Justa Bird Day

Well it's a full week since the Friday 13th that wasn't the 13th.  Anyways..we have been like everyone else just letting it be Spring already and WHAM! Frost/Freeze Gotcha Peas!  Nay I didn't plant my peas yet, hope my winter Garden makes it tho...

                                                              

So I made the trip back to Bear Island just to get over the wasted trip of before.  None of the rare birds were there as I figured they would not be but wth one has to try right?

A wind chill was in play today and it got strong at times, so most of the waterfowl were sitting in the far away side of the ponds.  Photos were a challenge, but I gave it a shot anyways.  

Large flocks of Northern shovelers were in the pond across from the Entrance.  A few of the Males are in breeding plumage...

Like I said pretty far away, this was my best zoom effort on this shoveler.  Across the road in Mary's Pond lots of American Avocets, a few days ago a Black Necked Stilt was here...not seen today.  Out of the wind there was a reflection.

This Killdeer was such a good bird he waited patiently for me to snap his photo.

On the tour drive there was blue winged and green winged teals...

Saw a lot of Tri Colored Herons, 

And Little Blue Heron

Fun to watch them fish, And also fun to watch and listen to the Boat tailed Grackles fly in and out of the trees, they make some remarkable sounds! 

In the trees the most numerous was the yellow-rumped warblers, they follow every single step you take, chipping at you all along the way! 

Look who's watching ...

This is a big one! I'd say he is 7 ft long? 

At reed level I saw a few of these little Savannah Sparrows, this one sat for a while.

My complete list is here

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Mattamuskeet NWR

I think it was writing about how I get sea sick that made me wake up Saturday morning at 06:30 with Vertigo!! OH boy everything was spinning...I dragged myself out of the motel, no way I wanted to pay for another day so up and out I went barely able to stand up straight..I headed East on 264 slowlyyyy from Wilson I didn't get far till I Had to stop.  I found Goose Creek State Park that sits on the northern shore of the Pamlico River ... the sign said sites 1 & 4 are open (small 13 site primitive campground)...so I parked in 4 got in my bed and fell instantly asleep.  Awoke 2 hrs later feeling much better! Got up stirred around had some lunch and then drove up to the Ranger station to pay...

Them..."Site 4 is reserved"

Me..."Sign says its open"

Them..."Oh it must have been reserved last night, and the Ranger didn't mark it as Reserved"

(the online reserve thing won't allow a reservation unless its 24 hrs in advance, so there is no way it could have been reserved the prior night it had to have been done 24 hrs ago) 

Me ..."so I will take #1 then"

Them..."sorry someone just came in and took #1"

Me..."So you got nothing"

Them..."we're sorry"

This reservation system, for me personally is a PIA--can't they keep at least half for walk ins? So its like this: if I screw up and don't reserve, Im screwed, If they screw up and don't mark it as reserved,  Im still screwed..either way Im screwed?

I was feeling too poorly to argue so I left.  Glad I took this photo of the campsite when I woke up... it was a pretty site...

site #4 Goose Creek CG

LOTS of red headed woodpeckers this one surprised me, not a great focus but look at the perfection of red, white, and black.  

red headed wood pecker

So getting sick sort of messed things up, I had to rearrange some plans, I ended up not going to Pungo Unit of Pocosin NWR, or Alligator NWR Must go back as Black bear and Red Wolf are in those refuges!!
Mattamuskeet NWR was not too far up the road, I thought I had a 45 min drive from the motel I was wrong!! I had mis-calculated and it took me an hour and 45 mins to get there from the motel, and counting the 2 hrs I stopped and slept, and all the other messing around I got there at 3 pm. Mattamuskeet is located on Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula in Hyde County, NC.  Mattamuskeet Lake is NC's largest lake and located in the NWR.  Hwy 94 divides the lake into 2 bodies of water.

On the Wildlife Drive, which is only a couple miles, it was windy! Some Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Glossy Ibis, White Ibis, Little Blue Heron, and Canada Goose,  all present  in the canals  and in the mud.

