Some Recent Bird Sightings!

This is a female Hooded Merganser who was with her mate down at Carolina Beach Lake.

This is her male counterpart.  They were quite a distance away.

There were several Kildeer in a small island in by the side of the lake.

A beautiful Snowy Egret!

I went over to Greenfield Lake one day last week as there was supposed to be a Wood Stork hanging out.  I didn't see him but saw a large flock of Great Egrets  It was late in the afternoon so they were really beautiful against their backgrounds.

 

Here is one sitting in the water.

There were also several Pied Billed Grebes as well as an Osprey (I didn't get a good picture of him as he was too far away).

Last but not least is an Eastern Phoebe who was sitting in a tree at my daughter's house.  Before I blew up the picture at home, I thought it was a Yellow Rumped Warbler.  

Birds have been much more scarce this year than other years as there always seems to be people walking around in my favorite sites.  Hard to believe, but there hasn't even been the usual flock of Laughing Gulls that I have always taken for granted.  Covid has increased the population down here on the island substantially this year.  

 

Greenfield Lake Ducks, Sky, Beach and Jacket Progress

Greenfield Lake is beginning to look like fall and I loved the picture of the Cypress trees knee deep in the alligator filled water!

This Great Blue Heron took off while I was watching from his hiding place in among the Cypress.

It was just beautiful there at Greenfield Lake Park with many trees taking on their bright colors.

My second favorite duck -- Northern Shoveler - was there in abundance.  Both males and females but they wouldn't let me get anywhere near them!  There were places where the trees were filled with Great Egrets.   Cormorants and Anhingas were  also there in great numbers.  I spotted a couple of Pied Billed Grebes as well.  I have been seeing them lately at Carolina Beach Lake as well.  I had to use my little camera with the 35x zoom to even see these birds, they were so far away!

A couple of the females -- I love their big bills!!

Couldn't resist taking a bunch of pictures of this almost full moon last week.

This is a "sun dog" caused by ice crystals.  It is a rainbow completely surrounding the sun.  The colors are more muted than a regular rainbow but the red is closest to the sun.  They occur on our chilly days.  I have only seen these down here.

There was a preponderance of Moon Jellyfish on the beach.  They have these four bright pink circular things in the middle which are gonads!  Shows what a jellyfish thinks is important!!  No circulatory system or digestive system is present!!

I am slowly but surely making progress on the jacket pictured previously.  Each of these strip sets is just 3 inches wide and  this picture shows the four strip sets contained in the jacket with the darker two being the more prominent ones.  I was shocked to learn that the jacket pattern was done by a woman who just taught a class at my home GVQC guild in Rochester!  I had seen the jacket just because someone had "liked" the site in FB.  Sorry, I missed the class now!

I cut two squares (3 inches by 3 inches) from each of the strips and placed them together to see how they look.  I think this will be okay!

One thing that wasn't suggested in the pattern but which is downright critical with this is the checking of your 1/4 mark on your foot or sewing machine!!!  I did a test and found that my 1/4 mark on my machine resulted in 2 3/4 inch wide strips.  I quickly placed down some tape at what I measured as 1/4 inch and tested again.  Perfect!!!  Both Sharon Craig and Jan Krentz emphasize this checking in their classes.  Even a slight variation when multiplied by four or five can mean disaster!

Some Miscellaneous Birds and Butterflies

Your standard garden variety Monarch but I thought particularly nice sitting on the Painted Daisy down at Ft. Fisher.

Like the above, a nice Gulf Fritillary which I have seen quite a few of lately.  This must be the north end of its range.

The Northern Mockingbirds may be the Florida state bird, but they are everywhere here.  This one wanted to pose for me.

A Semi-Palmated Plover that I saw on the mud flats by the USS North Carolina which we toured (more tomorrow).  Oops, my sister tells me I mis-identified -- it is a kildeer -- should have known!!

A particularly nice looking Great Egret from the USS North Carolina on the Cape Fear River.

Not a great picture, but with another one, enough to identify a beautiful Red Tailed Hawk being chased by a crow.  Hard to get this picture.

This was a oyster boat returning and he had a lot of friends following him!  This was taken on the Cape Fear River at Carolina Beach State Park.

Last but not least, I loved this image of the Great Egret against the background of Downtown Wilmington -- what a city of contrasts.

Duck Soup....

Got a big kick out of all the ducks hanging out together giving you a good view of all the mallard and black duck varieties -- left to right, Pekin (domestic white) duck, female mallard, an Indian running duck (domestic non-flying duck), an American Black Duck, a White Crested (domestic) duck and then a male mallard.  A few minutes later, an American Coot swam by as well.

These are the first of the American Coots on the scene!  There were three altogether today but in another couple of months there will be a huge flock on the lake.  You could tell the lake was being pumped out again.  It is either because of the algae bloom or a fear that the tropical system heading our way will cause flooding here again.

These were really far away but I think they are White Winged Scoters from the white patches on their face but I could be wrong here.

I think this is a female Blue Winged Teal but could be very wrong here.  In another picture, there is a distinctive light blue wing patch.  Hopefully I will get pictures closer as time goes on.  Let me know if I am really off base here!


