A Special Guest Among Thousands of Sandhill Cranes~

~It's time to take charge once again and I think it will all work out~

My blog began as a Blogger blog, but we needed more support and Google came in and asked that we switch, but I was reluctant to do so.  Other bloggers explained it to me and so I did switch over and it worked beautifully until last year when so many comments could not be found. As of December ending Google had announced that they are no longer going to support our blogs and in fact will be deleting all Google+ comments by February 4. On Google+ alone I house 9,352 comments and those are mine, they are my gifts from over 400 of you cherished friends and followers from Blogger and over 725 on Google+ and yet they are going to DELETE all of them by April 2. The Notice says: 

Your personal Google+ account is going away on April 2, 2019!

All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019!

My blog has such great meaning to me and causes me such joy and this is something that was mentioned in a December notification that never made it into my Gmail notifications. Google showed the Email address as pending, though it is the same email address attached to my blog since it's inception. 

I was very wary to switch back from Google+ profile to Blogger profile because there are so many questions with different answers out there and no real person to speak with.  I online chatted with a Google specialist for over 45 minutes last week and at the end he said, he was very sorry, but he had no solutions.

When I saw that all of the 9,352 comments had already been deleted from my blog on Google+, words cannot adequately describe the feeling I felt simply devastated! 

Then one day I was thinking wait a minute... I have kept every single one of my blogs notifications via Gmail and every one of those Emails holds each comment. Every single one of them ;) ! Gmail is not being affected by the deletion of the Google+ and so I still have all of my comments from the Google+ just no longer seen under each post published.  

Yesterday I did switch back to my original Blogger profile and held my breath and clicked on SAVE and then took a few deep breaths before viewing my blog.  All is just well!    

Currently I have 726 wonderful people who follow my blog via Google+ and another 236 who have followed me on Blogger.  When Google+ shuts down April 2, I will lose 490 of my friends across the country and around the world.  I hope that some of you who are using Google+ will try and stay in touch.  I appreciate everyone of you all so very much~

Remember to double click on the first image, to view a larger slideshow presentation after    you have read the narratives~

I am joining in the fun with Eileen at:

Saturday's Critter

http://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.com/

Anni at:

http://id-rather-b-birdin.blogspot.com/ 

I'd Rather Be Birdin'

 Linking to I'd Rather B Birdin' 

   

Angie at:  

Mosaic Monday

https://tentoesinthewater.blogspot.com/

 Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global 

   http://communalglobal.blogspot.ca/

& 

Stewart for:

Wild Bird Wednesday

http://paying-ready-attention-gallery.blogspot.com.au/

I got a call back from the INTERNATIONAL CRANE FOUNDATION and have learned a great deal about the Whooping Crane that I reported to them last Tuesday. 

The male bird is going to be 7 this Summer and his parents were born in the wild, but his egg was taken from the nest by the "Forced Re-nesting Program" and then raised in captivity by costumed handlers. One of the reasons this is done is because of a terrible little insect called Blackfly and they hatch about the time the young Whooping Cranes are hatching out, and they try and take eggs from the first nesting of the season so that the young birds are not plagued by these insects. The second nesting clutch no eggs are usually taken. This chick was given a name after his hatch of Fire Weed and then he became #1612 as part of the Whooping Crane Ultralight-assisted Migration program and went all the way to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida from where it was born at the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin his first year. He has had another male Crane that has been his buddy and they usually travel together, but this year his buddy met up with a female and now they are together as a pair. #1612 tends to be a loner and there is a single female nearby and the team at the foundation are hoping that the two will pair up. There are also two females that hang together and they lay eggs, but they are not fertile. It was absolutely fascinating to learn about this remarkable bird that I was blessed to come upon last week~ <3 span="">

Some of the some thirty thousand Sandhill Cranes observed from the warmth of my car for over an hour Saturday and then this grand finale happened. I was an audience of one the entire time and I was in awe. This was when the birds gave me their grand finale. Yes...I wept tears of joy, God had truly blessed me. Be sure to turn up your volume~

                   https://www.facebook.com/MaryHowellCromer/videos/10216321645226790/

I love this image!  The Crane was tossing and kicking corn shucks up into the air as part of his elaborate dance to show off~

Hey Down, Ho Down ;) kicking up their heels~

These are a few more both above and below that out of over 1,000 images taken hit an easy top of the list for favorites~

Some pretty little bird mosaics to brighten up your day~

Female American Cardinal~

Male American Cardinal~

Fox Sparrow~

Chickadee~

Red-breasted Nuthatch~

White-throated Sparrow~

American Goldfinch~

Female Brown-headed Cowbird~

Tufted Titmouse~

Remembering Muff, and the Ending of Autumnal Colours~

It's been a rough couple of days for me. Not a human, but a little buddy since I met him some time after his mom died. His twin sister came with him, but didn't attach like he did. He was 16 months old and this week he was killed on the new road, right across the street from where he always came to greet me. I called him Muff, or Muffy because he had larger ears than the other fawns that made him look like he had on earmuffs. I was able to get a 100%ID of him today because of the many images I take of each buck as they grow their antlers. In velvet he looked amazing. He's only the second buck to have a name and to follow me around.  I was looking forward to seeing him in his darker coat out in the snow this Winter.  That won't happen now. I wish that people would pay more close attention to the road and watch for them. Anyway this is when he was younger and was following me around.  

