Spring Birding Part 2

It is a tradition each Spring to go with my mom and my friend Rox to Magee Marsh Bird Sanctuary on Lake Erie during Spring migration. Birding is huge in our area during Spring migration because of the number of Warbles that come through here and rest along the lake shore before their flight across Lake Erie. The birds actually will wait for the right weather conditions before crossing the lake. In a previous post I wrote that the second week in May is known here as The Biggest Week in American Birding where literally thousands of people flood the area from all over the nation and beyond. Well, we wait until the following weekend each year to avoid the crowds. There may not be as many varieties of Warblers but we still see a lot of birds.

This year we took my young birders with us, SaiVion (9) and Corvieon (12). And it was quite a treat! I honestly don't know how SaiVion made it through church. His excitement level was at high alert from breakfast, through church, and never waned the entire afternoon! Spending time with the boys like this is great stuff. The more we do this the more we start to see a glimpse into how God is shaping them and the interests that are forming in them. SaiVion has such a true love for animals and nature and his passion for art is really developing. He is constantly thinking in terms of drawing and capturing his memories on paper. Corvieon is developing a talent for photography. A friend of ours let him borrow his old digital camera for the day and that opened up a new world for Corvieon. He really has a good eye and had a blast with the camera until the battery died!

We had a good day, saw a lot of birds and the boys learned a lot. The highlight of our day was getting close to an Eagle's nest and seeing both the parent and the youth. It was fun experiencing their first time seeing an Eagle in the wild. And my track record for Eagle-spotting continues to grow. This was my fourth spotting this year!

Gray Catbird

Swallows

Yellow Warbler

Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

We saw both Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets. At first the boys thought the smaller ones were babies but we looked them up in the bird book and learned the differences between the two.

Saved the best for last!

Winter Birding

I love watching and photographing birds. This past summer/fall I was reading The Creative Call by Janice Elsheimer and got in touch with a practice she calls "breathing exercises". You can read more about it in this post. Simply put, breathing exercises are finding things to do that stimulate our senses and nourish our creativity. I found that taking photo walks fits the bill for me. In addition to stimulating my senses and building my creative energy, I found that the time spent on photo walks also restores my emotional energy and is a time of solitude and connecting with God. At that time I decided to fully embrace birding and started keeping a nature journal and learning more about how to identify the birds and their habits.

Other than putting up some feeders in our backyard I wasn't planning on continuing to bird watch through the winter. But then I stumbled on the Window on Wildlife areas (mentioned in Tuesday's post) in some of our Metroparks and winter birding opened up wide for me. I stopped at one of the parks after my budget meeting on Sunday. It was a good way to relax after the meeting and we had our first snow of the year, so it was a good time to see what the birds were up to.

Goldfinch and female House Finches

Finally got the quick little Chickadee in a photo!

Male Downy Woodpecker

Female Cardinal

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch (one of my fav's!)

Even the deer come over and watch the birds!

On my list of winter birds that I have not seen as a Junco. On Sunday I finally saw one. Then the next morning in my backyard a pair of them appeared!

Junco at the park

Junco's in my backyard

Some pages I worked on last month in my nature journal:

Enjoy your day and find some ways to "breathe" this week!

The 30 Blogging Challenge Day 2

After spending an overcast rainy weekend at my sister's house on the lake, the sun finally came out on my last morning there. It may be the beginning of November but there is still a bit of fall color on the trees. I love the scenery right now with the variety of colors and layers and textures - kind of like mixed media art!

Here are a few pages I added to my Nature Journal. I pressed some leaves found on one of my photo walks to add to my journal.

I hope you're enjoying the colors of the season wherever you are. This is day 2 of the 30 Days of Blogging Challenge. 

Vacation and Art - Part 2

The second half of our vacation was spent in the Harrisburg, PA area. We really enjoy taking Fall vacations. The weather is usually cooler, yet still wonderful. We had a perfect week in the upper 60's and lower 70"s and sunshine almost every day. The bonus: it was peak color time in the mountains.  Experiencing fall colors on rolling hills is much different than in flat Northwest Ohio.

While my husband visited an antique auto show I bopped around the Harrisburg and Hershey area visiting art supply stores and taking a photo walk in a park along the Susquehanna River.

On our way home we took a side trip to Falling Water, which is probably the best known Frank Lloyd Wright house. It was an incredible tour of an amazing house. And the fall colors enhanced the experience.

I saw a lot of birds on my vacation and recorded them in my nature journal.

A page from the notebook I've been doing quote art in. Curved edges are an idea from Bernice Hopper's class The Promised Land on the HKC site.

Reading about breathing exercises in The Creative Call and making a habit of taking photo walks as my breathing exercise has been one of the most beneficial things I've done in a long time. It combines solitude and self-care and exercise with being outside in nature enjoying the works of the Creator.

That's all for me today. I'm off to Bliss Cottage and a weekend with my sister. :) Enjoy your weekend!