Blue Ridge Birds

I went to a conference in Asheville, NC and took lots of pictures of course.

From the third floor of the hotel with my phone

Rain over the Blue Ridge Mountains

Clear skies and blue haze

Partly cloudy with awesome blue skies.

I stepped out of the hotel the first morning and was greeted with song! So I went back in and grabbed my camera.

Gray Catbird 

This Northern Mockingbird was at the tip top of a 60-ft tree in bloom, singing his heart out. 

Black-capped Chickadee

A pair of Tufted Titmice were busy collecting materials for nesting

 

The mockingbird moved down to a much easier height to shoot

 On the University of North Carolina-Asheville campus, everything was in bloom and buzzing.

Carolina Wren

House Finch 

Song Sparrow 

The next few days were windy and the birds were scarce.  On a flight of my own, I got a glimpse of the Blue Ridge Mountains at sunrise

Blue Ridge sunrise from the plane with my phone

Mocking Jay

Greetings from Maryland; I'm near Baltimore for an accreditation workshop. I was gonna take another nap, in addition to the two I had on the flights here, but there was gray jay outside my window mocking me take a picture of him. Well, he was too skittish, but I found some other stuff to photograph. Things like flowers that I won't get to see around Duluth for six months or more!

hydrangea

Holly and berries

hydrangea

Yew and "berries"

Immature European Starling in a Black Cherry tree

A flock of acrobatic starlings

rose bush

Morning colors

Found some large orange mushrooms along my daycare provider's driveway.  The biggest is about 9 inches tall and 7 inches in diameter and surrounded by ground ivy that has turned for fall already.

The big guy

Two small ones hiding under the ivy

Ready to open its top

Tiny twin sugar maple leaves

I love all the colors that sugar maple turn.

Asiatic tiger lily

Asiatic tiger lilies reaching to the sky

Gooseberry Falls State Park

We took a day trip up the North Shore along scenic Old Hwy 61.

Pierre the Voyageur, aka Pierre the Pantsless Voyageur, near Two Harbors

Young Green Grasshopper

Gooseberry Falls

Foam in the pool at the base of the falls

Tree roots with all the soil washed away.

Iris

Nightshade

The clover flowers were huge. 

bee-looking beetle

Bottom of a Daisy

Honeysuckle? 

Gooseberry River