At the feeder

The house finch, as they have since we put out the feeder in January, eat breakfast with us every morning. We were very excited to notice that we've got a Juvenile male visiting us now who has lost almost all his fluffy feathers! He still has a few funny looking stragglers though :) He's also a little thinner than the two mature males who've been with us all year. 

Our (young) male House Finch

female House Finch

Our Hummingbird feeders have also been busy as they prepare to migrate south. We had four or five females outside yesterday, but today saw only two, so we think they're starting to leave for the season.

female Ruby-throated Hummingbird

We have two hummingbird feeders. This tiny one (that holds about 1/4c) and a larger one with 4 feeders (that holds about 2c) but the birds seem to prefer the tiny one. We aren't sure if they like the feeder itself better, or if they like the fact that it's in the flower pot?

DIY Cat Privacy Screen

My parents have three cats, and whenever they go out of town, Rick and I are roped into watching this trio of nocturnal monsters. For the most part, these cats hide/sleep under the bed for about 20/24 hours. The 4 hours they are awake, if we don't wear them out first, are 1-5am. 

NOT COOL CATS.

So pre-bedtime includes intense bouts of playing and us just randomly waking them whenever we see them trying to curl and sleep somewhere.

Raphael: aka Binky (left) and Darth Lucifer: aka Dinky (right) - Feb.

Sabe' - Feb.

Last February, we watched them and the only place we could find to concievably place a litter box is in the storage closet at the end of the hall. That means, whenever you walked in our door you stared straight down the hall at the cat box.

Yuck!

I hated it.

Litter box Feb. - The back wall is shiny because it's covered in plastic in case they kicked out litter (or worse) I didn't want it to smell up my closet walls.

So this time around, I decided I didn't want to look at the cat box anymore! So I made a "privacy screen" to go in front of it out of the box my textbooks came in and some cute wrapping paper!

I only used three sides of the box and left the top and bottom attached to give me extra height and a "base" to balance with. My third side is pressed flat against the door and taped there (because the cats will rub against anything and I didn't want them knocking it over) I also didn't completely cover that side in paper because I knew it wasn't going to be visible.

Turns out, you can BUY cat box privacy screens. Who knew? But those are $20+ and I would have had to wait while it shipped. I made this one with materials on hand for free.

Cat box privacy screen!

Lake Red Rock and Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge

Rick and I took advantage of some cool nights and spent the weekend camping near Lake Red Rock, but due to bugs and the fact that we had to share all the trails with Horses - read as:

HORSES RUIN HIKING.
We had to go elsewhere to do our birdwatching.

Dog people are required to clean up after their animal, Even when said animal does its business on the SIDE of the trail. Horse people however, are allowed to let THEIR animal crap right in the middle of the trail and are never required to pick up after it. As a birdwatcher, this ruins the trail. When you want to see birds, you have to look UP, you can't however, look up and watch what you're about to step in at the same time. 

So we spent the majority of our time at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, where there are no horses to poop all over the hiking trails.

We had a great time!

White Pelicans gather for the fall migration at lake Red Rock

A Lesser Yellowlegs wades in Lake Red Rock

A Bison statue at the Prairie City Casey's

 Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge

Momma and Baby Elk!

Grasshopper Sparrow

A chipmunk pretends to be part of this stick in hopes we won't notice him

Tiger Swallowtail

A Dickcissel posts up on a pretty prairie plant

Eastern Black Swallowtail

Some kind of Sulpher, I can't tell if it's an Orange Sulpher or a Common Sulpher

Eastern Black Swallowtail

Eastern Black Swallowtail

A tricky Viceroy mimics a Monarch 

Bull Elk

Rick and a giant badger head in the visitor center 

Hickory Grove Lake and Big Wall Lake

I had a couple days off while the kids were at the State Fair with their Grandma, so Rick and I took Rocinante out for some fun on the water!

Green Heron at Hickory Grove, he has a SUPER TINY fish!