Great Egret

                                        snowy egret, little blue heron, glossy ibis, female grackle

Snowy Egret 

                                                                       Immature Whiter Ibis 

 Fosters Tern, Red Winged Blackbirds, Eastern Kingbird, lots of common and boat tailed Grackles, and Osprey, are a few more of the birds I saw and was able to catch a shot of...

                                                                             Foster's Tern  

                                                                      Red Winged Blackbird

                                                                               
                                                                               

                                                                               Osprey 

DEER 

The wind got worse so I headed north on 94 to find Pettigrew State Park and hope for a camp site! Found a note on the board, site #10 and 12 are open SO I took site 10...

                                                              more on that in next post!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Huntington Beach COLD last day!

Huntington Beach State Park, SC

This was the last day of my winter road trip, so like I said, depressing--One of my facebook friends said, "If travel was free Sondra would never come back" she is right!!   If only, but who knows what our futures hold I AM thankful for what I have every tangible and non tangible bit of life-experience home and away from home. 

The weather was bitter cold, and yukky grey.  Without the wind chill I would venture a guess of about 30ish-F with more like teens. Hardly the kind of day I would find much in the way of bird-life as they hunkered down pretty good.  I had on 2 coats, gloves, 2 hats, could barely move!!

This group of Snowy Egrets were having a hard time keeping those feather in shape!

 ...The ponds on each side of the causeway at Huntington Beach State Park were not filled with ducks as I had hoped.  The fog also made photos pretty blurry, auto focus loves to focus on water droplets.  The birds were hanging close to the Far Away Side I assume to get out of the wind more...I saw a small number of northern shovelers males and females, didn't get a decent shot of any thing I saw. 

and a large raft of Gadwalls Males n females too..

Normally I would hear rails, and see large numbers of wood storks poking around in the mud flats, and the marsh...a couple great egrets flew over low but landed closer to the trees also in Far Away range.  I did see Lesser Scaup male n female, 

And this Immature RedHead? The thin blue line is how I came to this conclusion...the one about 1/2" up from the tip of the beak.

Bufflehead 2 pairs, and Ruddy Ducks were present. 

  Hooded mergansers were out and about.  

I trekked down the boardwalk ...there were no surprises here some Double Created Cormorants.  

Noticed the water level was higher than normal this may account for the low bird count also...Maybe If I had waited till low tide... 

the wind was so cold look how miserable this tri color heron is with his crest feathers flying  back over his face...LoL poor thing..

Casey and I took a walk on the nearby beach and I saw one willet and 2 ruddy turnstones and one sanderling...that was it!! no photos of those guys.  Even gulls were not to be found.  

Casey is so light he threatened to blow away....This shot really shows the dreary day going on...

There was this really cool poster with the names of shells...I really would have liked to have one of these...little note said available in VC, but it was closed when I drove past I was out rather early.  

...before leaving  the beach access parking lot I set up my cook stove in the protected space created by opening the 2 back doors of the van and heated up some roasted tomato & basil soup and it was the best thing ever on my cold nose and hands and it put my cold induced hunger to sleep.  After doing the dishes and putting everything away I drove the 138 miles to home.

(Other birds seen but not mentioned or pictured were:

Northern cardinal, pine siskin, tufted titmouse, carolina chickadee, white throated sparrow, yellow rump warbler, pied billed grebes, northern mockingbird, brown thrasher, and american crow!) 

I had a great trip added 5 birds to my life list, saw my first
American crocodile, (in the wilds) enjoyed all the wonderful bromeliads, alligators, and the miles of saw grass, all the marvelous birds, put 9 new stamps in my Passport to the Parks Book, saw the smallest post office in the country, and met all sorts of nice people from all over the world, and added a new friend to my facebook!! Also enjoyed some ridiculous pelican and skimmer action, and watched some freaky tourists do some really silly things too!!  I enjoyed good weather in FL, 2 overnight rain storms and some partly cloudy days, a few skeeters,  but all in all perfect choice to go South!!

Since back at home I had to do the usual pick up the sticks that fall every single day in the yard, and I've been clearing out the woods on my land a bit trying to get rid of so much of the wild grape vine that has choked everything out...then I started back to work on the House!! Now I'm spending my evenings plotting my next adventure.

