Squirrel Sunday.....

"Hey!......Guess who won the World Series?????"

....."The St. Louis Cardinals!"    Yeah!

"And they LIKE squirrels.....they even let them run around during the games sometimes!

So........give me LOTS of FOOD......or I'm moving to St. Louis!

Floating on the currents......

When we left Blue Grass we took a different route then normal because we wanted to head to Booneville to the quilt store.  I'm glad we did....

I was watching for hawks on poles and finally spotted one.  Not sure what kind he is, but he was ready to take flight so we stopped to watch him.

Then we noticed a couple of Vultures circling overhead.....

......and a couple more joined them.....

....Soon there were dozens of them circling this area!  The currents were just right and they were really enjoying the ride.  They would swoop down low almost to the ground at times and then back up and around some more. 

The hawk decided to join in the fun!  What is it about these currents of wind that makes them all just want to float in the air with no purpose?  I guess if I could fly I would want to float around like that, but do birds think like that.....just floating for the fun of it?

The closest shot I got.  I'm not good at panning after flying objects and getting them in focus.

This one seemed hesitant to join in :-)

I got out of the car and climbed the ditch to look over the trees and see what was in the area where they were circling.  A large private lake with cows......

.......a vulture on the crossbars.....

.....vultures in the grass and Canada Geese in the lake.  I will remember this place and go down this road again, but of course I won't happen to find such a lot of activity each time :-)

Just a short video of the vultures riding the currents.

Heron stalking for fish in a pool of diamonds.....

We went to Blue Grass today to picnic and watch birds.  It was a really nice day out.  We need to enjoy the days while we still have nice weather! 

Just as we were leaving I saw this heron standing in a "pool of diamonds".

It was so pretty the way the light was shining on the water and he stalked forth to seek his fortune :-)

A few turtles nearby.

He did manage to find some fish among the "gems".

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I was busy over the weekend and am in a quilting frenzy at the moment, so I am way behind in all of your blogs!  Will catch up this week and hopefully get a few more things posted from today.

Red-bellied Woodpecker and Downy Woodpecker.....

Finally, I have some birds showing up at home!  I was pleased to see two of my woodpeckers working on the suet block on the big Ash tree.  I always enjoy watching them.

Mrs. Red-bellied with a sunflower seed she picked off the block.

I thought she looked nice with the reddish leaves behind her in the distance.

A little closer.

Working her way over to the block....

.....leaning in for a seed.....

.....good thing she has a long beak!

Finding a hole in the bark to stick it in so she can peck at it.

Hammering away.

Was that tiny bit worth all that effort?

The Downy stayed up high on the tree until the Red-bellied went away and then she backed her way down the tree to see what it was eating.

She prefers to get underneath the block and pick from there, since her beak isn't as long.

Nice to have some birds to post for a change!

The good, the bad, and the ......yucky!

Well, I have to say I saw things of interest this week.....just not always nice things.

The lone "manky" duck left at the wetlands was showing off a spotty look....must be molting.

I've never seen it with white mixed in the black and green feathers before.

A feather left behind.

Still a few small butterflies around.....a skipper of some sort.

A Pearl Crescent

A Buckeye

I enjoy the small flowers just for their own beauty without the butterflies :-)

While looking for turtles and such, I spotted this frog/toad? sitting quietly in the water.  It was his obvious shape that drew my eye to him down there in the water.

It was a fairly warm sunny day so many turtles were out.

We all know that I enjoy the turtles :-)

This little guy had his own log, but seems to be looking at the other turtles rather longingly.

Two that brought the duckweed out with them.

A couple of very clean ones. 

That all would be my "good" for the day.

This is one of the many skunks that visit our house daily.....usually in the dark of night, but this one was out early and I sneaked a few photos without getting too close.  They do make you nervous even though they seem very gentle!

One rainy night two showed up and one was our beautiful almost all white one!  I'm always amazed when I see this one.  It is really beautiful....even when wet.

The black skunk is with it on the left.....much harder to see. 

Those would be the "bad" part of my post....if you don't like skunks!

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DON'T GO FURTHER IF YOU DON'T LIKE INSECT VIOLENCE

The "yucky" part of this post

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It seems like once a year I stumble into some insect being violent to another.  One year it was a hornet attacking a spider, another year it was one dragonfly eating another (on my shirt no less) and this year it is a Praying Mantis eating a poor Monarch butterfly.  By the time I spotted them it was already too late for the butterfly if I had wanted to interfere.  I don't like stuff like this, but I guess the photographer in me and the naturalist still wants to see what is happening and take photos.  I thought it was interesting the way the mantis gripped the butterfly by the wings and held them while he systematically ate his way through the body.  Yuck........but I learned something about nature's "bug eat bug" world.

He didn't like me moving a piece of flower that was in the way, so he decided to take it away.  Sorry if this offends anyone, but I did warn you not to look.  I did spare you the close-ups.

Goose Pond left-overs.......

These are the last of my half-way decent Goose Pond shots.   They look better if you click to make them larger.  So many of them are very distant shots.

This Harrier was one of the last things we saw.  He was swooping up and down in the grasses and obviously hunting.  We had trouble keeping up with him, let alone getting any photos!  We thought it was a hawk or young eagle until we had the photos on the computer.  I can see the "white rump" and the way he flies with his head down.....very much a Harrier!

They are fun to watch, but I never get good photos.

Cormorants spreading their wings.  That duck in the foreground looks like a diving duck, but I never saw it dive.

A couple of the many distant herons standing in the shallow waters.

This one looked so dark in color....not like what I usually see.  But I don't see how it can be anything but a Great Blue Heron.  I think we were seeing both young and adults which accounted for the different colors.

One flying away in the distance.

Two.....one bigger, darker.

Surrounded by ducks.  I never identified the various ducks we saw.

Heron....ducks...

The ducks didn't all look like Mallards to me, but not obviously any kind.

...more ducks

Probably the clearest photo I got of any of the ducks.

Sitting in the weeds.

Heron fly away

This one had us puzzled.....I finally decided it must be a heron, but is it sitting or is it standing on the other side of that mound?  If it isn't a heron, than I have no idea what it is.

Egret and Heron together.

They like those mounds.....whatever they are.  This one walked right past the egret and climbed up on the mound.

Egret hunting fairly close to where I was.

Egret spreading its wings on landing.

Stalking egret.

I so rarely get a flying shot, I had to post these even though they aren't great.

Winging away.....I saw lots of things winging away from me :-)  They don't seem to like me very much.  I wish I lived close enough to go to Goose Pond every day.  It is a wonderful place and so much activity right now!