Remember to double click on the first image, to view a larger slideshow presentation after    you have read the narratives~

I am joining in the fun with Eileen at:

Saturday's Critter

http://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.com/

Anni at:

http://id-rather-b-birdin.blogspot.com/ 

I'd Rather Be Birdin'

 Linking to I'd Rather B Birdin' 

   

Angie at:  

Mosaic Monday

https://tentoesinthewater.blogspot.com/

 Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global 

   http://communalglobal.blogspot.ca/

& 

Stewart for:

Wild Bird Wednesday

http://paying-ready-attention-gallery.blogspot.com.au/

Some of my favorite remembrances from this buck. He appeared around mid July of 2017 with a twin sister. There was never a Doe with them. After a couple of months the sister went missing and the little buck was by then nearing 5 months of age and all alone. He would come to get handouts of cracked corn and fruit. One day I was getting ready to cross our narrow wooden bridge and Muff stepped up on it from the far side. I had to gently coax him off. He seemed to trust me and yet I never got close enough to reach out to him, as I always respect that they are wild. He came to visit a few times every day and then a couple of times and then every few days. I noticed that the Does would take and hoof him if he tried to eat in their space. The young twin fawn bucks were also after him and trying to chase him away.  He was special because he fought such a hard, lonely battle to survive and at the young age of 15/16 months, he was hit and left on the side of the road. I was able to pull him over into the high grasses, and when I drove away, the Vultures were lined up to do their job. My heart aches for the loss of this amazingly wonderful creature. I guess I can admit that I loved the chap.   

That's beautiful Muff on the left looking at the twin bucks, also his same age~

The other day I called the state highway department in Frankfort, the Oldham County Road Department ( they assured me that they would contact Frankfort and get signs up weeks ago) and they cannot get any "Deer Crossing" signs up on the new parkway. I also called Oldham County Judge/Executive David Voegele's office. The gentleman that I spoke with felt very bad about all of the deer already killed including my Muff as well as a Great Horned Owl, 1 Wild Turkey and two Box Turtles in just the few weeks since they opened it.

The I got a phone call. The signs are going up hopefully by this time next week! If they are not up by then, I was instructed to call them and let them know. This is a very wide four lane parkway, with plenty of wide landscape viewing, to where hitting a Deer, or anything is absurd, unless someone just doesn't care. I would imagine that the Deer hits are from larger pickup trucks. There is also going to be a better police presence to make sure that the drivers obey the speed limit of 45 mph~

All of the images of the Autumnal colours and the songbirds were taken on Tingsgrove, our little two and a half acres~

Male Cardinal~

American Robin~

Female Cardinal~

We are enjoying the colours for as long as they last. Many of the trees this year both on Tingsgrove and beyond have turned brown and fallen without the colours that we all look forward to. Rain washes the leaves and when they are still wet they are even more vibrant. I have a few left on the camera to upload, but here is another set taken just after the rains came~  

Eastern Towhee~

Chickadee~

Last week I began seeing the Red-tailed Hawks a little bit more as the canopy of green turns colours and falls to the earth's floor.  This was an incredible looking bird~

Turkey as well as Black Vultures are always ready and waiting road kill~

This Red-tailed Hawk was on Tingsgrove~

This Red-tailed Hawk was hunting and had missed it's prey and only snagged dirt and grass on this attempt~

Of all places...I have been visiting the world famous and beloved Cave Hill Cemetery since I was a young child, some 65 years ago.  This is the first time that I have ever seen a deer there as it is inside the Louisville, Kentucky city limits.  Not only was there this big chap, but two more were running with him...it's rutting season~

The other day from 1:18 to 1:56 PM, I had a visitor...oh and yes about the timing...I looked at my first image and then my last one taken on my camera of this Sharp-shinned Hawk on Tingsgrove. It landed right above where I was and stayed for 38 minutes. I told it how beautiful it was and it was nice to stay awhile and let me get over 400 images, yes you read that right. I eliminated the total by half and then down to a couple of shares for this post.

I received corrections from two folk on Facebook birding group pages that my original guess of a Cooper's Hawk was wrong. At first I thought it was a Sharp-shinned Hawk because it was only about the size of say...a Blue Jay. After observing it for so long and seeing it from all sides, the tail feathers didn't look squared off, or straight across like a Sharp-shinned, but rather scalloped to the tip like a Cooper's Hawk, or so I thought.  This is indeed a Sharp-shinned Hawk and my first ever that was not flying way far away from me looking like a bleep in the air~