Monthly Archives: July 2025

Annual Family Beach Photo

Annual Family Beach Photo

Annual Family Beach Photo

As mentioned, we had our annual family beach week. It was quite different without mom/grandma there, but we had a good time together, both being with each other and remembering her. Dorothy was not able to stay for the full week, flying home Thursday afternoon, so we took our annual family group photo that morning. As you can possibly see, there was a little fog still on the lens or the sensor when I took this. That’s a common issue when we come out from the air conditioned indoors into the hot and humid outside.

Dorothy had originally planned to fly from Myrtle Beach Airport, where she flew into on Sunday. She found an earlier flight leaving from Wilmington and changed her reservation so she’d get home earlier and have time for band practice. It turns out she needn’t have bothered. The weather in Maryland and Pennsylvania was stormy enough that her flight was delayed and she got home considerably later than she would have on her original flight (although for all we know, that flight might have been delayed even longer). But she did get home eventually.

Cathy and I went to the New Hanover County Arboretum in Wilmington, which we really enjoyed. I’d definitely stop in again if we were in the area.

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Kites, Ocean Isle Beach

Kites, Ocean Isle Beach

Kites, Ocean Isle Beach

I made a point of having my camera outside for a little while before we went down to the beach where the kids were going to fly their kites. It’s been quite hot this week and we’re all very grateful for air conditioning (even if some would have wanted it a little less cold inside). One down-side to air conditioning, though, is that when you take a camera from a 70°F environment to something over 90°F with very high humidity, it fogs up immediately and takes a while to unfog. But I planned ahead and was able to get some nice pictures of the kids running around with their kites. There was also a nice sunset.

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Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

After going to Alligator Pond (see previous post), we continued just into South Carolina to Vereen Memorial Park. This is a relaxing little park with trails through the woods and boardwalks through the marsh to two islands. I got some nice photos of a great egret (Ardea alba). Then, as we were out on the first of the two islands I hear a painted bunting (Passerina ciris) and found it in the top of a small tree. It’s tricky to get a good photo of a bird against the bright sky, but this one turned out reasonably well.

We also saw (and I photographed) eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis), a downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens), a Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), and heard but did not see a brown-headed nuthatch (Sitta pusilla).

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Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata)

Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata)

Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata)

We went to Alligator Pond (a.k.a. the Carl Bazemore Bird Walk) again today. We saw the anhinga again but not close. We did, however, see an alligator as well as an adult and juvenile common gallinule (Gallinula galeata). They were moving around quite a bit but I was able to get close enough to get a pretty good photo of each of them. This is the adult bird. Of the two alligators we saw, one of them was quite close, lying on the surface in a clump of weeds and very well camouflaged. But it was close enough we weren’t going to miss it. I got some photos of that, as well.

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Eloise’s Birthday

Eloise's Birthday

Eloise’s Birthday

In years past, we always celebrated my Uncle George’s birthday at the beach, because (obviously) that’s when it fell. With him no longer being with us, it’s nice to have a birthday to celebrate. As you will probably figure out from the candle, this is Eloise’s fifth birthday, and my cousins and their families came over to have cake and ice cream. It was a fairly raucous time with all the ‘littles’ running around and enjoying themselves. But it was a happy, little-kid type of raucous.

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Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)

Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)

Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)

Cathy and I went to the Carl Bazemore Bird Walk on what we call Alligator Pond on Shoreline Drive, west of the bridge to Sunset Beach. We saw a few alligators in the distance as well as a few birds. The most interesting thing was this anhinga (Anhinga anhinga), catching fish quite close to us. The first fish we saw it catch was small. Then, however, it landed a pretty good size fish (it looks like a bluegill). I got a few shots of it swallowing the fish, so I can confirm that it was an entirely successful catch.

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A Smaller Family Reunion

Family Reunion

Family Reunion

There are certain things that make me think of my mom more than normal. The annual family reunion in northeastern North Carolina is high on the list. We’ve been going to that for years and in recent years it’s just been my mom and me, driving down the morning of the reunion, spending the night with my cousin, and then driving home the next day. This year, it was just Cathy and me and we drove down the day before. It was also on the way to our annual beach week, which is how it used to be but hasn’t been for a few years. There was a much smaller group this year, with only 26 of us able to get together. We usually try to get photos of the generations but with only 26 people there, we decided just to take a single group photo (well, we took three of them, but they’re all basically the same). In spite of the smaller size, we had a really nice visit with some of my favorite people. I’m already looking forward to next year’s reunion.

