Adventures in Birding

 A medium adventure! My friend Carol and I went to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge for the day on Saturday (2/10/2024). Winter is one of my favorite seasons for birding for a few reasons. One, its not beastly hot outside :) Two, its much easier to see birds in the trees when there are no leaves. And three, its weird duck season. Where I am on the east coast, we get lots of interesting ducks that migrate here from Canada for the winter. 

Blackwater is about 2 hours away from us, so we got there about 10am. 

Thousands of snow geese flying over the water.

Unfortunately I didn't have my good camera with me (it's trying very hard to die, I need to replace it), so I just have some landscapes from my phone. 

We saw lots of eagles, tons of ducks, several great blue herons, 3 different types of woodpeckers, and a Great Horned Owl peeking out of its nest. Also thousands of tundra swans mixed with Canada geese.

Canvasback ducks, ring necked ducks, and American Wigeons in Cambridge, MD, about 15 minutes north of the refuge.

We stopped for a yummy dinner at Fisherman's Inn on Kent Island on the way home. Yum!

Small Adventures

 

It's been a beautiful few days here in the mid-Atlantic. I'm unsure of the long-term weather predictions of rodents from last week, but we had a lovely weekend of sunshine and almost 50 degrees. That's a small joy for the beginning of February, so Luna and I took a hike on the C&O canal towpath at Pennyfield Lock.

I can take selfies of just me, but I haven't figured out how to do one with Luna. So you get Luna staring at probably a squirrel. We both would have had a slightly better hike if the squirrels had not been running DIRECTLY ACROSS THE TOWPATH IN FRONT OF HER. Suicidal squirrels is a good band name. So is kamikaze squirrels, if Luna had been able to chase them and pull us both into the Potomac.

There's a beauty in the starkness of nature in the winter, in the shades of brown and gray. It's easier to see the birds, and it's just a good time to take a walk or hike and think your thoughts.

Here's to remembering that not all adventures need to be grand. There's plenty of beauty, wilderness and adventure within 30 minutes of home.