Wildlife in the back yard

Today was a beautiful sunny day compared to yesterday. I took my cat out to get some fresh air and sun. While we were out there, there was this noise. I cannot described the sound, but the cat and I looked over in the direction of the noise. It happened again so over to investigate. I took one look, ran in the house for the phone and my camera. I called Bobbie. The call kind of went like this, "Barb, grab your camera and go out back, by Lori's fence and look over to where her shed is. There is a bird. A big bird. I don't know if it is a guinea hen or a quail." I am over by the corner of the yard, trying to get a picture of this bird, but with the holly tree and bamboo I can't get a good shot. Barb is now over on the other side of Lori's yard trying to get pictures. I decide to go in Lori's yard, but still couldn't get any good pictures. The bird was spooked with me in the yard and Barb trying to get a good picture. Barb decided to go in because she ran out of the house without her coat and was cold. I decided to call animal control. We have quite a few stray cats in the neighborhood and I didn't want the bird to get hurt worse than it obviously was. I am friends with our animal control officer. I called him on his cell phone. I said "Hi Don, how are you?" He said "fine". I said "there is a big bird in my neighbor's yard. I don't know what it is, but with the stray cats in the area, I don't want this poor bird to get hurt." Don said "I been there in a couple of minutes." He pulled up and got a cage and gloves out of the truck. I guess he thought I was kidding about it being big. Barb, her daughter Rita and me with camera's in hand head for Lori's back yard with Don picking up the rear. We show Don where the bird was and he says, "I think I better get the net."

Three woman with cameras closed in on this poor bird. He was getting very upset and we backed off, but stayed close enough that he wouldn't get away. Don netted him and we got him in the cage and we got more pictures.

Don was leaving and some of the neighbor's came out and over to Don's truck. All you could hear is "Oh what a pretty bird." Turned out the bird was in their yard earlier in the morning. Don was taking him to a gentleman in Elorda who rehabs wildlife. I hope the big guy mends. As Barb and I were parting, I said to Barb, "See, we didn't have go anywhere and we had a wildlife bird experience and hopefully good pictures."
I looked what kind of bird it was on one of my favorite bird site, All About Birds and it was a ring-necked pheasant. So far in the past couple of months I have had raccoons and now a pheasant. Maybe next time when I go out back, I will see panda bears eating the bamboo. Have at it guys. That would be an all you can eat free buffet.

WOW! I'm surprised

and quite amazed. I have a Flickr site and post a lot of pictures of my outings. My Beaver Dam outing was no exception. I posted those pictures yesterday afternoon. I have it set up with Flickr, and I don't know how I did it, but if there is any activity on my site, ie. if someone made a picture a favorite or if a comment was made, Flickr will e-mail me of this activity. I had two e-mails. One that one was made a favorite and the other that three of my pictures were invited to a group site called "Spectacular Nature". This is my surprised and amazed part. I have only recently been introduced to photography (in my case picture taking) by Bobbie. I bought my first digital camera Labor Day weekend 2007. Before that it was disposable's.

"Spectacular Nature" is an invitation only site and being the computer idiot I am, I can't figure out how to get my pictures to them. I am thinking that I must become a member of this site, but don't know for sure. I have e-mailed Flickr for help and still await their response. I have looked at some of the pictures on this site and I am amazed that they would want any of mine.

Here are the three that were invited. Be honest and tell me what you think.

Also, my pictures do not enlarge when you click on them like with other blog site. Does anyone know how to change that? I am sure that I did something stupid when setting up my account.

