis to the sewage pond so she could get her lifer Surf Scoter...Score for her!  Since we were in the area we checked on the Eagle Chick at the Beaver Dam area...he has Fledged but remains in the nest..parents were still nearby so this is good news we saw him in flight.   

And later that same day we hit Lee State Park, we had sun there...

This beautiful Red-Bellied Woodpecker has such beautiful color..

More White Breasted Nuthatch sightings...and we really enjoyed finding this guy.  

A very still Hermit Thrush always great to see....and we had our FOY Blue Gray Gnatcatchers also...I was not able to photo them...

This is the kind of thing we do together.  Tuesday we hit the county park, and the Wateree River Access.  This is the area where all that flooding had occurred a couple weeks back. 

sis in the pines

the river is back into it's banks and the birds are enjoying the aftermath...

An Eagle snags a fish outta the lake, 

And this was Osprey day as we saw them everywhere we went...this one was not wasting any time eating his catch. 

If you ever wonder what a superman looks like here it is...I don't know this guy but I like him!  He picked up all this Fisherman Crap and he is challenging everyone on his facebook page to do the same! 

My kind of guy!!

And of course we always do the same thing...we both picked up huge bundles of this death trap for birds. 

Bonaparte Gulls enjoying the rivers feast...not much sun in this photo it looks almost like Black n White.

Wednesday we drove south on the dreaded I-95 to Santee NWR for the day and we took a sunny hike to the impound ponds. The nature trail leads to the ponds of the Bluff unit,  we ended up with a 4.7 mile hike, kinda kicked us cause it was nearly 80 and sunny!

...lots of duck out there too faraway  for any decent photos.   We met another birder, Julie she is the # 3 birder for this location (sis and I are tied at #7)They just reopened for the Season May 1.  She shared her scope with us....and I realized later that was not smart due to CV-19...Gee living in this day and age is a whole new ball game.  

sis and Julie way down the road...

We had Ring Neck, Northern Shoveler , American Wigeon,  Green and Blue Wing Teal, Northern Pintail, American Coot, and more. 

In the brushy edges dozens of Song Sparrow perched and teased us along with many other species...like Field Sparrow, Common Yellowthroat, Ruby Crowned Kinglet, Eastern Meadowlark, and in the canals that followed the path Wood Ducks and one Barred Owl called from the woods.  

Finally got my lifer Sedge Wren thanks to our new friend Juile, who told us this corner was good for them and she used a playback and bam, there it was, happened so suddenly I got an awful photo of him...Until I get a better shot this will have to do we did get good looks but only seconds long. 

FOY---Yellow-throated Warbler...been seeing these everywhere we go.

An immature Bald Eagle was stirring up the ducks...

Blue Wing Teal 

imm B. Eagle

Thursday we stopped by one of my favorite AG fields...had various field birds...and then to Goodale park for a walk around heard the Blue Headed Vireo and after we did our grocery run.

Later I didn't feel well...Pollen is here and I  think too much sun the day before.  We postponed a day trip we had planned for Friday and got a later start so I could re-evaluate how I felt..and then around 11 we went up to Liberty Hill WMA to check on that habitat. 

 Nice and easy stand or sit on the bridge and bird both sides...we had the entire place to ourselves, and found 33 species of bird. 

 Now this is the life!

 Nice to see Great Blue Herons Standing up tall on the nest.  Three nests in all...

Also nesting was a pair of Canadians....

 Red Headed Woodpecker coming out of a nest cavity..

We pulled out our picnic lunch on the bridge and enjoyed a sandwich and watched the wildlife go about their day. 

A Red-tailed Hawk, landed nearby...

And later we took a hike and found Wild Turkey and two FOY Black n White Warbler.  

And with a face only a mother could love the Turkey Vulture! 

The Yellow Rumped Warbler ^ and Another Yellow throated Warbler below. One flew down on the ground and I finally got a look at his back, it's just such an amazing bird, the back is grey with the black and white stripes...its gorgeous.

We have had so many great days of being out and about we birded till we dropped...and tomorrow the day trip of today is rescheduled.  Plan is to be out at 7:30 am when the sun is coming up because I can't see to drive in the dark!!  We had a really great week the weather was awesome, and we made the best of it. One thing is missing tho, that's our other sis...WE miss and Love you!!  Hope to see you soon. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.