Black-Crowned Night Heron

This is the Black Crowned Night Heron, I found him in the swamps along Wildwood Lake. I walked the perimeter of the lake last Sunday in hopes of finding a Green Heron and at first mistook him as one. Later while talking to another gentleman who was photographing the wild critters, a Green Heron flew by. This Heron flew several times, I followed and was able to get a bunch of very good pictures. I hope you enjoy them. I'll have to go again and see if I can, at last, find the Green Heron I was looking for.

OK, fellow Bloggers is anyone else have problems with scheduled posting? Mine has not been working for a week or so now. Is this a universal problem or just me? I already deal with loading my pictures in reverse order to get them to post in the correct order. This is starting to get annoying.

Creepy Crawlers

When I go on a bird walk , it's not always birds that I see and get pictures of. Here is a snake I ran across. Well, I didn't really Run Across him, I merely found him while walking. Well, he wasn't walking, I was walking. He was just doing his creepy crawly thing. I found another snapping turtle, too. This one might have been 9 or 10 inches across. And then I found this other turtle off on the lawn backed up to a hole in the ground. I assume she was laying eggs. I didn't see any eggs but I will stop back when I can and look for little turtles heading for the swamp.

Rothert & Company, Harrisburg (PG 111)

This weeks Painted Gentleman is on Market Street in the city of Harrisburg near North 3rd Street. All I can make out is Rothert Co. Rothert and Company was a furniture dealer that opened in 1903 and moved into this new building in 1906. Nearby was an historical sign about the area that showed a postcard from 1915, notice there is no Painted Gentleman there in 1915.

the alley, 9:56 pm

If you guessed North Walters Avenue at East Martin Avenue looking south, you would be correct if not, better luck next month.

the alley 9:56 pm

Sometimes they are just too easy. Hope you all enjoy this habit and I hope you all liked my alley logo I posted yesterday. And I hope the other 20% of my readers (both of you) don't get too bored with it. The logo below here, I will eventually put on the sidebar so you can link to all my alley shots. So, without further ado, here is the June addition of the alley. Any guesses? Check back at 6 pm for the answer.

Honeysuckle Memories

Ever notice how certain smells can bring back long forgotten memories of places and times? Or people? You know what I mean? Grandma's house at Christmas, the baking sugar cookies, the brown sugar pie, the fir tree, Pap's unfiltered Camels. Or the first day of school. I can't describe that one, but an old lunch box smelled the same. As a fireman different fires had different smells. The grass and leaves of a wildfire. The insulation and tar paper of a house fire. The burnt plastic smell of an electrical fire. Or the burning hay of a barn fire. Honeysuckles bring back memories to me that I haven't thought of in years. They remind me of walking to Pap's house from church with my cousins. The hill right near the church was always loaded with honeysuckle. And we would always pick off a flower, pinch the bottom off, but not the whole way and pull the stem through. This would bring a small drop of nectar. Sweet honeysuckle nectar that we would drop on our tongue. Of course we debated which was better, the white or yellow. Man, that has been almost 30 years but every cool spring day when I smell them blooming I'm right back there.

This means what you think it means. Check back tomorrow for the latest alley shot from the Outskirts of Suburbia.

Bird Walk 6/14

These are some of the more common birds I found on my walk along Big Spring last weekend. I think I have posted all of them individually at one time or other. First picture is a Belted Kingfisher pair. After a few pictures one few to another branch and as you can see in the second picture it was a female. Third picture is my favorite subject; the Red-Winged Blackbird. As usual he's hanging out on the cattails. The fourth picture is a male Northern Cardinal. And, yes, he is bald. Little is known about this condition except that other than having no feathers on his head he is healthy. Soon the feather will grow back. It isn't known for sure if it is just an abnormal molting pattern (all at once opposed to a few at a time) or if it is feather mites and the bird just can't clean them from his head. The last picture is, without a doubt, the American Robin.