Painted Turtle at Hickory Grove

Killdeer at Hickory Grove 

Wood Ducks at Hickory Grove

Orange Spotted Purple at Hickory Grove

Yellow Headed Blackbird at Big Wall

Marsh Wren at Big Wall

Marsh Wren at Big Wall

Water Lily at Big Wall - the marsh was full of them!

We also saw an American Coot and a American Bittern - we flushed him 3 times! But he was so fast and didn't stay in the air more than a few seconds before dropping back into the weeds, so I never managed to get his picture.

Life List and Memory Jar

Most birders keep what's called a "Life List", or list of birds they've seen, Rick and I started one together a couple years ago (previously posted) and thanks to our trip to Myrtle Beach we have 28 new birds to add to that list! We're now up to 153 birds that we've positively identified (and remembered to add to our list).

Our new birds (in alphabetical order)

1. American Oystercatcher
2. Anhinga
3. Black Skimmer
4. Blue Grosbeak
5. Boat tailed Grackle
6. Carolina Chickadee
7. Glossy Ibis
8. Ground Dove
9. Laughing Gull
10. Least Bittern
11. Little Blue Heron
12. Mockingbird
13. Moorhen
14. Painted Bunting
15. Roseate Spoonbill
16. Ruddy Turnstone
17. Sanderling
18. Sandwich Tern
19. Semipalmated Plover
20. Sharp-tailed Sparrow
21. Snowy Egret
22. Tri-colored Heron
23. White Ibis
24. Willet
25. Wood Stork
26. Worm Eating Warbler
27. Yellow Crowned Night Heron
28. Yellow legged gull / black backed gull (indistinguishable)

 I also went through and took pictures of our conch shells collected on Bulls Island!

This is Erin's favorite shell!

This is Rick's favorite shell!

MEMORY JARS!!

I put all the seashells Rick and I collected (and a few shells I've collected in past years at Myrtle) and made these fun Memory Jars to commemorate our trip! They're also really fun summer centerpieces for our kitchen table!

Myrtle Beach Trip: DAY 6-8 - Three days home

On our way back, Rick and I decided to take the scenic route and get a hotel for a night. We stoppe in Cave City, KY just outside Mammoth Cave National Park.

After a night at the Cave City Super 8 we headed to the park for some exploring! It was super foggy and overcast, TERRIBLE for pictures!

Dinosaur World! We didn't go in (we woke up at like 7 so it didn't open for a few hours and we weren't waiting), but I did like this orange stripey T-rex on the way into the Park.

Mammoth Cave plays host to, as Rick calls them, "The rare and elusive White Tailed Deer"

It's also home to the "rare and elusive Wild Turkey" (m)

Wild Turkey (f) 

This little guy was wonderfully photogenic despite the fact that it was raining!

Eastern Bluebird

 Because of the rain, and the huge crowd of people trying to get in on a cave tour, Rick and I decided we didn't want to bother with the crowd and would drive around the park exploring and wait for the rain to stop (there were bits of blue starting to peek through the clouds).

We got to take the car on a ferry ride!

Green River Ferry

 The rain eventually stopped, but then we realized (after a little hiking) that ALL the trails were hiker/HORSE, and so ALL the trails were infested with horrible biting Horse Flies.

So we left and headed instead for the Audubon Parkway and the John James Audubon State Park!

a fungus/mushroom I've never seen before. It was pretty.

A very small squirrel takes on a very large walnut

TURTLES EVERYWHERE!

 Rick and I hiked a trail to a pond and found that every log was just COVERED in turtles! We think there were a few different kinds but were never close enough to really be sure on ID's.

Silvery Checkerspot

Eastern Towhee (f)

a hummingbird statue near the welcome center

the sign to the park

After the Audubon park, we finished the 8 hour drive to Rick's parents' house and crashed for the night!
After lunch today, we packed up our laundry and finally made it home!