3.2 Billion birds have been lost since 1970, 30% of the bird population in North America gone! Sparrows, warblers, blackbirds, hit the hardest. Cats kill 2.6 billion a year!! Habitat loss and development is the main problem according to the study. How depressing...we can each do our best to keep our lands/yards as wild and bird friendly as possible. We are their only hope. Ordinary citizens making good choices and spending their money with companies that are environmentally friendly is the best solution we have to do what our leaders won't...Green spaces MUST be encouraged, and more citizen ownership of special lands needs to happen! Our Government can't be trusted.
early morning in Mother Nature
I can't recall a more trying week...you ever get the feeling every rock you turn over has an ogre under it? That's been my experience lately. All I can hear in my head is NO NO NO...I must turn this around to YES YES YES.
This is an American Chestnut tree! The only ones I know of around here! And the nut is inside this very spiny hull.
I think this is a yellow bellied pond slider....he was one of the few that didn't dive for cover as we drove by him at the refuge on Friday!
The mist was back at the lake when I checked it this morning...very eerie looking, this photo although it's kind of a cool photo alarmed me a bit that piece of fishing line in the tree was out of my reach I do have a plan to try and get it down tho...because this is a man made hazard for birds!
Notice how a spider used parts of it to support his web. I couldn't reach it without falling in the water. But I will bring a long pole with me and get it down.
the early morning mist really adds some drama
And the golds of the wildflowers add drama to the ordinary roadside...
And what would we do without Goldenrod?
I got another stamp in my State Parks book when we visited Little Pee Dee State park in Dillon County. I really enjoyed this park and want to go back. In 2016 there was a lot of flooding in our state, And the dam of this lake broke...and this year they reopened the lake after rebuilding the dam...
There is a campground and I forgot to take photos of the campground! Some nice sites right by the lake, looked awesome i can see myself enjoying that. We had a refreshing picnic break, it was humid the day we were there that has changed since then we think the humidity is gone, it will be back on Thanksgiving day always is hot and muggy on Thanksgiving.
looks like a rebuild of the fishing pier too... we had a Solitary Sandpiper down by the spillway area with some Killdeer. A lifer for Sis...
It threw me because it seemed so much smaller than I normally see them!
And the Green Heron was also playing on the rocks...
The Immature Little Blue Heron with his greenish legs
we added up 7 Little Blue Herons around the lake...
We had Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and Kingfisher on the lake too...
A really curious Summer Tanager female in the trees came to see what all the fuss was about when we phished at a Black n White Warbler. The Warbler was not still for a photo,,,,so we kept trying to phish him into submission and we also drew the attention of the Yellow-Throated Vireo a lifer for my sis! And the first time I got a photo of one!
What an awesome bird!
There is even petrified wood here!
And at least one woodsy rental cabin, pretty cute looking too...
There's trails to hike, the lake to enjoy, a campground, picnic areas, and they will resume boat rentals when some of the vegetation dies off that crowded into the lake when the dam was broken...
im Little Blue Heron
Cloudless Sulphurs
We do want to visit this park again! It's about 80 miles Northeast of us, and worth the trip! Summer is Over!
PEACE
Every day is a new Adventure.