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

The Critters of the Big Cypress National Preserve

I keep saying my next post would be Big Cypress..and finally here it is..I feel that I saw so many great birds just getting here...that ultimately I wondered what would I see?

 If you have any critter problems you can call this guy...

Notice the first item on his bullet list...haha.  Im  a BIG FAN of the Walking Dead...its the perfect escape series for me.  Im  not afraid of ghosts or zombies...Spiders YES. 

It was late afternoon when we pulled into Monument Lakes Campground in Big Cypress National Preserve.  Its a nice CG with a pond and  resident white Ibis, and gators.  Here is our spot #T1 Its a non electric CG there is a bathroom no showers...

The mighty Casey is on guard...he is such a joy to have around! HE really loves to travel, he adapts to life on the road very well..We stayed here for 3 nights! 

Little Buddy.

I made sure to keep Casey away from the tall grass...when we had our dinner an entire cubby of Northern Bobwhite Quail came out of the grass to have dinner too!!

This white Ibis  mom has 2 immature chicks with her...

Our first night around 8 pm the wind picked up really fast and we had quite a down pour that lasted a couple hrs so we were pretty slow getting up the next morning...

Guess who broke her OWN cardinal rule of never leaving ANYTHING out overnight...I guess you can see the soggy puddle in the seat of my chair..

SO the short version of the story is this...I told the Camp Host I had reserved this same site again, so I would leave my wet chair and my wet steps and foot rug at the site to let it dry while I went exploring that day she said "fine no problem"...So off I went.  I got back about 4 pm...right away I saw no chair no steps and no rug!! GREAT So immediately I went over, she met me at the door..

"I guess you're looking for your chair and other things"? Ahhhyes...

SO it turns out that she was so late going around to hang the reserved plaques out the maintenance man came around thought this stuff was left behind and took it home with him!! Finders keepers?

So he showed up right before the sun set with my belongings and his apology...And my stuff was bone dry...the next day I was carrying my chair on the way to sit by the pond and relax for an hr and they teased me that I didn't have to carry my chair around to keep it from being stolen...lol

After breakfast I walked the Henry Sorter Boardwalk and saw some awesome bromeliad  getting ready to bloom..I really enjoyed seeing them up in the trees.  A Ranger told me they don't die after blooming, but the cultivated ones I've owned in the past did...so I dunno.

     

  

An Eastern Phoebe had a look at me...

A very still Green heron let me take his photo...

A very good look at his feathers...this is my fav of the Herons...and when he extends that neck its amazing!!

And this little Blue Heron is the runner up on my Favs List...

...some lovely Swamp Lillies

really stand out in this sea of green!  Lots of moss, lily pads, ferns, and bromeliads cover everything in the swamp...

 some of the birds I saw along the boardwalk...

A yellow rump warbler...

Snowy Egret

And then I did a drive on the H P Williams wildlife drive and later on after lunch I drove on the Monroe Station Drive...These are some of the birds and other critters I saw...

A very gangly Tri-Colored Heron

A common moorhen or gallinule...

A belted Kingfisher still for just a moment...

did you ever take a good look at an Anhinga's feet?  NO wonder they can swim so well...

They are really quite a striking bird with such rich colors in their feathers...

the Anhinga

And yet another Cold Blooded animal  for your enjoyment...

This looks like paradise lost.....

With all the recent rain there is water in places where it soon will be dry ...OH who do we have down on the right side?? 

Is she not the cutest? I read once somewhere the farther south you go the smaller the deer get...This little gal is pretty small compared to the white tailed deer we see in SC ..

A pretty tri color heron 

...wades belly deep.....while 

And my favorite Egret the Snowy with his Golden Slippers hunts on dry land...

This fox squirrel came out into the road begging for a handout...He sure was a beautiful color also saw a solid black one too...they are red, black and variations of both...

the swamp opens up to some very pretty streams in spots...

Back at the GC all was well and we had yet another night of torrential rains..it was cozy and warm in the DLEX and Casey and I slept like a couple of babies!! Our plan was to head to Shark Valley the next day and get there early to insure we get parking as the lot fills very fast.  

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.