This and that.....

I haven't had much to post and we are having a lot of gloomy weather that makes for poor photos.  Our tree color right now is excellent, but no sunshine to make them look beautiful.

 A few of the home birds.....male Cardinal above and female below.

 The neighbor's pine tree loaded with cones.

 My little dogwood turning very pretty.

I have lots of Goldfinches at the moment.  More than any other bird. 

 One of my "pumpkin carvers".  

Mike saw an idea on-line:  Take a pumpkin, drill holes where the eyes and mouth should be, fill them with peanut butter and let the squirrels and birds do the "carving" for you.  We decided to try it.  Something got hold of the pumpkin and ate a big chunk out of the top right away.  Then others have slowly whittled away at it.  I am now putting bird seed in the top and letting them all eat and pick at it.

 The Mockingbird guarding the pear tree out back.

The White Breasted Nuthatch.  I really have not had a lot of birds all summer.  I saw a small hawk land on the rail the other day and take off before I could get the camera.  I think he has something to do with my lack of birds. 

 The neighbor's trees across the pond.

Carolina Wren trying some suet.

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I am desperate enough to post some photos of a very gloomy, rainy trip over to Henderson, where the migratory ducks and geese come every year.  We wanted to see if the birds were arriving there yet.  It was a horrible day and got worse as we arrived.  I could not get any really good shots because of the mist and fog and because I am not that good of a photographer to know how to defeat the conditions.  And the birds were quite distant, as you will see in a couple of the photos.  

 These shots just show the conditions.  The top one is of the mixture of ducks that were in the field already.  A good size gathering already coming in and staying.

In the opposite field, there was a large gathering of White-fronted Geese.

 These were the best shots I could salvage from what I took.  Mostly Mallards, but I can see one Pintail in the middle and in other shots I could see Shovelers and some others that were not Mallards, but too poor to identify.

 The Greater White-fronted Geese

 In one field there were three of the Wilson's Snipes.

One last geese and ducks shot.  Notice the one Snow Goose in the middle of the geese.  Soon there will be 1000's of the Snow Geese here....can't wait!

I was hoping to go back today, but once again it is gloomy and no sunshine.  Maybe tomorrow.

Top of the Audubon museum.

 My sister was visiting that week, so on the way back home we stopped at the Audubon Museum at Audubon State Park.  A very nice place to learn all about John J Audubon, who once lived and painted birds in this area.

 The museum itself is a beautiful building.  Mike walking up to it in the rain.

 Huge fungi at the foot of a tree.

There is a nature viewing area, too and I saw this Woodchuck waiting to sneak up to the building and the feeding area.  Love those feet.....made for digging!  Taking photos through glass on a rainy day....not so good.

If we ever get any sunshine, I hope to get out for many more photos!

Local wood carving show....

I really haven't dropped off the face of the earth, but October was a busy month full of things that had us running in many directions.  I've had out-of-town company, we've had health problems with Mike's parents requiring a lot of running around, a sick cat, and just life in general getting in the way of photography.  

I did manage to go to a local Wood Carver show while my sister was visiting.  

(I apologize for the clutter around these.....it was hard to single out the carving from the other stuff on the tables)

 The bird carvings were my favorites, of course!  Here is a selection of the ones I liked.  The owls were outstanding and this one won an award.

 An award winning duck.

 The details of each bird are amazing and a carefully created background is part of each carving.

 I believe the carver of these is Joel Slaton.  Beautiful work.

 This carver had a nice display of the steps in carving a bird.   Ken Alvey is the carver of these and many of the birds I liked best.

 The details of the feathers is really wonderful.

 I really liked this pair of owls.

There were plenty of things besides birds, and I may do another post with some of the other stuff.

Great show!