I've Been on Another Owl Hunt

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I am joining Nicole at Friday Face Off and Gillena at her Friday Lunch Break.

   Last Monday I shared some photos of the Long Eared Owl I saw last week. (Link is here Going On Another Owl Hunt.) My friend Deb was hoping to see the Long Eared Owl after I shared my photos with her, so the other day she and I went off  on another  owl hunt. It was one of those days when all the birds seemed to be hiding, at least at the state reservation where the owls were to be found.

   We did see one owl, but as you can see in this next photo, he/she has great camouflage. The owl almost looks like the tree trunk. Thankfully there was a birder there with better spotting skills than either of us had and who pointed him out to us.

    But at least Deb, who had never seen a wild owl before, did spot him.  After the owl event we decided to head on down to the Parker River National Wildlife Preserve which is only about 15 minutes away from Salisbury State Reservation. The wildlife preserve is out on Plum Island, and you might remember  the very snowy photos I showed when Deb and I visited there earlier this year. (Here is that link if you're interested: Snowy Nature Reserve.)

    Being at the shore, the snow is all gone there, and we decided to stop at the main headquarters to see if there was anything special we should know about. There wasn't, but they did have this fun drawing out in front of the building. There are faces here for Friday Face Off.

   I can't say it was the best birding day, but even so it was really nice to be outside, see what we saw, and also get a little walk in too. Mostly we saw Canada geese and seagulls. It seemed like there were 1000’s of each (although not in my photos) species, but probably I am exaggerating abit.

    At the end of the road, we parked and went walking. 

    There were a couple of swans in the salt pan lake located near the tower. Unfortunately the path was chained off and had signs that said area closed. I couldn't get close enough to see the bills so whether these are Mute Swanson or Trumpeter swans I can't really tell. But I did learn the difference between the 2.

   Afterwards we walked a relatively short boardwalk trail. It was just over a mile (1.6 km) loop.

At one point the boardwalk was over a very wet area, probably wetter than normal with the spring melt. I thought the view through the water looked interesting.

   A side trail said it took us out to a marsh view. However, the view was blocked by some invasive growth.

  This Phragmites has taken over a lot of the wetlands in the overall general area. It forms these thick stands of tall reed grass which chokes out the native plants. It did make for some interesting photos, but that doesn't mean it's a great plant to have growing in the area.

    I don't know if these native cattails stand a chance.

   When we got back to the parking lot, there was a small group of people who had spotted a Woodcock .

   It was hard to photograph him because he was  nestled in some brush, plus there were some tall people who made it hard for this short person (me) to get a good view. This was the best photo I snapped, but he's there. Even if this photo has a lot to desire. 😐

  Afterwards we headed out as the afternoon was getting on.  I'll finish this post with one last photo.

  More geese. 😏

I'm away this weekend for a  family event, so have a great next few days and start to the new week.

Some March Views

    HI everyone. Happy Thursday. Today I have a spring themed art journal page as well as some photos of what spring has  been like in my area

    My art journal page is for Chris's Spring challenge at Art Journal Journey. I used images to build this page leaving the background the plain white paper, which with the way I work, didn't stay exactly pure white during the process. But it will do. 😏

   I started with a pink frame and the white background that came with the frame . I took the white background, and I splattered it with lots of pink watercolor paint. Then I layered the frame and added lots of images. Some of these images (including the frame) were from 49 and Market, Stamperia and Ciao Bella.  Also some of these images were stickers and some were not.

  I also used an old Martha Stewart bunny border punch  and added a short strip of bunnies, as well as a gold sticker in an upper corner from an old sticker set. The stamped quote is an old Technique Tuesday quote.

   I thought I'd share a few more photos from last week's owl hunt I went on. No birds today, just March views.

This next photo is a favorite. I just love how the color of the dried leaves pops against the unfocused  grey background.

   That's all for me today. Enjoy your day. 

A Little Chick

     Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. I hope you're having a good week. 

    Today I have a journal page for Chris' Spring challenge over at Art Journal Journey. There's still another several days of March to go if you're inclined to join in. In another week it will be April, which I hope will bring a lot more spring-like (and a lot less winter-like) weather in my area. Thank you Chris for a spring themed challenge because it's the closest I've gotten to green leaves and spring flowers yet. 😏

    My background paper was white, and I gave it a bit of a splatter.  I had some wide map washi tape which I used on the top of the other side of this page. The tape was wide enough that I folded it over. On this side the image is upside down but that only makes me think how spring can be...not really spring but still back in winter.  😉 

  I took some printed paper and die cut what looks like a small sheet of paper ripped from a spiral bound notebook. I stamped the grid and the lines on the top. 

   After adding that to my page. I used  the frame and some leaves from a couple of different 49 and Market sets.  The chick is one image from an old Easter set from the former stamp company Cornish Heritage Farms. I didn't think my page, which I was trying to make look like spring, didn't actually look very much like spring. The chick did the trick. Then I added a button and also an orange paper clip. Both happened to be sitting on my work table. 

