Thursday Birding

We went to Amity Woods with the Backyard Birders this morning.

We saw several families of Phoebes, Ken got this cute shot of mom with 3 babies.Our leader, Mark heard a Connecticut Warbler a rare sighting if one would see one which we didn't. We ended our walk waiting to see if this bird would show it's self. Mark had called in what he heard and soon another birder came out to find it. As we were leaving another birder came to see if her luck would be better. We were walking in Isley later today and 3 ladies were out birding from their car and they knew about it. How fast information travels especially in the birding community!!
Ken took this photo of a Red-spotted Purple on the path at Amity.

A little while later he got this photo of a Phoebe with the Red-spotted Purple for lunch.

My photos of the day were this Mullen with a Skipper.

And my bouquet of flowers from our garden, my Peonies are finally blooming.

From my Dove chocolate wrapper: Life is precious and an opportunity for you to make every moment count.

Flat Screen

Our MO. Primroses are blooming, the blossoms only last a day, as you may be able to tell we've been having a little rain the last couple of days. On our way to Ken's brothers Sat. we stopped at Suburban Lawn and Garden in Martin City, it is huge they offer the customers golf carts to drive around in. We purchased a couple of Native Mo. plants to put in our butterfly garden, an English Aster, a false sunflower and our favorite Butterfly Milkweed.

Monday we went shopping for a digital TV, flat screen to put in the RV bedroom. We couldn't hook up a converter box on the original TV so decided to get a new TV what a deference the old one weighed 50 lbs and this one weighs only 11 lbs. Ken had to take things apart to get the old out and figure out how to safely secure the flat screen in. It would be nice to replace the big TV that weighs 88 lbs, but it would be a bigger job and Ken would need some strong helpers.

Just for fun I'm on the desk computer, I have some old photos on it that I want to look at I just have to remember where they are, I also need to clean the desk off, I have pieces of paper with quotes that I have collected piled on it so I'll share one with you.

The mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding. I consider it as difficult to subdue as the wind. Bhagavad Gita

Robin baby

The babies are out of the nests....we wish them luck in surviving and keeping away from the neighborhood cats. This little guy was under our feeder. We had a nice day Thursday birding at Parkville Nature Sanctuary most of the warblers have taken advantage of the southern winds and gone north, many go to Canada to breed. We did see several kinds of flycatchers they are coming thru now, some of these stay in MO to breed. Now that we have learned to ID some of the birds, we now notice the number of Indigo Buntings and Eastern Phoebes there are and the Eastern Kingbirds along the fence lines. Below is a photo of a Phoebe I saw at Aminty Woods. We visited this park after our birding in Parkville, it is next Thursdays bird walk.

An interesting piece of history of the Parkville Nature Sanctuary: the land was once the Park College Farm where students worked to offset the cost of their education. Students fed and milked dairy cattle, raised pigs, goats, chickens and sheep, and tended seven beehives. They grew vegetables and fruit; the surplus was canned or stored in the root cellar. Students also grew 2,000 bushels of wheat a year. The food they produced fed all the students back in the early 1900's.

Hope you are enjoying your Memorial Weekend! Tomorrow we have a Phalp family get together.

Where does time go??

What a beautiful last couple of days we've had, we have been out looking for warblers but I think they have moved on. We'll see tomorrow when we join the Backyard Birders in Parkville, maybe we just can't see them with all the leaves. We're not sure which ones stay and which move on north.
My iris which smell like grape pop are blooming, last year they didn't. I first learned about them from my boss at the golf course she had them planted all around the course. So we went to the Iris farm near Gower and bought one so I could enjoy them in my garden.

I can't believe this weekend is Memorial Weekend, where did May go. May everyone have a safe holiday!!!

Trip to the lake

Thursday we joined the Backyard Birders at Martha Lafitte, we saw several new warblers. In the photo below is Joanne Eldridge who I knew from working elections several years ago, she is an avid birder, she knows the birds by their songs. We were going to stop for lunch but we got a call to see if we would like to go to the lake with the Carlows. We said sure!! So we hurried home, packed and made sure the cats had enough food and water for a few days. We followed the Carlows to their lake house on the Lake of the Ozarks near Warsaw.

It was a nice evening to sit out and enjoy the view and watch the birds.

We were given the tour of Warsaw, Truman Lake Visitor Center, dam and Steratt Creek. We had some nice meals too, lunch at the Common Ground in Warsaw, catfish at Lincoln Inn and fabulous desserts at Charleys Buffet which is out in the country and always busy.

We walked around their development mornings, there were several birds to watch Blue Birds, Great Crested Flycatcher, Nuthatch and the Yellow Warbler. Ken tried to get a couple of photos of the birds from Carlows deck.

The fisherman were out in large numbers Sat. even tho it was a bit chilly. We had watched on the TV all the storm warnings for back home, which got 5 inches of rain Fri and Fri nite. The lake received only a half an inch of rain Fri nite. We had left a couple of windows open, I was a little concerned of it raining in but when we got home Sun. I didn't see anything wet.

Sunday we woke up to the lake covered in fog, we both love to take fog photos.

