7 Ordinary days

Friday: 02.14.2020
I propped two very sweet valentine's cards that arrived in the mailbox up on the fireplace mantle...and I dug through the many cards I had saved from Mom thru the years, and I put one on the Fridge...because it reminds me of how much she loved me.  Do you keep cards given to you, and do you hope the ones you send are kept and cherished by someone you love? 

Saturday: 02.15.2020
I went back to the County Park, and found 2 Winter Wrens this time.  They both chattered back exactly to the playback from my phone...Since I didn't get a sweet look  before they disappeared into a thicket, I wanted to be sure it was Winter Wrens again...and it def was.  I got an exciting shot of the rosy blush of the Red Bellied Woodpecker against a wonderful rare blue sky.

The Water is receding but still quite high as the sign below can testify.  The new shoreline has no path along the edges so I hope the bank walk  will return. 

 

Amazing what you find, some sort of fish?  Catfish? Ancient Alien?

I hung out there a couple hours, then I drove to another park. I love fields where fence posts follow the road, some great birding can happen along those barbed wire perches! Today I found not one, but two Loggerhead Shrikes...the other was in a tree...a mating pair?

At the Lake Wateree State Park, there was also flooding, note the hiking trail...

You could bushwhack and get around it for the most part... This Great Blue Heron was finding his lunch there just off the trail on he may have been on the trail, I couldn't tell. 

No picnic today! This is the table we sat at on our last trip here. 

Sunday 02.16.2020:

I took part in the Big Backyard Bird Count.  It's a 15 minute quick look...So on Friday at 4 pm I had 19 species, on Saturday I had only 9 species at 8 am...then today it's raining again, so I watched from the porch at about noon...I got 13 species.   So I learned something; my feeders and yard attract more birds in the afternoon..

Spent the rest of the rain day organizing some of the Mom photos that I did not have in albums but were stored in bins...listened to my Seals and Croft LP's, watched cooking shows on TV, read your blogs, and worked on this post. The Pine Warblers are warbling loudly from under the Dogwood by the window in between rain showers, and I saw one American Crow carrying nesting material! Life continues.

Monday 02.17.2020,
It was a blue bird day as we say.  The sky was as blue as, you guessed it, the blue bird.  I hung around the homestead and worked on a project...My found item deck chairs needed a new coat of paint so I scraped and painted.  I got 2 of the 3 pieces done..and I used the left over paint from Mom's Ramp. A squirrel has already taken a few bites of the chair! I had to remove the cushions after they destroyed one. Somewhere there is nest full of polyester fiber!

Tuesday: 2.18.2020
Gloomy! Awoke to grey bleak skies, answered email and was reminded of waking up on Saturdays as a child.  That meant the day started with cartoons, and always a day outside playing and wandering. Days like that gave me butterflies.  When was the last time anything gave you butterflies? 

Wednesday: 02.19.2020
More gloom and rain! UGH>I had to run into town for bird seed! I got some onion sets for my garden pots, and checked out my already coming up Black Seeded Lettuce, and Spinach.  Birds are happy! I am keeping these pots covered so the Squirrels won't get my baby greens.  

Thursday: 02.20.2020
Wow...lots of 2's.  In 202 years plus 2 days it will be 02.22.2222 None of us will be here for that...:o/  More rain! Im getting cabin fever, and we may get a wintry mix around 9 pm, it won't accumulate here they say but it could be icy overnight on the roads. Rain Rain Go Away...The SC roads workers have 9 tons of salt..trust me they don't know how to use it, once they salted a road near us and they put it down so heavy it disintegrated the tarmac and it became a gravel/dirt road again!  They repaved, but what a waste. 

 a few camellia blossoms fell off in the heavy rain

Friday 02.21.2020

Finally a sunny but very cold day!  I went to visit Mom...and now it's all final the date she arrived on Earth and the day she skipped outta here and Arrived someplace else...I hope there's trees and birds there...and she gets butterflies every single day. 

Please take a moment to check out the new Etsy link on my right side bar especially if you're into sewing in any way, the Fabric Corner Store, fabric is $1 per yd!!  There is some finished items as well. (....pssst it's family owned) 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Water Water

We just had a gully washer, like 4 inches of rain in 12 hrs.  I was in the middle of trying to do yet another repair to my van.  I had to quickly slam the hood and let it go for the day  but I used the opportunity to run to town and get some parts I need to make this repair.  Good thing my windshield wipers are working good! Did I tell you about the time I was driving in heavy rain and my wiper flew off the car and into the woods?  LoL..that was way back in the 80's but I will never forget that.  Just when you need them Wham gone!


I had to get waterproof boots...

SO the rain stopped and the wind started 40-60 miles per hr for an entire day! A tree nearly hit my mailbox, the trunk missed but the limbs were all around it so I spent the morning sawing it up.  Then the battery died in my chainsaw so I will try to finish it up tomorrow.  It will go to the wood pile.  

One day later this entire park is underwater from the rain upstream 

The new norm...puddles and mud everywhere.  This is the new County River Park.  I put it on the ebird as a hotspot...and now the two other regular county birders are listing from there!  I snagged up 31 species there the other day myself.  

