Birds, birds, birds

Back in February we visited a few wetland parks over on the east coast of Florida. These pictures were taken at the Orlando Wetlands, Viera Wetlands and another wetland at the north entrance to Merritt Island, but now I can't remember the name of it or find it on the map. These wetlands were created by reclaimed wastewater that is filtered into ponds.

I'll post just a few pictures here. You can see more here.

The picture above is a red shouldered hawk at the Orlando Wetlands.


Great blue heron and a night heron.

Gatorland isn't just for gators

Gatorland (near Orlando) is one of EB's favorite places, especially in the winter when there are lots of migratory birds and in the early spring when there are lots of baby birds.

I'll post just a few pictures here, but you can see lots more by clicking on the title link above.

Ospreys

Wow. We've woefully neglected this blog for the past six months . . . mostly because we haven't been traveling. BUT there are lots and lots of wonderful things to take pictures of right here in Florida. Especially birds. So I will try to catch us up and show you some of Florida's birds.

Here are a couple of osprey pictures taken at Lake Lochloosa near Cross Creek, which is right up the road from where we are staying in Orange Lake, Florida (near Gainesville).

Ospreys are also known as fish hawks because they always live near water and eat mostly fish. They build huge nests in the top of dead trees and a good number of pairs can be found in this part of Florida.

You may know Cross Creek because that is where the author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings lived and wrote ("Cross Creek" and "The Yearling" are her most well known novels.).

You can see more ospreys by clicking on the title link above.

Kosovo

No, we didn't take the motorhome to Kosovo. But that's where our youngest son, Mike, has been for the last year. He is an MP in the Army K-9 unit deployed on a UN peacekeeping mission out of Italy.

You can see pictures he has taken of the Kosovo countryside and Kosovo children here.

That is Mike being hoisted up into a Mevac helicopter with his dog, Allan, during a training mission recently.

Soon we'll be home

This gate leads from a little old cemetery into a pasture that is located on the edge of our home RV park just south of Gainesville, Florida.

I love this place for all of the nature: hiking and biking, spring-fed rivers for kayaking, and lots of birds -- water birds, little song birds, hawks, ospreys, and even a pair of eagles that nest across the road. They spend their days perched in the top of a big dead tree on the edge of Orange Lake looking for fish and unlucky critters. One day I was running and one of the eagles flew so low, just above my head! In his claws was a big old black snake. He was taking it to the nest to share with the baby eagles. Every day is an opportunity to see something exciting in nature.

Waiting for fall foliage

We've been camping in the Lynchburg, Virginia area for the past week. This is in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. So we have nice rolling hills, beautiful meadows, farm houses, pastures, barns and lots of pumpkins at roadside stands. These aren't really mountains, but they are bigger than hills, so I call them "mountainettes." You can see the real mountains in the distance when you go out driving.

The other day we went geocaching and only found two out of four caches. These Virginia caches are tough! We tromped through the woods and poked all around, but didn't find one cache that turned out to be in a hollowed out stick . . . in the middle of the woods with thousands of other sticks!!

Yesterday we went hiking at Holliday Lake State Park. We took a nice trail along side the lake and the weather was just right for hiking. Normally, this would be peak fall foliage season, but as you can see, most of the leaves are still green.

In a few days we will head down to the Asheville area for the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF), where we'll be camping right at the Ag Center where the festival is held. That is three days of total fiber immersion. The good thing about staying on site is that EB can take the car and go somewhere else while I am in fiber heaven! Don't worry, I'll spare you the fibery details here. You can read about SAFF -- and maybe even see pictures taken by Jeanie -- at my knitting blog, The Traveling Knitter.

Birds of Florida

We haven't blogged in a while because we came back to Florida, our home base, to see Mike, our son in the Army. He came home on leave from Kosovo in August and we had a great visit.

So EB's been taking bird pictures at Ft. Desoto, Viera Wetlands and Payne's Prairie. The one above is a Limpkin. Here are a few more. . . .This one is a Great Blue Heron with his meal, a Lesser Siren salamander. Yum! And below are some Sand Hill Cranes doing their funny mating dance.That's it for now. Soon we will hit the road again to spend October and November in North Carolina and Virginia . . . to the mountains in search of fall foliage!

Can you see me now?

Mommas and babies

These pictures were taken in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Can you imagine having a baby as big as this bison baby? The momma bison never let their babies get too far from them.

The prairie dog babies were getting big, but still needed their mommas and liked to pester them.







This momma turkey had her "hands" full.
Those little turkeys scattered all over when they saw us, but eventually she got them back together.

North Dakota

After leaving Canada, we drove across the long, long, long state of Montana on Route 2 to North Dakota to Theodore Roosevelt National Park at the town of Medora. This park is dedicated to the president who started the U.S. Forest Service and our national park system. Roosevelt said "I would never have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota." It was there that he developed his interest in nature and conservation. The park service has worked to return the land in this national park to the way it was when Roosevelt lived there. We saw herds of bison, wild horses, prairie dog towns, and wild turkeys. The scenery is that of buttes, canyons, grasslands, and valleys. You can picture cowboys riding the range, and imagine how rugged life must have been back then.

