Ground hog month

He saw his shadow so 6 more weeks of winter....On sunny days so I try to get out there and enjoy it...went to the Environmental Park, better known to me as Bramblewood, and the river is out of it's banks again...

the last 5 steps are a little bit  tricky

On the way out I stopped at the Sports Complex and something was enticing these Black Vultures in...

One day the weather man got it wrong, and I headed out thinking it would clear off it didn't saw some Turkey in a field...haven't been seeing any so this was good.  

On Wednesday it was very windy and cold but I went to my favorite spot to check for sparrows.  Found a few too,,,

Sweet Chipping Sparrows, saw at least 100 they really challenged me to check thru them looking for the Tree Sparrow...didn't see any but the chippy's are just so cute, 

NO disappointment there, and one of my favs is the Field Sparrow with his perfect white eye ring.  

Still a lot of Song Sparrow around too,,,

Sparrows used to drive me crazy, now I consider it a welcome challenge to look for those subtle differences, it's like trying to figure out Identical twins sort of,,,

And this is the Pine Warbler who was fantastic out in the sun, 

Im using Facebook to host my photos, it is working; so far so good.. 

Then on our last partly sunny turning cloudy day I went to a spot by the Wateree Lake Dam..  This place is so abused by bank fishermen leaving trash it's horrible. 

I picked up this and 3 times more of it, discarded fishing line, nets, it's such a killer of wildlife, 

LOTS of Common Grackle and RedWinged Blackbird around,,

And at least 500 Ring Billed Gulls downstream...

Couldn't get any closer, so I concentrated on what I could see...the Eastern Towhee, also a Sparrow

And this lovely little White Throated Sparrow,,,

Perfect in every way,,,and the female Cardinal with her beautiful orangey blush

Some Sandhill Crane were spotted not far away I double dipped on them,..and now the field is being plowed so that's that.   

I decided to give the Riverside Park a visit, it's dried out some there but the water level is high there too.  This place is upstream of Bramblewood...

They replaced the bridge that moved off it's foundation during a flood in 2019.  

There was a small landslide due to all the rain and parts of the riverside walking trail was lost but some parts they have been opened up again...

Got my FOY  Redheaded Woodpecker, brings to mind the song..."raspberry beret" 

A large flock of Killdeer swooshed overhead me a couple times, they eventually landed in the farm field on the other side of the river. 

On the way home I stopped at the Racetrack to check the pond, it has a lot of water, but the landscape crew has cut most of the bird cover away so that affects things...did see a Redtail taking a look around...

 

 

And that's it for me this week...hope you had an interesting week,..

Happy Birthday to my son, now 40 yrs old. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

No Clics here....

My passport arrived last week, I'm happy the State Department didn't find any reason to deny me, I did get a little worried as the application asks for your past spouse's birth date and I realized I put the wrong year down for my X--anyways it doesn't matter,,,it's good for 10 years! I will definitely renew it next time and not let it expire...we won't discuss what my age will be then~

We have had some wonderful weather--on at least one occasion.... mixed in with some not so wonderful weather!  OH so perfect what we call a Blue Bird Day! But not every day has been that way.... the other day when I went out I stopped at the Wateree River to check the cliff swallow nests, and there was not one bird there!! All the nests were empty.  They raised em up fast! A few were flying around picking bugs out of thin air but no body in the nests.  The sky sure was threatening..and the river was full almost flood stage.

Soon after I snapped this the sky opened up with a deluge!! So I'm at Lowe's again typing in my van in the pouring rain!! It has rained at least 4 inches while I've been sitting here....wondering if I will actually get to go inside or not!!  Imagine a pipeline of this rain going to Africa or CA...I just don't get it...

So far it's rained every day since Saturday the last nice day and the day I had intended hiking on the Palmetto Trail ....but didn't happen, maybe more on that topic in another post..  On one of the "going to rain any minute" days I went up to Lake Wateree, it's upstream of this river location not much was happening but a few things caught my eye...like this Eastern Kingbird he followed me around for a while.

I could barely see an Osprey nest on this island....pretty far away with my binoculars...

this is a zoom of the nest, it's a bit grainy...

see osprey on nest and the other on the left side of photo

I wished for a kayak to paddle out of course they would have flown away...A couple of geese had their youngsters up near the volley ball court 

I didnt even notice the young in the water till I saw this photo on my comp screen, 3 of them.

There is this really old and really big prickly pear cactus near the boat parking area and it was blooming I've been wanting to break a piece off and get one of these giants started in my yard...

and next to a mail box for comparison 

This northern mockingbird had a meal waiting...bird version of take out I guess..

Some Mallard on the dock...

A killdeer was showing me her tail feathers, very impressed!

she may have eggs in the grass so I didn't bother her...

back at the homestead after 10 yrs waiting...my old fashioned pear has 5 pears on it...they are up so high will I be able to pick them?  At least it finally got tall enough so the deer can not eat them! 

and since we're on the subject of homesteading..


I finally got around to that window! Okay here is the result...I like it all the light comes in but you don't look right out and see the ceiling fan of the porch!

a closer look at the window film....

Originally I purchased one that is like a stained glass with dogwood flowers etc...but that was way too busy 

I got my 33 LP's back in the old record stand this one was purchased by us way back in 1964! It came in a box and at age 11 I put it together!!  It's still standing strong..

Other areas where I'm working are in the master bedroom...trying to arrange all the furniture to see if I can keep everything I want to keep...remember this big oversized "coffee table", it was way too big for the living room so it will become a window seat!  One of these fabrics will be the cover!

My battery is running low and the rain has slacked so off I go inside to get a can of white spray paint! Hope you are having a good day with rain if you need it and without if you don't!!

PEACE

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

Images of Summer!

Not much going on in DixxeLand these days just hot sultry weather! Im looking forward to Labor Day.  I stopped by the river bridge to see how the cliff swallows are doing...BY the numbers of the mud nests the colony is growing!!

                                                             the Wateree River

Most of the nests are nearly empty already, I found a few birds sitting out in the shade of the bridge supports resting..

                         On the far side of the river snowy egrets fished the shallows...

                    

Back on the bank these little butterflies in the sand...

I left the river and on my way home I stopped at Goodale Park, to see what's going on around the lake there...

and every time Im at Goodale I check on  the pitcher plants, there's two large clumps growing in the front edge of the lake... these are some of my favorite plants..

    

                   

... at the back of the lake some egrets fished far off, and  this one redheaded woodpecker flew around checking out the snags in the water...

                       

and not too far from shore this  anhinga made the perfect garnish for this flat topped cyprus...

Summer 2012 will soon be a fading memory,before you know it we will know if the Myans had a clue about beginnings and endings!!

PEACE