There was one other duck which I think might be a Lesser Scaup from the shape of the head (and the fact I have seen lots of those here).  Last winter, I think I saw almost every domestic duck native to the area, even some of the more  unusual ones.

Yellowbelly Sliders and Pied-Billed Grebes

Carolina Beach Lake just never disappoints me!  Each day I go down for my walk, there are different things to observe even though I am always sure there will be nothing!  Today was another beautiful day down here and as the weather is supposed to deteriorate tomorrow,  went for my walk a little earlier than usual.  I was very surprised to see these two Pied-Billed Grebes swimming and diving on the south side of the lake.  It's like the birds all know to have a different species each day and hopefully as winter comes closer, there will be more resident birds like the Coots.

Looking over to where the Great Egret was the other day, I thought I spotted some rather large turtles but they were pretty distant.  Sure enough, looks like there are three here, each at least a foot long if not longer so among the largest of their species.  I am assuming that these are the same kind that are in the following picture -- the Yellowbelly Slider which is not particular about its habitat!  

Still more turtles on one of the side ponds at Carolina Beach Lake.  You can see the yellow belly and the stripes on the neck.  As I got a little closer, they headed for the water!

This is another shot of the two grebes (yes, I am getting desperate!).

Yesterday, I walked down to my "secret beach" which clearly has seen the effects of Hurricane Irene and some of the other tropical systems that have dumped on us.  The steps down to the sand have been replaced -- there used to be about 3 steps which would sometimes be covered by sand -- now there are at least nine steps and you can see that the condos down there are really exposed.  I still love the exposed sandstone beach though and can't wait for the winter waterfowl to come and dig in the seaweed covered sandstone.

This is a closeup of the seaweed which looks like wonderful soft grass.


Later this week, I will continue my quest for Colin Firth.  Thanks to some industrious digging, I know where he might possibly be filming on Wednesday and Thursday  -- I know they are filming in these locations, just don't know whether Colin Firth is in these scenes. Now my old challenge motivation is kicking in!
(When working, bosses learned that if they framed a task as a challenge, I would get pretty persistent and almost always succeed despite the obstacles that were thrown in front of me.)

White Crested Duck - Huh?

Yes, it actually is a different kind of domestic duck although this one was in the wild.  I had seen him the other day but thought it was an immature white (or Pekin) duck but seems it is a separate duck originally bred in Great Britain or Holland but found with different breeders here in the US.  So ta da, the White Crested Duck!  You will note one of the interbreeds behind him -- a white and brown colored duck.  All of the domestic ducks originated from the common mallard so  you see them together often and they interbreed frequently.

Over in one of the swampy areas at Carolina Beach Lake, a Great Egret was feasting on dragonflies I suspect as well as some small fish.

If  you look closely, you can see the lump in his neck, which is some recently swallowed critter -- pretty good sized.

This is the first time I have seen the fountains up and running at Carolina Beach Lake.  It was a gorgeous day and very very comfortable for walking.  While I was there, I checked out the two motels where Colin Firth will supposedly be filming (I hope) in a couple of weeks -- an easy walk from the lake.

Carolina Beach Lake

Well, the weather finally cleared after many many days of clouds and rain so it was time to take a walk.  Last year I walked in the afternoons down at the fresh water lake in Carolina Beach which had been drained.  For a month I saw a spectacular array of birds (January).  Having driven by several times, I hadn't seen any birds but I took my camera anyway and was pleasantly surprised!  Even though a little warm still, it was nice to see the sunshine!


This was a tricolored heron which was fishing on the south side of the lake.  I have seen this species before down here.  They are about halfway between the Great Blue and the Little Blue in size and more colorful (orange on the neck and lots of spots on the chest).

This was an American Black Duck which was frolicking with the white domestic ducks (Pekin) and the mallards.  They share a range with the mallards and do interbreed with them as do the domestic ducks. You do get some very odd combinations of feathers with this interbreeding.  This swimming was taking place in a large puddle rather than the lake.  This lake has a habit of overflowing anytime there is a lot of rain (which there has been this last week) and the pumps were going like crazy to take down the lake level.

You can see the beautiful day here.  The lake is really quite small but it has a nice paved walk and is home to many different kinds of  fresh and salt water birds in the winter.

I loved the reflection of the reeds in the water.


Tomorrow is my 4 hour nature tour of the Black River.  Hopefully the weather will hold and I will get some nice pictures!


I have managed to finish two (7 to go) of the quilts I brought down to machine quilt and so the king sized bed will be prepared for winter!  I am working on one of the "One Block Wonders" now -- I have four to finish.  I am freehand quilting around each of the motifs within the hexagon on this quilt -- looking okay so far!

Just another view of the tricolor heron.  He allowed me to get pretty close!

Random Ducks....

It was a really bright sunny afternoon last week when I headed up to the outlet again to see what the melting ice had revealed. As it turned out, the backgrounds on the pictures were really nicer than the ducks IMHO!

Here is a scaup and a female Common Merganser. There were quite a few Common Mergansers that day which was unusual.


I took this one for my sister who hadn't seen the Redheads -- there were again lots and lots of these mixed in with the Scaups.

This was a female Goldeneye. The male was there last week.

A closeup of the female Common Merganser. I love the blue skies reflecting off the water and so clear you can see her orange feet.

Again, the female Goldeneye