The Carlows view of the lake.

The boat dock belongs to their neighbor, they have neither boat or dock.

We had a great time with the Carlows and they even invited us back sometime.

A stormy night

We may be watching the weather forecasters all night as there are thunderstorms in the area. We had a few pea size hail this morning then it cleared up and warmed up to make more storms possible tonight.

Ken has a pork roast in the oven, the house smells good and I'm getting hungry.

We went to Isley Park this afternoon and the other side of fishing river to see if there were any warblers about, there were several Yellow Warblers and we saw a new one for us the Magnolia Warbler, at least that's what we think it was.

The Iris are beautiful and my little Rhododendron bush is blooming, last year I had no blooms on it. It seems to be a good year for the flowers!!!Monday we went up to Squaw Creek Refuge to see the Yellow headed Blackbird.

We also saw this juvenile Bald Eagle, looks like it hasn't been out of the nest very long.

We saw several Yellow Warblers, Indigo Buntings, Pelicans, Herons, Egrets. Pheasants and Muskrats.

We stopped at Westin Bend S.P. and Ken got a photo of the Hooded Warbler, it played hide and seek alot.

Tuesday I got my new glasses, so the world is a little sharper now. I like the transition lens so far, they don't get as dark as sunglasses but they make good birding glasses.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!!

Here's a proud mom with two baby hawklets.

We've been doing alot of birding soon we won't be able to see them in all the leafy trees.

We saw this and several other Dickcissels around Muskrat lake just on the south edge of St. Joe. We went up hoping to see the Fork tailed Flycatcher that was reported sited there, but we didn't see it but Dickcissels and Horned Larks which we also saw there are new birds to add to our birding list.

Today we went to Isley and Watkins and we saw around 40 different species of birds. We ran into Linda Williams and friend who were out doing the migrating bird count. We saw Scarlet Tanagers today and I saw a Yellow Throated Warbler which is a new one for me.

We are going to join the Backyard Birders tomorrow morning, hope the alarm gets set this time.

Enjoy your day Moms!!!!

A little of this and that

We have been doing a little of this and that the last few days. Ken tightened the RV shower drain, he hopes he has fixed the leak.This is our Oriole feeder it holds grape jelly on the top and sugar water inside.
Tuesday I had lunch at the Corner Cafe with my Red Hat group, we had 3 May birthdays to celebrate. Birthday ladies wear purple hats instead of red, Francis was showing us her latest Red Hat finds, notice her purple hat when not a hat it will turn into a fan too.

Sunday, we visited Burr Oak Woods we saw several species of birds but no new ones for us. This guy was new to us he is a 5 stripped skink his head is in breeding shade of orange.

I caught this Vireo with my point and shoot at Isley Park.

This is my latest project, mosaic frames using the shells we collected at S.P. I. and broken bits of dishes from the park we visited alot. I made 5 frames today.

The house is filled with the scent of lilacs!!! Our bush has never been as full and with the windows open it smells wonderful.

Wasn't that a surprise result on Dancing with the Stars last night!!

Til next time.....

Oops!!!

Oops!!! Ken didn't set his alarm and so we didn't get up in time to join the Backyard Birders this morning, oh does he feel bad!!

This is a May Apple Flower found blooming near a trail at Smithville Lake.But, we decided to try it on our own today to see how many birds we could see. We went to the Heron rookery first, there are babies in some of the nests and there were several other birds along the country road, I believe I saw my first white crowned sparrow.

Then we visited Martha LaFite saw our first Blue bird of the season and White throated Sparrows and Indigo Buntings. We also joined the Sanctuary.

Then lunch and on to Smithville Lake where there are trails all around the lake now, but we always stop at the one off W there we saw Great Crested Flycatchers and several Summer Tanagers (the first photo is one of Ken's of the Tanager).

On the drive home we saw our first Kestrel of the season. In total, we saw 43 different birds that we could identify, so a good day but we were sorry to miss the Backyard's bird outing.

Our lilacs are finally blooming, now to see a couple of butterflies on them but it has to be warmer for them to visit.

This afternoon we had another visitor to the jelly feeder, a Catbird, now the fun begins as to who gets to the jelly first.

May Day

These are Ken's photo's of the Blue grey Gnatcatcher.

Here's my rainy day project, a watercolor of a sunny day on S.P.I.We had a new visitor at our back door this afternoon, a Brown Thrasher, almost like being in Texas when we had the Curved billed Thrasher at our feeder there.

Today we went out to do a little shopping at Lowes, Hobby Lobby, HyVee and walked thru Kohl's and had lunch at Ken's favorite place Stroud's he gets the same thing Chicken Fried Steak, today I had the Grilled Chicken Sandwich.


We've been going to Isley the last couple of evenings to watch the Blue-grey Gnatcatcher build it's nest. Ken just informed me he sent me an e-mail photo so I'll add it to my blog.


We are going on an all day birding trip tomorrow so we will be getting up very early, we don't know where we are just riding along this time. We heard that some of the planned places have been closed because of flooding and several people canceled so we'll see.