Oriental, Sailing Capital of NC

Oriental, Sailing Capital of NC

Greetings from the Neuse River

Life here along the banks of the Neuse River, overlooking close to four miles of water, is a sharp contrast to living in a city. Most months, it is idyllic; then, there are the months that remind you that Mother Nature is definitely in charge.

This neighborhood of houses face the Neuse River and backs up to several acres of farmland -- most years, soybean --- then thick tracts of pine forests to the main road.

I love to watch the sea gulls, sometimes the pelicans, and cormorants or egrets and the occasional eagle or osprey. The cute visitors are "chickens" that my neighbor called me about photographing who were grazing in her yard. Even at 100 feet away, they were skittish and flew to the further neighbor's yard but just enough for me to photograph them for identification. These "chickens" turned out to be cattle egrets. The flock numbered about thirty -- by the river bank...not sure why they picked her yard.

I suppose you could say this blog is an occasional picture-book of life in Pamlico County or whatever comes to mind at the time.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Baby Blue before 1st Flight

A couple days ago, I was lucky enough to see the first baby blue make its first flight out of the hatch box after a couple of days watching it measure and ponder. It was pretty wondrous. I didn't catch the flight on camera but it may have been hard as he took off in a flash. My camera did record a bit of the activities prior with -- it seemed -- hours of watching baby blue plucking up the courage to take off. Ma & Pa were still busily feeding him and it seemed, minutes before, he was "bleating" --- probably hungry. The blues were cleaning out the nest--at intervals-- flying out with egg shell fragments in their beaks. I was still not able to get in close enough for what I would consider art shots but there will at least give a flavor of the event. The top photo shows Ma & Pa Blue sometime during the momentous event. The flying filaments are my "magic halo" to keep house sparrow from taking over the nest earlier in the season.
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