Monthly Archives: August 2024

Bunting and Egret

Photograph taken on Thursday, August 01, 2024 by Henry
Great Egret (Ardea alba)

Great Egret (Ardea alba)

Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

We found a little nature reserve on the map and decided to give it a try today. It’s a bit further than we’d normally go and I don’t know that we’d go again, given the distance and the fact that we had to pay for parking at $4 per hour, which is a bit steep. It does probably account for the place not having many people, though. We say another painted bunting as well as quite a few herons and egrets, including the great egret Ardea alba shown in the first photo here. If you don’t mind spending a little money and you’re near by, it might be worth a visit.

We could hear thunder rumbling in the distance and the sky was quite menacing to the south but it never got close enough to bother us at all. It’s been warm this week but nothing like what it’s been up until now. This week we had highs in the mid 80s, which is pretty good for the time of year.

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Sanderling (Calidris alba)

Photograph taken on Friday, August 02, 2024 by Henry
Sanderling (Calidris alba)

Sanderling (Calidris alba)

Cathy and I went to the east end of Ocean Isle this morning and walked along the beach. Cathy looks for coral on the beach and before today hadn’t found many pieces. Today she found as much as she sometimes finds in a week. I found a few pieces, as well, but mostly I was taking photos of birds. I got a few of a brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) and some of willets (Tringa semipalmata) and quite a few of these little sanderlings (Calidris alba). They are quite numerous on the beach, running up just above waves and then following them back down to dig things up out of the sand.

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Baby Bird

Photograph taken on Tuesday, August 06, 2024 by Henry
Baby Bird

Baby Bird

I have no idea what kind of bird this is. Given its size, I’m guessing something larger than a sparrow but smaller than a crow. Possibly an America robin, but really, I have no idea. I was clearing around one of my roses today when I noticed the nest. I took a few pictures and then left things they way they were. There’s plenty more to do in the garden and I can come back and work around the rose when the bird has fledged. We see quite a variety of birds in our yard. We have multiple sources of water that we keep filled (and ice-free in the winter). We also have quite a few plants that provide food for birds that like their seeds. We also attract insects, so there are birds that come for those. Finally, we have hummingbirds and we see them both on the feeders and on flowers in the garden.

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Battus philenor (Pipevine Swallowtail)

Photograph taken on Wednesday, August 14, 2024 by Henry
Battus philenor (Pipevine Swallowtail)

Battus philenor (Pipevine Swallowtail)

Cathy and I took the day off from work and went up to Pennsylvania today to visit with Dorothy and two of her good friends, Jack and Katie. We had a lovely time with them, spending some time on the Gettysburg battlefield and then going to our property and hanging out a bit. We marked a trail through the woods that Dorothy wants to clear and Dorothy worked a little in the orchard, moving some sticks around. She has a little garden plot that’s the start of something bigger.

I saw this pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor) on a thistle (Cirsium species) and was able to get a pretty good photo.

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40th Anniversary Dinner

Photograph taken on Friday, August 16, 2024 by Henry
Cathy, Yvette, Rob, and Susie

Cathy, Yvette, Rob, and Susie

We had a few friends over for dinner this evening to celebrate our 40th anniversary (which isn’t today, but close enough). Yvette and Cathy were at Wake Forest together and was in our wedding. Rob and I have been friends since the fall of 1972. He wasn’t in our wedding because he was in Kenya at the time. We’ve known Susie since she and Rob met, back in the day. Our friend Jean, whom Cathy has known since high school, wasn’t able to come because she was in North Carolina helping take care of two grandchildren while a third was being born. There are others we could have invited but we wanted to keep it simple.

We had a really nice dinner, starting with mushroom and peach bruschetta, followed by bowls of French onion soup. The main course was ginger and soy marinated flank steak and salmon with sugar and mustard sauce. We finished with strawberries and whipped cream. If I say so myself, it was a really good meal. It was even better company. Thank you to all our friends and family for helping us make it through forty years together.

