November 08, 2019

Staunton River State Park – Chaos Star Party

November 08, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the posts about our trek to the Chaos Star Party at Staunton River State Park….

The Virginia LOVE theme cares to the state parks. Staunton River’s included the date the park was established…1936.

There were various signs for the star party in the areas of the park dedicated to it. The field was full of tents and campers and trailers. We were in our roomy tent with a screened area for my husband’s electronics and chair….with the telescope just a few steps away. Some people probably were staying in the cabins and coming to the field with their telescope at night. We preferred a place to sleep near the telescope…makes it easier to lay down once the clouds roll in or the dew gets too heavy for observing. My husband had two clear-sky nights and had some observational successes (I slept relatively well through it all).

2019 10 IMG_1953.jpg — Someone did an excellent job with a pumpkin near the cantina.

We managed a short hike. We’d been hearing a lot of birds, but they must have been migrating through – stopping for the night on the water. They’d flown off by the time we were up and about. We did see a juvenile Red-headed Woodpecker making a hole in a dead branch (hanging upside down). I didn’t know what it was until after I got home and could check references. It was the drabbest woodpecker I’d ever seen! It will eventually have the distinctive red head.

The woodpecker was in some trees that were around the cabins at the park. Most of them were oaks and the acorns were plentiful….lots of food for the woodpecker and squirrels. There were some other nests around too but we weren’t seeing many other birds.

The sweet gums were full of color – reds and yellows. And the seeds…prickly.

A Great Blue Heron was one of the few birds we saw on the water. It was at the limit of the zoom on my camera.

I turned around on the beach and caught some motion in the leaves. A spider moving over the sand and onto a leaf where it was not as well camouflaged.

2019 10 IMG_2007.jpg — On the way back we noted the solar system model that has been set up starting with the sun (yellow orb) close to the observing field and extending along the road.

2019 10 IMG_5810.jpg — The morning we were getting ready to leave there was a sun dog. What a great serendipity for our last morning at the park!

October 31, 2019

Zooming – October 2019

October 31, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

October was a great month for getting out and about. The weather cooperated. There were birds and butterflies and colorful leaves…some flowers and frogs…even a sunrise. I had a lot of pictures to choose from for this zooming post! I use the feature on my camera for most of my pictures…to get the image framed the way I want…avoiding the need to crop. Enjoy the October slide show!

And Happy Halloween! A restaurant we went to recently had a clever Halloween decoration in one of their small bushes! I didn’t have to zoom for this picture…just stood on the sidewalk and took the picture with my cell phone!

May 10, 2019

Red-Headed Woodpecker at Blackwater

May 10, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

Another bird we saw at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge was a Red-headed Woodpecker. There is a lot of standing dead wood in the refuge because of the water level changes in recent years. Trees less tolerant to wet roots or brackish (becoming saltier) water are dying. One area along the wildlife loom was almost all dead and the woodpeckers were having a heyday based on the numbers of holes we saw…and then we saw the red-headed woodpecker. It wasn’t at work…just looking around in the forest and didn’t notice when we got out of the car (quietly….didn’t turn the engine off or close the doors).

It posed very nicely on the snag – one that the tree top had already fallen from.

So many woodpeckers have some red on their head…but this is the one that gets the name. It is in this area for both breeding and wintering. This part of Blackwater is prime habitat for it…at least for now.

February 08, 2019

Three Kinds of Woodpeckers

February 08, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

The third day of the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival got off to an early start – on a bus at 5 AM heading to the rural area in central Florida for a day of birding (about 50 miles south of Orland). We arrived at our first stop in Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area just before sunrise and hiked into the longleaf pine forest.

Our guides took us off the trail and through the palmettos and other vegetation growing between the pines – and pointed out the woodpecker holes in the pines. We stood and watched the holes.

Sure enough just as the day brightened a little – a red-cockaded woodpecker appeared in one of the longleaf pines (the only tree they use for nesting).

The bird flew out to neighboring pines in search of breakfast. I never saw a red-cockade…but read that they are difficult to see in the field.

The long leaf pines are not as numerous as they once were. They don’t grow in dense stands so are not as commercially viable as other pines in the south. But they are a boon to wildlife and are resistant to wildfire.

As we walked back toward the bus we saw a brown-headed nuthatch – another bird of the longleaf pine forest (which I didn’t manage to get a picture of) and our second woodpecker of the day. I saw the typical holes first – the work of a yellow-bellied sapsucker.

Soon we saw the birds themselves. They too were after breakfast.

Further down the country road we stopped at a stand of trees with some snags…and saw red-headed woodpeckers almost immediately. A lot of woodpeckers have red on their heads – but the name is reserved for this one. The head is red all over!