  I suppose a "hello" quote would work on this page, but I left the page quote-less mainly because at this point there wasn't much room for any words. 

   I'll end this post with a couple of photos from last Saturday when my husband, the dogs and myself took a trip up to check on my mother-in-law's house. The snow had finally melted enough that we could get in without snowshoes and since the road was surprisingly not really wet, the dogs and I could take a nice little walk.

Plus there's a slight bit of ice melt along the shore, but there's still a way to go before ice will be out.

Have a great day!

T Stands for Going on an Owl Hunt-Again

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. and to those of you who stop by Altered Book Lover Blog   (Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog)  for T day, happy T day to you.

  You might remember that a few weeks ago  I published a post about going birding. I saw 2 owls that day. One of the owls I saw that day was  a Long Eared Owl (Asio otus), but I could only see  the top and  back  of his/her head as well as hi/her ears.  I've been wanting to go back to where these owls have been hanging out, mainly  because I wanted to see if I could see more of an owl. These birds will soon be heading north to their summer home, so if I was going to go, I needed to make sooner rather than later.

  Here's that birding T day post from earlier this month that I mentioned, if you're interested: T Stands for Happy Birdday and BeeDay.

 I headed out one day last week on my search. It ended up being not the greatest birding day but also  a great birding day. The sky had a lot of high cirrus clouds which made it one of those not sunny but slightly bright days. It was also cold, just around freezing with a light breeze.

   I walked a couple of short trails by myself to see if there was any sign of the Norther Harrier (nope) or any other birds. Mainly I saw a few ducks, which isn't a bad thing.

   These ducks below are  Lesser Scaups. (Or so I believe as I am not familiar with very many duck species.)

And as always, you can find mallards.

   I had the dogs with me, and I took them for a short walk on the dune trail. They appreciated the walk.

    You can't see Maddie because being blind she needs to be leashed and was near me. However Pete is awesome off leash, and since there was no one around,  he just walked along with us.

   I did get this nice photo of a mockingbird who was sitting on a fence near where my car was parked.

   After my little walks I drove  back towards the exit. I saw lots of orange cones in a parking lot, and  at the cones I saw some people with their tri-pods and cameras. Oh boy, the long eared owl must be in view.

   And he (or maybe she) was. ❤

   He's very handsome, isn't he?  

  After spending some time with this group of birders, (and they were really nice people too-especially compared to one birder I met on my last trip), I needed lunch.  I was over an hour away from home, too far to wait, so on the way home I stopped at MacDonald's, which is NOT my favorite place to eat, but it does work for a quick burger. Well 2 burgers, one for me and one to split between the dogs. And the only good thing they serve at McDonald's is a large Diet Coke on ice. I like it better when they use the waxed coated paper cups, which some MacDonald's do, but this one didn't, sadly.  I know some of you are going to comment on the plastic cups, but in my defense,  I didn't know which cup they would use when I went through the drive through, and I do enjoy a diet coke on ice to go.

    That large Diet Coke kept me going all the rest of the afternoon, and I actually refilled the cup at home  again the next afternoon. Although you can't see any dink in this cup, here's my drink for T day this week. 

   And ha ha. The next morning I was out driving to meet some friends to go walking, and as I passed a farm, I had to stop because these guinea hens were not only in the road, but after I stopped so I wouldn't run over them, they thought they might like to come greet me. They all walked over towards my car. 👀

    Five minutes later these guinea hens decided to head off to the side. I guess they figured I wasn't getting out of the car to feed them. 😉

     Have a super T day everyone, and have a great week ahead also. 

Sunday

 Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice weekend. Our weather hasn't been the most spring-like, more like   typical New Hampshire early spring. There's some nasty wintery weather potential in today's and tomorrow's forecast. AUGH!!!

  A few weeks back I finished knitting the sweater I've been working  on that I started in late winter 2024.  It's made with heavy Icelandic yarn in the Icelandic style, so when the weather warms up, I put it away  because it's too hot to knit with that wool then.  

   I'm going to share it today  for Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room, also known as sitar. And since it makes me happy, I'm also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

    You'll have to excuse my photos because I was trying to find a good place to photograph the sweater.  I ended up laying it out on the rug on the landing that goes upstairs. I can't try it on and show me modeling it because I still need to do some hand stitching on it. Not only do I have some loose threads to weave in, but when you knit these sweaters you need to hand stitch up a hole that forms under each armpit. You can see I have some stitch holders in each armpit to keep me from losing the unknit stitches which, if  those stitches came out, would unravel that part of the sweater.

  I'm really happy with the colors, and I like the pattern I created for the yoke. I messed up the pattern that was in the knitting book (that I was using) right at the beginning of making the yoke, so I just decided to do my own design. I like it much better than the pattern that was in the knitting book. 👍

  That's all for me today. I hope you are having a great weekend, and that you also have a wonderful start to the new week.