Wildlife Sunday

It was another of those days that just make me incredibly grateful to live in an area of such fantastic beauty! We had the opportunity to take a couple of friends out on the boat and play tour guide for them...the wildlife certainly put on a show! It was a record day of sightings for us.

We began by showing our friends the local osprey nest. We enjoy stopping by this particular buoy every time we launch to see these fine birds working on enlarging the family.

Next we stopped along the banks to see the Shackleford horses. Not a bad vista....
Blondie was checking us out.


Our next wildlife sighting was a sea turtle coming up for air...didn't have the camera out, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

But, by far, the most exciting sightings were when we went right outside the hook of the Cape. Not only did we see a pod of dolphins....
But we saw a whale! The first time I've ever seen one. It was amazing. Okay, I was shooting "blind"....the sun was bright, I didn't want to miss anything, so I just had the camera out and was pointing in the general direction the whale kept surfacing and clicking the button....you'll have to take my word for it that this shadow really is a whale. In talking with one of the park service employees later on, we believe it may be a minke whale.
Such a fabulous outing!