Also, if anyone is interested in a eagle web cam and a crane web cam

My New Hobby...like I need another one

Barb (Bobbie) told me about an owl watch that was going to be on Wednesday. I thought it would be fun to go. Well the weather here on Wednesday was less than ideal. It was pouring rain. I called the Bird Observatory to see if it had been cancelled and rescheduled. Chris told me it was still on and that I should dress appropriately. Luckily the rain stopped. I asked my boss if I could leave a half hour early. Which was okay. Mind you the owl watch was on Jake's Landing Road, which is a half hour from me. So home to do and collect what I had to do and off I went. I found Jake's Landing Road, which is a long road with no houses. It felt like the road that would never end. After awhile it turned into a dirt road which became soft from the rain. Luckily my car is four wheel drive. The road finally opened up to a beautiful marshy area. I was surprised to see so many people. There were four people from the Bird Observatory and they had loner binoculars and high powered scopes. They explained that we may see Short Eared Owls and/or Great Horned Owls. Well we didn't see either, but we saw several Bald Eagles. Karen, from the Observatory said she was sorry that we didn't see any owls. I told her the Eagles were worth it for me. I have said in the past that when I am interested in something I ask lots of questions. This was no exception. She told me that there was an Eagles nest on Beaver Dam Road. She gave me directions, which I couldn't remember, so out came the map. As my luck would have it, there are two Beaver Dam Roads. One off of Route 9 and the other off of Route 47. I asked one of the guys I work with and he said the one off Route 9 goes to a campground. Okay Route 47 it is. So yesterday I gather my camera and binoculars and off I went. This is the same kind of road as Jake's Landing. What a beautiful area. There is a very large lake that I will call Beaver Dam Lake. I was walking along taking pictures and trying to spot the Eagles nest. I was beginning to think I had the wrong location when in the distance I saw what I assumed was the nest. How awesome was this. I did manage to get pictures of this. A guy came walking down the path and I asked him if it was the nest? He said he thought it was. We chatted a little longer and he went on his way. I kept watching through the binoculars and a very large bird landing in a tree not far from the nest. Now was a time I wish I had one of those high powered scopes, because of the distance and even with binoculars, I couldn't make out if it was an Eagle or not. A little bit later, the Bald Eagle flew into the nest. I cannot tell you what an awesome experience this has been for me. I cannot wait to go back to both places and this time Barb is coming with me.

Now the problem with my new hobby. No bathrooms. I guess I should brush up on what poison ivy looks like, huh.

Beaver Dam Lake & Marsh Land

Beaver Dam Lake

Eagles Nest in the distance

Eagles Nest through binocular len

"Life can be seen through your eyes, but it is not fully appreciated until it is seen through your heart" Mary Xavir

Cartoon

This cute little cartoon was in "Woman's World" magazine.

I've been tagged. TWICE

Hello All! I have been tagged twice for a meme. The first to tag me was Bobbie The second to tag me was Shelly This meme is to share habits and quirks of mine. This is very hard for me because as you see you can't mess with perfection. Somehow I managed to come up with at least 12 for my two tags. Alright now lets get down to business. The rules for this meme are as follows:

Link to the person who tagged you.

1) Post the rules on your blog.

2) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

3) Tag six random people at the end of your post, by linking to their blogs.

4) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment
on their website.

5) Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

So now that the rules are out of the way, here is my list.

- I am a creature of habit.

- I like everything in its place.

- It annoys me when driver's don't use turn signals.

- I cannot get into an unmade bed to sleep. The bed must be made.

- I cannot read a book without the TV on.

- People faking helplessness annoy me.

- I am at least a pot a day coffee drinker.

- People who think they have the right to try to belittle others.

- I cannot be intimidated, (by the people I referenced above)

- People who spell "a lot" wrong.

- Whiney children

- People who want respect, but haven't earned it or given it.

Okay, there are my twelve quirks. I have to go now, because the patty wagon is out front waiting for me. But before I go I have tagged the following people.

Cliff Ralph Rachel Mary Lene Laura

Amen

Pleasant surprise

I needed filters for my air returns so I went to Swain's in Cape May. This is a great store. Half the store is the man's store and the other half is for us ladies. Whenever I went, I would always see Lucy. Lucy is a bird from the macaw family. Very beautiful coloration. She was there everyday except Sunday's. I took my camera to get a couple of pictures of her. She was not in her usual spot. I found my filters and went to checkout. I asked the cashier where Lucy was and she told me Lucy was retired. How disappointing not to be able to get a picture of this beautiful bird.

My favorite place at the moment is Cape May Point. My friend Barb mentioned in one of her entries about getting lost at the Point. I decided to copy, but with a mission. I wanted to find the Post Office and the General Store. I FAILED. I rode around for about a half hour to 45 minutes. I know the General Store exists because I found it once. As does the Post Office because the girl at the Cape May Bird Observatory said she walks to it. I was very surprised with the number of homes and winding streets. Frustrated I went back to Lily Lake and took pictures of the Swans and ducks.

These ducks were pretty cool. They would dive under the water and then pop up several feet away.

