Some recent skies for Friday Skywatch

This is supposed to make up for my recent absence on the blog. Too much other stuff to do these days.

To see lots more skies, click HERE.

Eagles in the skywatch

What's that in the sky?

Yay--it's a bald eagle (in an arty shot!)

This is better, now we can see it's a mature adult.

If you'd like to see more skies, click here where they are all listed.

Sorry I missed Wednesday and Thursday--and I was doing so well. But real live does occasionally interfere.

Some one requested that I put my Skywatch picture bigger, so here it is. rather than just on the sidebar. Do you think it's the hand of God? Click on it to see it larger. And to see more Skywatch photos, click here.

Friday Sky Watch

We are recently back from a trip to Kansas City and Branson, MO. On the way between these two cities we saw clouds unlike any other we had seen before. Here are some shots of the clouds--in no particular order. All taken through the back seat side window at 70 mph.

If you'd like to see lots more pretty and interesting skies,

click HERE.

Puffy clouds and Parulas

I'll start with a Skywatch first and then go to birds. We saw these beautiful thunderheads, but nothing came of them. Fortunately our part of the state doesn't need any rain, but the inland parts of SC are still parched.

Click HERE to see lots more Skywatch pictures from other bloggers.

I'm ashamed to call myself a blogger since I seem to skip so many days so many times. Real life has interferred as usual. It took a lot of catching up when I got my computer up to speed again. Then my husband, as they used to say, 'took a spell' in church last Sunday and ended up in the hospital, but they couldn't find anything wrong and he is home and right back up to par. They did put him on a beta blocker. We should learn more next week.

Meanwhile back on the deck we had a migrant arrive for the winter.

A northern parula warbler.

Swallow-tailed kites for Friday Skywatch

My whole post is a Skywatch today. Click on the swallow-tailed hawk at the right to see other Friday Skywatch pictures.

Last Tuesday we went to a newly opened Audubon property called Silver Bluff. It's near Aiken, SC, where our middle son lives. He met us there and we had a nice hike. Not a lot to take pictures of but the day wasn't over. On the way home we went to some fields near Allendale, SC, where someone had reported seeing a lot of swallow-tailed kites. There is concern about their declining numbers.

Here are some of the waaaay too many pictures I took in a light rain. The kites swoop around very fast, not flapping their wings very much, catching insects with their feet and putting them into their beaks while flying. They literally eat on the fly. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but they are a little larger than a red-tailed hawk, but more streamlined.

This shows the kite from the top--not a view one often sees. It just happened to bank sharply as it swooped by.

This shows their striking color better than the shots against the gray sky.

Here you can see it putting an insect into it's beak. Dragonflies and June bugs are among their favorites. Click this larger to see better detail of this neat trick.