Greetings from Clarksville, TN!
Cleon and I are traveling – we will be gone about 2 weeks. Road trip! Our good friend Miles will be taking care of the feeders and bird baths. You will see him most days on the livestream early morning and late afternoon. And as always, Justin will be taking care of the livestream and the camera – I do not know what I would do without him!
Cleon and I no longer fly. He had over 2 million miles in the air when he was an internal auditor after retiring from the Army. I also flew a lot – although nowhere near his time in the air. But my first order of business whenever I settled into my seat was to locate ‘the bag’. Enough said, right? Although he and I travel quite a bit – we now always drive and love it. What a way to see our beautiful United States of America! The hills, the valleys, the lakes and ponds, the wide rivers, the mountains. We are so fortunate that no matter where you look, there is something beautiful to see – and often fascinating. We are both from Pennsylvania and so grew up with stunning fall colors, but out here in the middle of the country, the colors are wonderful this year. Lots of gold with scattered reds. The sky is so blue! And the air is filled with the smell of wet leaves – so very fall!
Those of you who have been following my blog know one of my favorite things when I am traveling is to count raptors. Fall and winter are the best times for this. Many raptors are migrating right now and so are up in the sky. Hawks will also perch in trees and on fences next to roads and interstates. Northern Harriers will be soaring low over grasslands and meadows. American Kestrels will be hovering over the mowed sides of roads and interstates and also over grassy median strips. Cleon and I always share driving so whoever is not driving looks for these big birds. We also list license plates, and we had a good day today with both. We drove half the day on two-lane roads through hilly farm country with large, scattered woodlands. Southern Illinois is not what you would imagine at all! Lovely scenery, quite hilly, and little traffic so you can simply enjoy the drive. It is really pretty this time of year. But once we got out on the interstate, we got 28 license plates including Connecticut and Alaska – which considering we were in rural Kentucky – great! But the raptor count was truly amazing. These birds are flying,
soaring, and most looked like they were having a wonderful time just being in the sky – away from it all.
57 Turkey Vultures – 57!!!!
4 Red-tailed Hawks – all in the sky. There are still too many leaves on the trees to see them perched near the tops when you are driving down the interstate
at 70mph. There easily could have been a few more.
1 Bald Eagle
1 Osprey
Looking forward to tomorrow’s drive to Atlanta!
P.S. I just added a non-native perennial to this website’s section: Landscaping and Gardening for All Birds and Wildlife. Shasta Daisies. Here is the link: Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum)