Merry Christmas

It is almost time for Santa to make his visit.  I think we are ready...

The presents are wrapped.....

The Christmas Cards are read......

The stuffed animals are ready....

Even the Grinch....

The trees are all decorated....

And the Poinsettia's are red and beautiful...

The snowman is smiling.....

With memories of past Christmas.....

We wish a Merry Christmas to All....

      and hope you.....

December at Deer Creek

Here I am ready for whatever might happen.  My sister and I decided the weather was good and thought we better get out for one more drive before 2012!  

We decided to head to Deer Creek, one of our favorites.
The water level is down for the winter.

We stopped at the Osprey nest and it is about to fall over.  I hope they fix it before they return.

We discovered this hawk.

I think it might be a Red-tailed Hawk...not sure have to do some more research...He was huge (or she)

We also saw a couple of Northern Harriers too...

This beautiful Belted Kingfisher was just as interested in us as we were in her.

We saw hundreds of Sea Gulls.  They seemed to like being up by the Damn.

This tree had all it's roots showing.  The water had washed all the dirt away.

Here was a bunch of Hedge apples laying on the ground.

This row of trees had Ivy growing up them. It was pretty to see with the sun shining on them.

This milk weed pod caught my attention right away.  They are laying there just waiting for the right time to fly away....

This was unusual...We think it might be a cocoon of some kind. It was too high in the tree for me to inspect it.

As always, we ran out of daylight and had to go home.....

Osprey Nest

The Osprey nest at Deer Creek State Park, Ohio.  I was so thrilled to see they had returned to nest.

I had watched them all
summer of 2010 and was happy to be able to watch them this summer 2011.

She looked like she had already laid her eggs and was sitting on them.

I found a great place to sit and watch and get some good pictures.  I was so excited for the babies to hatch...


Then the rains came and Deer Creek flooded...

The nest with her still sitting on the eggs...

The nest doesn't look very good in this picture and the water had gone down some..but there were some more spring storms and the next time I visited....

No Osprey was on the nest...they had abandoned it.














I have hopes for next Spring, that the Osprey will return and try again.  I will keep everyone updated.

Black Friday !!!!

My sister called and wanted an Adventure today.  She picked me up and we headed south.  Got to Waverly and stopped at Wal-Mart.  Did a little shopping and got some great buys and didn't have to get up early or wait in line.
From there we decided to head to Shawnee State Park.  We saw an Eagle soaring over and several hawks, the day was beautiful...Had lunch at the Lodge and it was decorated with dozens of trees.  This is my sister by the fireplace in the lobby.

Lunch was delicious... we walked around and looked at all the decorations and Christmas music was playing...just the thing to get me in the mood...

This nativity scene was beautiful and then there was the tree made of things from nature with a Noah's arc beside it.

It had wasp nests and just about everything you could find outside. A beautiful tree.

We decided to follow the Scenic Scioto Heritage Trail and found this Mansion...

This old building looks like it is ready to fall down...but notice the satellite dish in the window upper right.....

Then winding thru the countryside ...we came upon this creek...

The hillside had unusual stone formations and as we got closer.....











It looks like someone created these pointed stones in the side of this hill...was amazing

Saw a lot of cows and some horses...

Other things we found along the drive...

Pears still in the tree..... and a large hornets nest.....

A drive thru the country isn't complete without a beautiful old barn...,

An then just when I thought I wasn't going to get a picture of a bird.....

He was there for just a moment and flew off.  I think he is a Rough-legged Hawk. I am sorry the picture isn't clearer but only had moments to take this ....
Then on the way home along 104......

There were hundreds of Starlings in this field....

And of course when we stopped to get pictures...they flew away.....

And were gone!  Was an amazing site...sorry the picture isn't the best please forgive me for that.  We ended the day with a pumpkin blizzard from Dairy Queen....Was a good Black Friday!