Myles Road

B and I had big plans EARLY Saturday morning in June to bird with a group on Myles Road in Donaldsonville, LA. We were pumped since the area is known as Bunting City. Buntings! As in Painteds and Indigos! Lots of them!!

We met at 6:30AM(!) in order to get to the destination by 8AM (!). After a few wrong turns, due to faulty GPS coordinates, we finally made it to the long and winding gravel road. By hour two I had sweated through my clothing, including my capris. I was praying people would understand that it was perspiration in the crotch/thigh area. I was completely potty trained over 50 years ago. :)

We saw the Painted and Indigo Buntings all right, but not how we'd imagined. They were few and far between, high up in the canopies or perched high on electrical wires. Out of a couple hundred photos I managed to salvage these seven.

Curly Clematis

The orange color of these poles stood out to me.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

An Indigo Bunting flying away.

A Painted Bunting up high and far, far away. Typical of the day.

Our fearless leader noted over 41 species that day, including a Meadowlark, White-eyed Vireo, and Belted Kingfisher. I must've missed those during my heat stroke. For a birder it was a great day; for a photographer, not so much.

Thankful

My aunt's surgery was a resounding success! The only pain she has is from the incision site which is temporary. We are so thankful to God for answering our prayers, and for the dedicated family and friends who offered prayers on her behalf. Thank you, my dear blogging friends, for your kind words and prayers. Now if we could just get my dad's wife out of the hospital! Oy vey. Always something going on. I am so thankful to be back home to take care of my family when they need me. Please be patient as I try to hobble along and visit your blogs.

Needless to say I have not had time to get out with my camera, so I went back to earlier in the year and found images that I hadn't yet edited or posted. Without further delay, here they are.

American Goldfinch, Jan 2014

White-throated Sparrow, March 2014

Red-bellied Woodpecker, April 2014

Indigo Bunting, April 2014

Blue Grosbeak, April 2014

Leucy the Leucistic Cardinal, April 2014

Sharing with Anni at

And also Stewart at

(Link)

Please visit the links to view other birds around the world!

Weekend Update

Howdy folks! The arts and crafts fair put on by St. Luke's Episcopal Church was a great experience. I loved spending the day with Sweet B and her equally sweet son. We met a lot of people, even making some contacts for future work. A lady from St. Amant purchased cards from both of us and asked us to photograph her horses and stables. There were three ladies who wanted photography lessons, and the guy in the booth next to us was interested in buying art for three locations of a business he was expanding. So even though sales were a little lackluster, we made some great contacts! Our minds were swirling with ideas like getting a web site, etc. Not sure where all this will lead, but I feel hopeful.

Some of you asked which notecards sold at the arts and crafts fair. Below are the ones that sold. You've seen them all before here at some point.

I have been a little worn out from the experience, so I promise to catch up with everyone during the week. Oh, and since I have so much extra card stock I am going to host a couple of give-aways in the near future. Y'all be good and have a great week!

Linking with

Please visit the link to see birds around the world!

Blooms, Birds and More!

I've been meaning to post these since the end of April. So, without further delay, here we go!

Can anyone help ID this flower?

I think this is a Cosmos.

Walking trail at Bluebonnet Swamp.

Indigo Bunting

Juvenile or female Indigo Bunting.
Spring is such a confusing time for identification.

Leucy the leucistic Cardinal.

On a completely different note, do any of you like jigsaw puzzles? If so, there's an app for that! It's called...can you guess? Jigsaw Puzzle! They offer a free puzzle of the day and several other free ones to choose from. You can select the number of pieces from 4 to 400, background color, the ability to scatter pieces, show only the edges, etc. Oh, you can even choose one of your own photos. I have lost countless hours and a few bucks buying new collections. It's totally addictive! Don't hate me. You have been warned. :)

IOS Version

Android Version

Enjoy your weekend!! See y'all on Monday.

Sharing with

Saturday's Critters

Thanks, Eileen!

Summertime Blues

The indigo bunting is a summer bird for Louisiana. On May 24th, I was thrilled to see one in the wild, no bird feeders in sight. This little guy was quite perturbed by my presence, flicking his tail, flapping his wings and giving me the stare-down. No, I wasn't playing his call on my phone, but once I realized he might be upset, I walked away. I'm sure he thought he won, but I felt like the winner. :)

Linking with Anni's

AND

Stewart's 100th!
WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY

Please visit the links for more
birds around the world!

So Juvenile

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. I'm a bit behind on blogging, but I am determined to see what you've been up to!

Took these photos the last week of April on two different days.

Painted bunting, immature male

Indigo bunting, immature male

Blue grosbeak, juvie male

Blue grosbeak, young male

Another immature indigo bunting, male

The Land Between Rivers

Frenchtown Conservation Area, also known as "The Land Between Rivers" is a 496 acre nature area operated by BREC (Recreation and Park Commission for the parish of East Baton Rouge). The acreage consists of bottomland hardwood forest, including small stream forest and spruce-pine hardwood-flatwood forest habitats--both of which are ranked globally as rare or imperiled. It's great for birding, exploring and hiking. At the end of Railroad Trail (1/2 mile) is the Amite River with a nice stretch of sandy beach.

Two notable birds spotted were the painted buntings and yellow-breasted chats. Double D and I were over the moon! But you would laugh at my photos...especially the chat. All I could get was a blurred shot of his underside in a thick tangle of brush. Grrrr. No matter, here are some other things we saw...

Periodical cicada. Some call them locusts, but that is incorrect.
These 13-year periodical cicadas spend their lives underground feeding off the fluids from deciduous trees.
Once mature, they emerge all at once in staggering numbers. The sound is amazing. It sounded like
an ocean or swiftly moving river was nearby. Incredible!

I think this is a Needham's Skimmer.

An Eastern fence lizard, male.

Close up

The only time I've ever seen a pipevine swallowtail that stayed still for more than a minute.

My first time to see an indigo bunting away from a feeding station.
His expression says, "Who you lookin' at?"

Enjoy the weekend, y'all! My 31-year old "baby" is arriving today. We have a very short weekend together so I'll catch back up with you guys on Monday.