Black berry bushes are already leafing out...briers ready to defend, I notice the Eastern Towhees love to hang out under black berry brambles.  

                                                                red headed woodpecker

And the park staff finally fixed up the new boat location over at the State Park!  NO more wading in mud to get to the boats. 

I plan to rent one and paddle that Canoe Trail this year.  Tried twice last yr and nothing doing as you recall...

So As mentioned above, a day after the rain flooding started...our river the Wateree was 4 ft over flood stage!  I went to one of the spots I like to go called Bucks Creek  Landing, there is a Spillway dam there and GUSH it did!

This structure is normally 8 feet from the bank 

There is an Electric Generating Station at his location...

Normally no water comes over this dam...but the day I was there it was thundering over..

This guard rail of the fishing pier is 4 ft off the ground normally today a Double Crested Cormorant is enjoying having no fishermen in the way...

ebird didn't like it when I said there was 100 Great Egrets but there was...I changed to an X just cause I could not photograph all 100 they were all over the place flying, perching, stabbing at the edge, competing with ring billed gulls for the little "shiners" that slide over the dam with that flood water.  

That was last Sunday ....So I went back on Valentine's Friday to see...

Compare this shot to the one of the Cormorant standing on the fishing pier...above  You can see just how much the water has gone down yet there is still a huge amount thundering over the dam..which normally has no water coming over. 

Still many Great Egrets around I counted 28 just standing around...

As well as many perching birds...like this Carolina Wren..

Ring Billed Gull continue to pick up lots of Shiners...

The other park that was under 4 ft of water is drying out and was reopened.  All the picnic tables and the trash cans are gone probably downstream somewhere...and new Porta Potty's were in place.  I should have taken a photo of the new potty...but I did take this, the trail is in pretty rough shape...big drifts of debris cover it up in some areas.

And the trail Bridge has shifted about 6 ft to the right...and is unsafe to use in it's current condition. 

I found a Wren, not a Carolina, nor a House, so Winter Wren was my best guess that didn't fall into the rare category so I went with that...

That's how I spent my week and then Valentine's Day
it was SUNNY and Beautiful what a Gift!

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Rain Maker!

This was the fastest September of all! WHAT? it's hot again? Dang we had this short little fall it lasted about 4 days then humid n hot like Summer again...LOL During that short reprieve I was able to paint that metal chair I found and if you wanna see how I did here is a You Tube of that important event..haha!

The birding has been very slow this month..One new bird in my radius birding patch since the Spotted Sandpiper at the beginning of Sept.  So adding 2 is all for this whole month.  I'll save that for the end of this post...We have some activity with our regular birds...

wood duck drake

And this is a heavy crop of a Pileated Woodpecker gliding through the air...how aerodynamic is that?

It's been SO dry when I put the sprinkler on an area of the yard the birds came to take showers

The Northern Mockingbird spread his wings and tail feathers in appreciation of the cool water...

This young Northern Parula looked 3 times normal size all fluffed up and getting as much water as possible, it even tried to catch some drops in an open mouth...

The Eastern Bluebird got in on the action as well...

.     .     .

Today I made my way over to the new park that recently opened up in our county.  I have entered it to ebird and made it into a hotspot..So far I'm the only one birding there.  

It is a riverside county park, and there is this little creek that empties into the river here...birds are active along the banks of this creek.  The only problem is fishermen...and hopefully they will lose interest it's a sloped bank and lots of timber down in this creek...

See what I mean...and it can't be too much fun trying to stand there for a long period and getting your line tangled up so I'm hopeful that they will give up...3 showed up while I was there but they left without fishing! :o)  

Today it was kinda of birdy! A few Early Migrants were around fattening up for the trip.  I got the worst photos I've gotten in longggg time of a Lifer there today!  At least I turned it into one.... a Northern Waterthrush not rare so I doubt it will be reviewed  I see the streaking  all the way up the throat...and the beak is not big...hope it sticks at first I thought I had a Louisiana but when comparing the two I called it Northern. I had other bad photos of it too and those helped me with my conclusion. 

I know fuzzy...

An American Redstart (f) very busy around the mud along the bank...quick as lightening and so acrobatic!  

  

Also had Gray Catbird, Northern Parula, Hairy Woodpecker, and this
warbler sp?

Pink legs, long stout beak, olive/greenish coloring with darker fine streaks on the lower wing , I think I see an eye ring but not sure and the tail seems long for a Connecticut. Ideas?

 

This Eastern Wood Pewee was still for a photo...I think this will be a good spot for Warblers, not in my radius tho.

Tons of Pine Warblers are around..and do you know how many warbler females look a lot like Pine Warblers?  Way more than you can imagine!

check out this cool V formation, you know Geese are not the only species that use this method of travel insurance...

47 Double Crested Cormorants.  

at my hotspot Goodale Park

So I got my 2nd September 5 mile Radius bird complements of an ebird reviewer...I saw what I thought was a Hermit Thrush...I've seen many of them at my Hotspot Goodale Park,  and had one already this year in late spring...and I didn't even give it a thought when I put it in as rare figured it arrived early...But the reviewer said "the eye ring looks buffy more like Swainson's Thrush..Fine by me, caChing! #121

October already?? Wow. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.