skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Just Grandpa and granddaughter Amelia making chocolate chip cookies!!
I have pictured this one before but now it is completely done except for the sleeve. It is about 18 x 24 inches -- the smallest of my bird quilts. I always loved this picture of a Little Green Heron.
This is a Tri-colored Heron and it is about 24 x 30.
This is a Great Egret and the biggest of the quilts at about 30 x 40. I did less quilting in this one than the other two although the bird itself is pretty heavily textured. The little puffiness in the rocks gives it more depth and I am very happy with this one.
All in all, I really like the artiness of my pieced birds better than taking the straight pictures and quilting them although it was a fun experiment and certainly will make it easier to cut into some of my favorite mandalas and dyed and marbled fabrics as I can make copies of them!
This is our formerly all black cat Cheney! Last year he started turning gray on all but his head, tail and paws. We think he might be a Black Smoke Cat but don't know. He seems very healthy besides this strange color alteration. Luckily he loves to be brushed so his coat really looks pretty most of the time!
Last week this storm blew in and it looked like the end of the world but it only produced some rain -- it really did look a lot more threatening!
No blog would be complete without a couple of bird pictures. I try to get to one or two areas to see birds every day. On a rainy day a couple of days ago, this pretty Great Blue Heron was standing on the dock in the rain!
I was driving back from one of my usual haunts yesterday when I spotted a bird landing on a telephone pole. I backed up and got some pictures thinking it was a Red-shouldered Hawk. Turns out it was a Cooper's Hawk when I looked at the pictures on my computer! His head and wing feathers were just too dark. You can see there is no rain here now!!
I call that color blue "Carolina Blue". I am so lucky to have all this natural beauty surrounding me down here in North Carolina!
I have finished all the machine quilting and am now doing the binding on another of the quilts I made this summer (the penguin batik one). It will go to my daughter as a lap robe as she loves penguins and I had bought the panel with her in mind many many years ago! Pictures to follow as soon as I get it all bound!
Christmas sewing now although the weather continues to be so beautiful, it is hard to stay inside!
I have missed quite a few days of blogs as I managed to break the cord on my laptop and it is a pain to do blogs from my netbook or tablet. I have taken a lot of bird pictures though. the weather has been, for the most part, gorgeous and there have been several days of wonderful sunsets. This is one of the evenings looking through the Live Oaks at Ft. Fisher.
A couple of one of my favorites -- the Oystercatchers. They have finally returned and I see several of them at low tide. I have far too many pictures of them!!
Another bird that returned around Thanksgiving was the Marbled Godwit. One day there were a dozen of them down at the basin at Ft. Fisher. I love their long pink and brown beaks.
Here they are on a different day.
A Tri-colored heron has been down there frequently.
This is a Ruddy Turnstone which has been frequenting the dock for some reason. Usually you see them digging in the coquina shell beach.
This is a Horned Grebe and they have returned and I am seeing two or three when there are no boats at the dock.
This is the first Red-breasted Merganser I have seen down there.
I also headed over to the Basin pond to see if the Hooded Mergansers have returned. There are still mosquitoes biting away but the Hooded Mergansers are back and in quite a group!
I was surprised to see this Northern Pintail there as well as I have never seen one there before. I also have since seen a Ring-Necked Duck which was a new one at this location as well. They are joined by an occasional Pied Grebe and Bufflehead.
I have very recently been down to my walk along the Ft. Fisher path to the gazebo which is a prime viewing area for water diving ducks. In the past I have seen all sorts of birds down here. So far this year I have only seen the Black Scoters.
This is a female Black Scoter.
These are two male Black Scoters. Hopefully I will see some Surf Scoters or White-winged Scoters or Loons before too long.
I continue to see lots of deer down at the recreation area.
I haven't seen Dunlins down at the beach but certainly have seen lots of them in the recreation field!!
Surprisingly I have also seen a huge number of the Semi-palmated Plovers -- 60 the other day. I am able to get within about 20 feet of them to take pictures. They are not a big bird.
I close this blog with another sunset picture.
