Bumpy Week

This has been a weird week....Like a black cloud hanging around...
Annie had to go to the vet with an anal sac abscess.  It scared me since she had a tumor removed from that area in 2016.  She is on Meds for 20 days...and she is doing well so far. 

nothing better than a roll in the grass..

 Before that I took them swimming and Flossie got stuck in Quick Mud...and was really lame for a few days; more lame than usual.  I had to get myself stuck in order to get her out and  destroyed my favorite flip flops in the process,  ah dang!

Tuesday we had a really strong storm lots of wind took out our electric and one of my tall bird houses,  Blue Birds had a nest build going on, so I put it back up on Wednesday morning  and  they are trying to get it fixed up again...felt sorry for all the hard work they did.  I was able to save most of their nest work...but it was a little topsy-turvy

 they worked sooo hard all day. 


So not a good way to begin the week...but it got a little better..

went one day with the bike, and that was the best day of this week...

The red line is my track out and back...and this photo below was taken in the area at the tip of the lake

Riding and birding too...I find that  birds don't flush away as fast as when Im on foot or in my van...so that is cool.  

A buckeye butterfly 

A Solitary Sandpiper poked around in the mud by the lake edge...and later I found a second one...

The Dutch Iris at Martin's Lake

Tree Swallows seem to be interested in this Wood Duck Box..

The Spotted Sandpiper was there also 

Up in the trees an Eastern Phoebe waits for me to pass by..

And the Red Eyed Vireo tries to hide up in the shadows...

A Great Blue Heron stands tall at the back of the lake...

I rode along the road from the photo blind parking down the road and to the lake making stops at key spots along the way and that worked out really great. 

An Acadian Flycatcher posed for me quickly...

And the Yellow Rump's are so beautiful in their breeding plumage

Back at the homestead, the mother's day cactus is doing her thing...our friend Nettie, who passed last year, gave this plant to me years ago, So happy Mother's Day Mom and Nettie,

And I put the Knock Out Roses in the ground they are doing good so far

the Carolina Wren was in the front yard.

And these two Downy Woodpeckers had some sort of stand off going on...

And this was the lightest moment of the week, a male who pulled out all the stops to try and impress the love of his life...

House Finch's Love Dance

I think she handled it like a mature lady...lol. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Chronicles of the Week

Still summer here...hope for a sudden change!  

Aug 18

Another hot one...

...enjoyed this fresh looking dragon, I guess it's a Halloween Pennant dragonfly He looks perfect!  We rode over to Lake Paul Wallace, It's been a while since we visited we didn't see a lot but we enjoyed what we saw...

Duck Potato Plant

These Mallards wanted a hand out we had a few crumbs so we tossed a bit out of the window..they are completely spoiled as you can tell 

The Geese were not as friendly!  

Aug 21

Midweek I ventured up to the local racetrack...it is also a hotspot for my town, it's not in my radius and I helped push the county count up by 4 for the year, I know in a way I'm cutting my own throat for my radius percentage %.

 

This little pond is on the racetrack grounds and it's pretty popular...I uploaded some of these straight to Blogger see if you can click it and make it bigger, if you don't mind?  A little test. 

So last week Aug 14th I went over and found the immature Tri Color Heron, and this week he was still there along with the 2 immature White Ibis I shared last post... 

Tri-Color Heron

Then I found a Yellow Legs, I think lesser, so that's how I reported it..he stayed behind the reeds making it hard to pull out a decent shot of him..

and all of sudden he had company...lower left of the photo

A spotted sandpiper!  Fun to find both of these...

 So 2 more added to my county list for the year 

When I stand very still for a long period of time my spine fuses up! So I was glad to sit on one of these logs and watch the birds milling around in the pond...

Tuesday Aug 20,  I went to my 5 mile radius Hotspot early I arrived about 7:30 am and I found a new one for the radius, the Green Heron.  (#117) He was pretty far out there I got this for the record shot no mistaking this silhouette. 






And he returned again Aug 21....the Green Heron



This is hopeful thinking! Im glad to see some color coming to the landscape..

One of the Common Yellow Throats came out into the open  




Aug 21, Back at the Racetrack Pond, I found another Green Heron, he was really small so I assume a this years edition. 





The little Blue Heron continues to hang around even tho the pond is slowly drying up...I hope recent rains will help...




The Green Heron was having luck finding food I saw him come up with several wiggly things...mostly what this pond has in it is this:



Lots of small peepers! They scampered from the edge as I walked along making little bloopppp sounds as they hit the water.

So the cool thing is this...The Racetrack has been the number one Hotspot in our county. (per ebird) There are only about 10 birders, actually only 2 of us record active weekly counts, since one fellow moved away.  So I have moved my Hotspot, Goodale State Park, to within 3 birds of being tied with the Hotspot for species count for the current yr...it was 4th in past yrs.  So that's really cool.  I honestly believe I can take it to number 1. 


Red Eyed Vireo (taken with my old camera) at my hotspot Aug 23.



AND...
I decided not to keep the camera I just purchased, its on the way back...I decided I wanted better results and realized it was not coming... once I get refunded for that I will be looking again! I have my eye on a couple possibilities.


8/24 ...on the way to the post office this morning, and a Barred Owl (#118) glided across the road in front of my van...In the Radius! I stopped he had landed but he was in deep cover when I got out of the van and tried to relocate him he flew into even deeper cover, I've been finding feathers so I know one is active here. Then I stopped at my hotspot and finally; I've been waiting for these guys to arrive..




#119 the Wood Stork, 2 in total.   So this was a good day for me birdwise. 


SO that's a wrap up for my week.  Hope yours was a good one!

In honor of Judy a birding blogger who recently passed...

THE END:


the south end of the red eyed vireo

                                                                

                                                                         PEACE