Red-shouldered Hawks of Tingsgrove and Beyond: Sandhill Cranes

Showing posts with label Sandhill Cranes. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Happy New Year 2023 and Farewell to 2022~

Happy New Year to all who might have the time to be able to stop by and visit my blog once again. It has been 6 long months since my last entry and with every try that I make to do better, life just gets in the way it appears.

I miss my heavy blogging days when we were able to visit one another on our blogs and keep in touch with special friends that we learned to know through those lovely visits. The last few times that I posted were so sporadic due to my sister's illness and then her passing away. I then had some health issues that came along with life difficulties that we had to help with and it has just taken the back burner and I truly hate that.

This past year has had some changes one in particular that has been such a huge blessing was when our youngest daughter and her husband moved back to Kentucky after living the last seven years in Florida. Having them home has been delightful.

We had a very rare bird that visited the adjoining Shelby county that caused quite a stir even on the news stations. I was able to see and photograph the bird on November 17th.

A Pink-footed goose

"The Pink-footed goose is a goose which breeds in Eastern Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard. It is migratory, wintering in Northwest Europe, especially Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Western Denmark. The name is often abbreviated in colloquial usage to "Pinkfoot"

Our area of Oldham County Kentucky has had 2 other very rare birds that ended up just 4 miles in two directions from our home the way a bird flies.

A juvenile Trumpeter swan. I first officially saw it on December 26th.

A Rough-legged hawk was seen and I was able to see and photograph it on December 28th.

Cover photo is one that the blog was named after...a Red-shouldered hawk~

*Remember to double click on the first image, to view a larger slideshow presentation after you have read the narratives. Thanking you so very much~

I'm joining Eileen at:

Saturday's Critter

http://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.com/

Anni at:

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

I'd Rather Be Birdin'

The Short-eared owls were here for a few months in 2021 and 2022.

Sadly they have not yet arrived back in our area for this season.

They are some of my favorite birds~

From May 25th through July 23 I had the pleasure of raising a female Wood duck that I named Bennett. I got it a little buddy to help raise it with that was a Rouen duckling that I named Fendley. I think of these two every single day. I hope and pray that somehow they survived, but it was a very bad situation~

I had walked down the lane to see if any Hummingbirds were at the Mimosa trees across the land from Tingsgrove. There are at least three trees that have branches hanging over the lane and that makes it easy to stand on Tingsgrove and see some of the activity. This time there were no hummers, but rather lots of butterflies and one single Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. I was thrilled because any of these moths are just stunning. The colours of the Clearwing moth are burgundy and olive down the back, and a light yellowish white and burgundy underneath. It's wings are transparent with a red burgundy border around them~

I had an injured Carpenter bee as a favorite from August 2nd until August 27th. I called her Bumble thinking that she was a Bumble bee. Actually she was Bumble the Carpenter bee and she trusted me. I found her just outside our gate on a bench. She was laying there late in the evening and I left her. The next morning she was still there and I couldn't believe what I did, but I put my finger down in front of her to see what she would do. She crawled right up on my hand and never showed me her stinger which she really had one that she could have chosen to use. She would crawl up on my fingers to my hand every day a few times. My husband liked her so much and we both still mention her from time to time.

We didn't have any idea as to how long she would survive, but Bumble the Carpenter bee was here for twenty five days. She really was such a wonderful creature to observe and care for...a very special gift~

I went to my friend Mack's house one day and got to see one of the 4 young Green herons that had just left the nest rim the day before~

I just really liked this picture of a juvenile Red-tailed hawk on one of my favorite country lanes~

One of our neighborhood White-tailed deer had triplets this past Spring~

Darling Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were around from Spring through October fifteenth~

A magical morning with an Egret taking off as I had just arrived at the park~

This year was my second to raise and release Monarch butterflies. I had twenty seven. Most of them I gathered in their egg stage and they all did really well. This was such a rewarding experience too.

These were all late stage eggs and caterpillars that ended up taking all the way through October ending for many of them to get to fly free.

I also got a few from my next door neighbor that were in various stages of caterpillars and some of them had already been bitten by Tachinid flies and didn't make it through their chrysalis stage which is always a sad happening.

The first few mosaics are a little story about a little egg that had hatched and I momentarily lost the baby caterpillar. All turned out well though~

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~

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/