I have been doing some sewing but keep forgetting to take down the camera to my sewing room. I have finished the quilting on the Great Egret and have quilted another top that I brought from Rochester. Next I have to get some sewing done for Christmas and I am starting to panic on that front!!
A new place has been added to my daily perusals of potential birds down here. It is the Air Force Recreation area which is right in Kure Beach. Recently they have upgraded all the housing and it looks just beautiful. They actually hold festivals down here a couple of times a year. Late in the afternoon, I can often find birds flitting around and quite often a number of deer. A couple of days ago the latter was the case!! They seemed to be does and many fawns and in several separate places. They were curious and I thought they might come right up to the car as several were headed that way. I see deer down on the island a couple of times a week and am very cautious driving at dusk!!
Here is one of the cute fawns although he no longer has his spots. He and a couple of others were literally playing in the field which would have been better with video! You can see his size from the fence behind him.
I did catch them mid-play here. They were dashing all over the field.
Just a closeup which didn't even require a telephoto lens! She came right over to the car to see who was there.
I was surprised at how good a picture of the bluebird I was able to get. There always seem to be a lot of them at this location.
There has been quite a bit of rain both this month and last month down here and this has created ponds where there weren't any before and this was true of the recreation area which housed two newly created shallow ponds. Here are a Dunlin and the much smaller Least Sandpiper.
This is one of the Dunlins.
This is a closeup of the Least Sandpiper. Would have been hard to identify if it hadn't been the size comparison with the Dunlin.
This is a slightly blurry Semi-palmated Plover. I see these down at the basin fairly often but hadn't seen one yet this year.
There were lots and lots of Killdeer and thought this was a particularly good picture of one.
Down by the shoreline, I caught a glimpse of this Great Black-backed gull. We see this frequently down here.
I am still gimping around down here. It has been two months and the elevator despite vast infusions of cash is still not working....I'd get angry but not sure it would do any good... It is driving my husband crazy as he is pretty sure he knows what is wrong, but the guy won't listen to him -- my husband is literally gifted at mechanical things which this guy is not...
I think that the Boat-tailed Grackle males are really pretty with all the iridescent hues. It was a cloudy day so you could really see them.
My daughters were both here last week and here is Aunt Lisa with my granddaughter Amelia who is getting bigger and bigger. Luckily we had some great weather for most of the time she was here so she got to swim in the ocean (yes, the water temp is still about 70 here in the Wilmington area) and go fishing with her granddad. We also had her other grandparents here for a couple of days!
A Snowy Egret was fishing right next to the pier.
A couple of Ruddy Turnstones down at the pier at Ft. Fisher. First I have seen this season. They really are prettier in the summer with their more distinct coloring which can be said for a lot of the birds. Luckily a lot of the ducks look better in winter! Starlings are another bird that is much pretty in the winter time.
There were also several Royal Terns and this one was banded but I couldn't see a number of letter on it.
The common Forster's Terns were also down there.
In among all the Ring-billed Gulls and Laughing Gulls, there were a few Herring Gulls and I am sure I will see Black-backed Gulls soon as well.
As I headed to the Museum grounds at Ft. Fisher, I saw several Eastern Phoebes so they must be migrating through. They and the Yellow-rumped Warblers are the last to go through.
There were lots and lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers skittering around through the trees and on the ground. I didn't see any Palm or Pine Warblers though.
My biggest surprise was a small flock of White-throated Sparrows that were foraging right in front of the parking space I had in the lot!! I hadn't seen one before either here or up north so new life bird for me!
Just a closer look at his very distinctive markings.
A week ago now I headed to Greenfield Lake which is almost in downtown Wilmington. The trees were not as colorful as previous years but still but on a bit of a display.
You can see the beautiful blue skies through the trees.
There were beautiful azaleas blooming but few butterflies as it was probably a bit late in the year. There are azaleas that bloom in the spring and fall down here.
There was a Red-bellied Woodpecker as well as another of the Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers in my first stop in the park.
There were lots of Palm Warblers near the azaleas.
There was a Grey Catbird who only briefly showed me the red spot under his tail! He was foraging on the ground but stopped for a couple of poses.
One of the Sulphurs posing on one of many flowers.
Posts
