Just Another Day at the Beach

I think maybe tomorrow I'll start telling you about my second out-of-state trip that I took in July, but for today I'll share a few more local pix:

Another Fine Day

A wee ghost crab peeking out of his hole

Cape Shots

A few shots from a recent trip to one of my happy places:

Random Natterings

Admittedly, my blogging is still sporadic. Some day I may fully come to terms with the crazy, frenetic pace of my life and the fact that I can't possibly cram everything in that I want to...or think I can...At any rate, since I've been neglecting you (the two of you out there that I know check this thing!) I figured I'd bombard you with all sorts of random shots...

The fascination with the Purple Martins continues:

They gathered on the roof at Sammy's house

Love the tail shape!

A coup! Capturing stationary and in flight!

LoML & I went over to Cape Lookout Saturday...I can't resist taking pictures of seagulls...this guy was very interested in whether or not I had any food to share:

Flight

On the way over there we always slow down at this particular buoy to check on the osprey family. These birds are truly magnificent! I'm pretty sure they mate for life. I know they like to return to the same nest each year to raise their offspring. They had two babies this year...the babies are now almost as big as mom & dad! One of them is in between here...lying down and looking directly at my camera..the other is behind the parent bird on the right...if you look at his (?) breast you can just see it behind...

Some day soon I'll tell you all about Buster. He's the beautiful English Pointer that my parents rescued...He & Gwyn got to meet up on a walk on Sunday and we had a marvelous time. He's still underweight, but they're working on that and he's getting stronger by the day!

Finally, one of my dearest friends shared a recipe with me for chilled cucumber avocado soup. Made it Sunday night and ate it last night. It was fabulous! Here's the recipe: Chilled Cucumber Avocado Soup

Cape Changes

 Landscape at the Cape was changed by Irene...more on that later.

 Nice takeoff:

Wild Ponies

Always a joy to see them...but especially nice to share them with friends who've never gotten to see them before!

 Lovely day in the sun, surf & sand with family and friends. Blessed.

Coolpix at the Cape

Took the new camera to the Cape yesterday. Had a blast. One of my favorite beach subjects is seagulls in flight. The new "sports continuous" mode does a great job shooting bursts of pictures at high speed.



And, again, I really love black and white shooting...

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!

More Beach Time

Lots going on at work and at home with various projects leaving very little free time...so thought I'd keep sharing some beach pix...

The Watcher

The Foam Advance