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National War Correspondents Memorial

Photograph taken on Saturday, August 17, 2024 by Henry
National War Correspondents Memorial

National War Correspondents Memorial

We decided to drive up to South Mountain this afternoon. We started out at with a visit to the Washington Monument. It was quite hazy, though, and the view wasn’t much to speak of. Also, the tower was closed, so we couldn’t go up it. From there we went to the three gaps that were the principal sites of fighting in the Battle of South Mountain in mid-September, 1962. They are, from north to south, Turner’s Gap, Fox’s Gap, and Crampton’s Gap.

The National War Correspondents Memorial, shown here, is in Crampton’s Gap in Gathland State Park. It was built in 1896 by Civil War correspondent George Alfred “Gath” Townsend (January 30, 1841 – April 15, 1914), who built a home for himself here in the early 1880s. He also built himself a mausoleum but is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

On our drive we happened to go by the South Mountain Creamery and stopped for ice cream.

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Clouds over Great Falls

Photograph taken on Sunday, August 18, 2024 by Henry
Clouds over Great Falls

Clouds over Great Falls

We went to Great Falls today. It’s one of those things we used to do fairly often but then didn’t quite so much when they started charging so much for parking. Now that I have my America The Beautiful Lifetime Senior pass, it doesn’t cost us any to get in. That was definitely a well spent $80. The sky was very dramatic while we were there, as seen in this photo taken from Olmsted Island looking southwest towards the Virginia shoreline. As you can probably tell, this is an HDR image, made from three separate exposures.

A little later, as we were walking on the canal towards Wide-Water, it started to rain. We got under the branches of a tree and I put my camera under my shirt and managed to keep it pretty dry, although we got fairly wet ourselves. The rain stopped and we continued on. By the time we turned around and got back to the car, the sun was shining again.

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Female Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea)

Photograph taken on Saturday, August 24, 2024 by Henry
Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea)

Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea)

We decided to go over to the Agricultural History Farm Park late this afternoon. We enjoyed walking in the demonstration garden as well as seeing the dahlias. Then we walked down to the row of apple trees, a few of which were loaded with apples. On the way back up I took this picture of a female blue grosbeak (Passerina caerulea) on the corn. I thought it was a female goldfinch but when I went to confirm that, both Google and the Merlin app identified it as a grosbeak. I also got a nice shot of a female chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina, which Google misidentified but Merlin got right. And I got two shots of a male eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis), but he had his head turned away from me.

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American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis)

Photograph taken on Sunday, August 25, 2024 by Henry
American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis)

American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis)

We drove out to McKee-Beshers this afternoon. We didn’t get out there when the sunflowers were blooming but thought we might see birds on the seedheads. We didn’t see indigo buntings (Passerina cyanea), probably because they are migrating south. We did, hovever see a lot of American goldfinches (Spinus tristis), like the one pictured here. I got a photo of a blue-gray gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea) and an eastern phoebe (Sayornis phoebe). At one area, where there are shallow ponds, we saw a green heron (Butorides virescens) and down by the river we saw a great blue heron (Ardea herodias).

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Red-spotted Purple and Tufted Titmouse

Photograph taken on Saturday, August 31, 2024 by Henry
Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis astyanax)

Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis astyanax)

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor)

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor)

We went to great falls this afternoon and walked on the Goldmine Loop and then the Woodland Trail and back by the Burma Road, and finally down to the towpath and back to the parking area. The woods were quiet and it was a very nice walk. We didn’t see or even hear many birds in the woods but it was still really pleasant, if a bit warm and humid. We saw a butterfly that I didn’t recognize. Looking it up after getting home I found that it’s a red-spotted purple (Limenitis arthemis astyanax). I think it’s a beautiful butterfly in the genus Limenitis, the admirals and viceroy butterflies.

When we were on the Burma Road over Widewater we saw a cormorant and then down on the canal we saw more butterflies and a few little grey birds in the cattails. At first we couldn’t figure out what it was but then one hopped up onto a blade in plain sight and we could tell that they were tufted Titmice (Baeolophus bicolor).

I would definitely walk this trail again. I think it would be especially nice in the spring.

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