A Little Bit of Vacation and a Little Bit of Art

We had a great fall vacation a few weeks ago. We spent a few days in a cottage near Lake Erie just slowing down and relaxing, took in a Cleveland Indians game, and then went to southern Pennsylvania for a few days. While still in Ohio we visited a state nature preserve, Sheldon Marsh, and took a walk and did some birding. Birding is quickly becoming a favorite pastime for me and each time I go out and add a new bird to my list it is quite a thrill for me.

This is the cove at the end of the trail.

This Blue Heron just kept posing for me. Every time I got too close to him, he would simply move a little further down the coast, but he never left the cove.

The best I can tell from my bird books is that this is a Common Yellow-throat Warbler.

This was as close as I could get, This is a Belted Kingfisher. Our first sighting of one! Ironically, earlier in the day we had been talking about how it would be cool to see one.

Male and female Red-winged Blackbirds

Time near the water and just relaxing at the cottage was a great way to start our vacation.

In my Nature Journal I have attempted my first drawing/watercolor. I have always been drawn to the look of watercolor and have been looking at different tutorials online. I finally got up the guts to try it myself. While it is no masterpiece, I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt. Of course, it was a bird that inspired me. :)

 On vacation I took some time to work in my Light and Sight journal I made last month and wrote about in my last post.

Make sure you visit His Kingdom Come this week. We are in the midst of a birthday blog hop in honor of our 1st community birthday coming up on November 1st. There are prizes and discounts at each of the foundation team members blogs throughout this week. You can find out more at the HKC site here. My Birthday Blog Hop post and giveaway opportunity will be here on my blog on Thursday, so stop back!