I left and decided to go down Sea Grove Avenue. A building contractor friend of mine is building his house there and I wanted to see how far he had come. I'm going pretty slow and come across an open field and I pull over. All of a sudden two deer go leaping across. It was like slow motion: Put the car in park, put on hazard lights, grab camera, turning it on while getting out of the car and hurrying across the street, wishing all the while the deer are still there. They were, but boy are they quick. It turned out to be a mama and her baby. Here of some pictures of the baby.

They bound across the street into another field. Here is a picture of the baby deer with the mama deer.

Here is mama.

This is mama on the right above the mailbox and the baby is on the left with white tail held high and proud.

They got to far into the field for me to get anymore pictures.

So back in the car I went. It was like de ja vu. I looked over at the field and 3 more larger deer are sprinting across the filed. They were to quick for me to get any pictures, but what an awesome sight to see. Deer leaping with white tail held high.

Unfortunately I have the bladder about the size of a walnut and with 20 ounces of Wawa coffee in me, it was time to get home. (I know. More than you needed or wanted to know.) All in all today was a pleasantly surprising day.

"Leaders don't force people to follow-they invite them on a journey." Charles S. Lauer

Photo entry

It was a beautiful weekend at the Jersey Shore. I went to Cape May Point, Lily Lake and a short ride up the parkway. Here are some pictures.

Cape May Lighthouse

Red-eared Slider

(I love how his underside

is reflected in the bottom of the aquarium)

Lily Lake

Lily Lake ducks

Lily Lake Swans

Lily Lake Swans (Tails up)

Along the parkway

Along the parkway

Along the parkway

Along the parkway

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend.

The raccoon came back...

or another decided to visit. I was at ceramics Wednesday night. I was tired and left early figuring I would come home and go to bed early. I watched a little TV and decided it was time. I got the food ready for the kittens and went out. They were almost done eating when I heard the rustling. I grabbed the flashlight and out I went. This one was darker in color then the one Saturday night. I was tired and threw caution to the wind and decided to chase him. I managed to chase him up the tree, where he just peered down at me. I was trying to figure out how to get him to move on when I said to him, "Wait. Don't move. Stay right there. I have to get my camera." In I ran. Got the camera, and came back out and the obedient little sucker was still there. I got pretty good pictures this time. After awhile he had enough and decided to come down. We were within a couple of feet from one another. I decided to back-off because now the kittens were coming over to see what I was doing. At one point the raccoon started coming back into my yard. I grabbed the birdbath and threw the water his way. He did run this time. Needless to say, I didn't get to bed early that night.

Last night I was on the phone with my friend Deb. Her and her mom were leaving this morning for Florida. We were chatting when I heard a loud noise from out back. I went and turned my outside light on and what do I see waddling down my steps. Another raccoon. This was too close to my kittens. However, they seemed to fair well. Ralph of course stood his ground. I'm not sure where Tiger went, but she came back and all was quiet for the rest of the night. Hopefully they wouldn't be coming around again. I really don't have anything in the yard to attract them now. I got rid of the corn and I don't leave any cat food out there. The only thing is the bird feeders and I refuse to get rid of them.

"It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever--the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it. Vince Lombardi"

Joke

I take ceramics class once a week. It is a nice night out to be with somewhat normal people. What I like about the girls in the class is that there isn't a bunch of gossiping. We are all there just to escape the everyday hassles and have fun. We like to go out for dinner at least once a year and this we did this past Thursday night. One of the girls told us this joke.

A little girl goes to her mom and says "Mommy I want to take the dog for a walk." The mom says, "Sorry honey, but you can't do that." The girls says, "but mommy I just want to walk the dog around the block." The mom says, "sorry honey, but the dog is in heat and you cannot take her for a walk." The little girl goes into the garage where her daddy is working and says, "Daddy, I want to take the dog for a walk." The dad says, "Sorry honey, but you cannot take the dog for a walk because she is in heat." The little girl says, "But daddy, I want to take the dog for a walk." The dad gets a rag with gasoline on it and rubs it all over the dogs rear end and tells his little girl to walk the dog around the block and come right home. A little while later the little girl come back without the dog. The dad says to the little girl, "Where's the dog?" The little girl said, "she ran out of gas and another dog is pushing her home."

Hope everyone has a fun weekend.