The Canadian Rockies

We spent five days in and around Banff National Park in Alberta. Awesome doesn't begin to describe it! One of our favorite days was driving up the Icefields Parkway to Peyto Glacier where we took a hike through the woods that took us high above a beautiful glacier lake.

EB has 33 Banff pictures on his website, so be sure and click on the link above to see more.

Glacier Update

Yesterday was our best day yet at Glacier National Park! We got up at 4:30 am so we could get into Glacier National Park before the holiday crowds. We arrived about 6:30 and started up Going to the Sun Highway. While we were still down at the bottom, we passed a guy riding his bike up the road and then we saw a black bear! So we parked the car a little way up from the bear to be sure the biker made it past the bear. He sure was excited about seeing a bear on his bike! Then the bear walked up the road right past our car!

When we reached Logan Pass at the top (35 miles of winding road going up, up up), the parking lot was empty except for . . . a herd of big horned sheep! The visitor center at Logan Pass sits right at the Continental Divide. We hiked up a trail through snow and we were the only people up that high so early in the morning . . . at least for a little while. We felt like we were alone on top of the world. We saw marmots. After that we took another hike where we saw 16 big horn sheep in a pasture and momma mountain goats with baby goats! The wildflowers are all blooming here now and we saw fields filled with Glacier Lillies. After eight hours we headed back to the motorhome and that was our best day in Glacier National Park.


Sunrise and moon set in Glacier National Park.

Glacier National Park

We've been into Glacier twice so far and both days were completely different. There are two main things to do in Glacier: (1) drive Going to the Sun Highway for the spectacular views, and (2) hike any of the 700 miles of trails (inhabited by bears!). So far we've just done the driving thing. Hiking and a trail ride are on the schedule. The first day we drove up to the top (the road is closed at Logan Pass for repairs; it may open before we leave if we're lucky), it snowed! Two days later it was so warm (hot, really) that I wished I had worn shorts.

Lost Trail Wildlife Preserve

This picture was taken at sunrise in a valley that spread out before our eyes like a treasure. The preserve is about 50 miles southwest of Kalispell, MT near the little town of Marion. I'm not sure how large the peserve is (but it IS big) because there are no brochures or information kiosks, and I couldn't find much information on the internet. I'm sure this beautiful place remains the same as it was when the earliest explorers and settlers came to this part of Montana.

We've made two trips to Lost Trail, one in the morning and one in the evening, and saw different animals each time: Lots of deer, a gray wolf, a fox, elk, moose, little chipmonk-like critters, sand hill cranes, blue herons, yellow-headed blackbirds, woodpeckers, ducks, hawks and other assorted birds.
Here's a Kestril (small hawk) who caught a little critter for his breakfast.




You can see more pictures of this momma deer chasing a gray wolf on EB's website.

Hailstone National Wildlife Preserve

See the little dirt road on the left? That's how we got to this NWP, northwest of Billings, MT. The drive was worth it because we saw several Golden Eagles, which turn out to be the biggest birds we've ever seen. There were immature and adult eagles, as well as Swainson's Hawks, antelope, lots of prairie dogs, deer and other assorted birds.




Here's an immature Golden Eagle . . . This is one big bird!




Probably no new pictures until next week. We're hitting the road for Kalispell, MT and Glacier National Park day after tomorrow.

Happy trails!

The Billings Zoo

The Beartooth Mountains

The Beartooth Mountains in Montana, just north of Wyoming at the northeast side of Yellowstone National Park. Elevation at the top is just under 11,000 feet.

Charles Kuralt once called the Beartooth Highway the most beautiful drive in the U.S. It was definitely awesome . . . and scary . . . getting to the top. E.B. kept saying, "Trust me, we're not going to run off the road!" (We were in the car, of course, not the motorhome.) The wind was ferocious and cold.

As always, click on the title above to see the rest of E.B.'s pictures.

Geocaching in Billings, MT

We are staying at a campground in Billings, MT beside the Yellowstone River which is bordered by these cliffs called rimrocks. Birds of prey nest in holes at the top of the rimrocks.

We hiked a total of three miles and found two out of three caches, including our 100th cache!

At the top of the cliffs, E.B. got a shot of a Peregrine Falcon that kept circling us because we were standing on the cliff just above its nest.

Here's part of the trail. First we hiked up to the top of the cliffs to see the view. Then all the way down to the bottom of the trail to the river. And finally back up to to the top to get on the trail back to the car. Whew! This was vertical geocaching! At the river we saw deer, raccoon and possibly bear tracks, but didn't find the last cache. Maybe a bear took it??? Oh well, two out of three is pretty good.












Cache #100 . . .













Three hours of hiking just three miles! Ah, but visions of the local Dairy Queen spurred us on the long upward treck back to the car. :)

Battle of Little Bighorn

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Crow Indian Reservation, Montana
Click on title above for more pictures

Garden of the Gods

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Click on the title/link above for more pictures.