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Ferns

Ferns

Ferns

We walked a 3​2⁄3 mile loop today at the Patuxent River State Park, just upstream from Triadelphia Reservoir. We started at the parking area on Georgia Avenue (MD 97) where it crosses the Patuxent River, taking the trail closest to the river (the ‘Yellow’ trail) almost to Howard Chapel Road. The trail then loops to the south and west and we turned onto the ‘Red’ trail, crossing Howard Chapel Road, looping around and then returning to Howard Chapel Road near the Howard Chapel Cemetery. On the way back through the woods I took the only photo taken on the walk, of these ferns.

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Summer Games

Summer Games

Summer Games

Dorothy and her friends hosted what they called the Summer Games this weekend in Pennsylvania. It was a pretty warm afternoon. Because I was taking pictures, I didn’t actively participate in most of the activities, although I did shoot an arrow (and did pretty well, if I say so myself). They had come up with a wide range of activities from a scavenger hunt, to a tug-of-war, a few races, both individual and team-based. This photo is of the first event, where the teams were to build a frame and carry one of their team members about a hundred yards. The green team (see the bandanas) won this race but the yellow team edged them out in the overall score for the day.

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Rachel Carson Conservation Park

Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)

Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)

Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula)

Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula)

indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea)

indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea)

We went to the Rachel Carson Conservation Park today and had a fairly hot and humid walk through the woods. We heard quite a few birds in the woods but saw almost none. We did see these Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), also known as ghost plant or ghost pipe. These are parasitic, non-photosynthesizing plants, getting their energy from Russulaceae family of fungi, which in turn get their energy from the roots of photosynthesizing plants. We also saw chanterelle mushrooms (Cantharellus species) and downy rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera pubescens).

Towards the end of our walk we were in the meadows nearer the parking area and I got some photos of the dreaded spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) in its final nymphal instar stage. There were also indigo buntings (Passerina cyanea) singing all around and I finally found one that I could just see at the top of a tree and got a few photos of that.

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Rachel and Michael’s Wedding

Michael and Rachel

Michael and Rachel

Cathy and I drove down to Raleigh, North Carolina this morning, getting there in reasonable time. We checked into out hotel and had time to visit a municipal rose garden before getting dressed and heading to the church for Rachel and Michael’s wedding. The wedding itself was quite beautiful. The music, not surprisingly considering this was Rachel, was particularly nice. After the ceremony, we drove to the reception location and after hors d’oeuvre (including an Italian ice cart provided by Rachel’s brother) and drinks, Michael and Rachel danced their first dance as husband and wife, before we had a lovely dinner.

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Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

After church today, and before we visited Cathy’s mom, we stopped at the Agricultural History Farm Park and enjoyed a few minutes in the demonstration garden. There were Crocosmia in bloom, among other things. From the garden, we walked down through the meadow, which was rich with Helianthus and Monarda. I got one good bird photo, this time of a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia). It’s not the flashiest of birds, but, as the name suggests, it’s a songster with a varied repertoire. The heat of the day in the summer isn’t the best time for bird photography, but I’ll take what I can get.

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Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)

Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)

Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)

Cathy and I took a walk from the Sandy Spring Friends Meeting to Sandy Spring this afternoon. We saw and heard quite a few birds today, which we don’t always do on this particular walk. In particular, we heard and then saw a Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) but my camera refused to focus on it so sadly I was unable to get a photograph. I did get this photo of an eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), however, and I think it’s a pretty good one. I also got half-decent photos of an indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea), a few red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus), and a few pretty blurry photos of a nuthatch (not even good enough to know if it was red- or white-breasted).

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Computer Carcasses

Computer Carcasses

Computer Carcasses

Over the years, I’ve collected a pretty impressive collection of computer remains. Some were my primary computer at one time or another. Others were given to me to see if I could repair them and turned out to be beyond repair. Still others were servers of some kind. One was a firewall, a few had been web or mail servers. All of them, however, were well past their sell by date and needed to be hauled away. I took the hard drives out of them and will deal with those separately. In addition to the 13 computers in this photograph, there was a large box of peripheral cards (including three 33.6kbps modems), another box full of cables, an old CRT monitor, and a few miscellaneous items. These all went to the electronic recycling station at our local recycling center.

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