Memories of 2014!

I haven't posted in a while because I have been sick.  So I have been wondering how to start my story....I was going through pictures I took in 2014 and some are good and some not so good...there were some really neat experiences...so  let me start with winter at the beginning of 2014....

We had a lot of snow and ice then...

Yoctangee Park looked so beautiful in white.












Out to Deer Creek we came across these Tundra Swans.

At Canal Road..the snow covered the falls.

This Horned Lark in a field looked very cold to me!

Ice covered Pine trees....











Sparrow sitting on ice covered bushes....

The fence and shrubs so pretty wearing their ice coats......

Best of all was the Mallards that took flight just as I was taking their picture....this was at Canal Road and one of my favorite pictures of 2014....

Finally the snow and ice melted away and hopes of spring was in my mind.

At Rocky Fork State Park, I captured this Common Tern...

At the bird observation building at Rocky Fork this Canada Goose had made her nest on the roof and notice in the left side of picture by the edge of roof is an egg that must have rolled out of her nest.

This beautiful Pheasant in a field....

Near the Deer Creek Dam I found this Blue Heron fishing and just as I took the picture, she went for a fish.....

A lone feather floating in the water at Logan Lake....thought it might belong to one of the Swans that were staying there.

This group of ducks were at Paint Creek which was flooded...we saw several kinds and an Eagle flew over....

Going home in a flooded field we saw these Tundra Swans and Canada Geese...Was so beautiful to look at......

At Shawnee Lodge we were hiking around to where there are reported Beavers...We have never seen them but this time we saw this......proving they were there and busy working.....

That day was nice and sunny and the turtles came out to sun themselves...Shawnee Park.

I was so excited to see the falls and the canal full of water on Canal Rd.  but it didn't last by end of summer it was dry.

At Deer Creek, we found these Sandhill Cranes in a corn field and the one seemed to enjoy getting his picture taken...he did a little posing for me.....

This beautiful Blue Bird at Shawnee was a wonderful surprise.....

The highlight of our visit to Shawnee was this Yellow-bellied  Sapsucker that seemed to be playing with us.  He flew on a tree right in  front of me and then followed us down the trail for a while.

The biggest surprise of the year was when I was taking pictures of the Heron nests along Three Mile Road...and when I down loaded the pictures...this was what I found!  A Great Horned Owl right in the middle of the Heron nests...it looks like he had taken over one of the nest for his own.

Out to Chillicothe Lake we found this Common Loon swimming around.  A first for me.

I always enjoy seeing the Thirteen Stripped Ground Squirrel at Charlies Pond.

Watching this Eastern Kingbird feeding her babies....

 At Deer Creek found this Bronze Copper Butterfly.

And can usually see some Deer.

This is the Eagle nest on Orr Rd.  It isn't there any more because of a terrible storm last summer that destroyed it.  I am hoping they rebuild.

 I got so excited when driving down a country road we saw on a telephone wire one of my favorite birds.  The Eastern Meadowlark singing away.  We stopped and watched and listened for a while.

 I like this picture of the Red-winged Blackbird with a spider's web full of little bugs.  He was having a good time trying to get them.

At Magee's Marsh in May....a spectacular display of Warblers...This Blackburnian Warbler was gorgeous.

The seeing this little Yellow Warbler taking a bath.

Of course, I can't forget the flowers that bloom in the spring and summer.  The Day Lilies are so pretty.








One of my favorites is the Chicory!

And I love butterflies...They were very plentiful this year......

Ohio Buckeye












This Hackberry Butterfly landed on my sister's finger....

 The wonderful Monarch Butterfly.  It is always a thrill to see one here and there but one day at Deer Creek we found a tree full of migrating Monarch Butterflies...Another very special moment of 2014.

This is the Canal at Charlie's Pond, Spring in the top picture and end of summer below..

It is so sad to see these areas dry up.  It takes a while for them to recover and it is one less place for wildlife.

Bird Blind at Deer Creek.

An other exciting thing was the dry Scioto River and being able to walk under the 35 bridge.

Swallow nests were attached to the bridge and in one of them it looked like there was something there......

Doesn't it look like a mouse or 

something.... LOL

Then the wonderful Super Moons.......

This Killdeer up at Lake Erie was pretending he was injured to lure us away from his nest....

It took us a little while to find it because it blends into the ground...just these 2 eggs....

The most exciting thing of the whole summer was the discovery of the Crested Caracara on Kelly's Island....there is an earlier blog all about it.

 We visited Back to the Wild this year and they had a couple of Snowy Owls...What a thrill to be so close to them.

There are many more memories but not enough space.  Then in November I started having these painful attacks...after 3 trips to the ER finally found out what was causing....ambulance ride to Riverside in Columbus and ERCP procedure was performed (Stones were removed that were blocking my liver duct) and home I came...So glad it happened the week before Christmas because by then I was almost back to myself.....I could write a book about this experience...Not one I want to repeat for a long time, if ever!

My IV's

My View......

Me attached to the IV's.....















So feeling good now and ready for the new year 2015!  Hope you all have a great new year too...

 Thanks for reading my blog and hope to share some fun things this coming year!