Above is a thistle plant I saw while walking around the picnic ground area. And below is one of the oldest Bay Laurel trees in this park. As you can see in the photo it was fenced off. I had to walk back quite a distance to get the entire tree into the photo.
Red and I didn't have a lot of time, but walking around we did see a few birds. Below are acorn woodpeckers. There were quite a few of them all over the area where we were walking. [Be sure to click on the photos to get a larger image.]
Another species we saw were starlings, quite a few of them.
As we were leaving the park, driving right outside of the entrance, we caught a glimpse of white, actually black and white. It was large and so we had to find a place where we could pull off the road. When we finally did, we watched in awe as this big white bird hovering above the ground and then take a dive. Both of us finally realized we were looking at a White-tailed kite. We saw it fly back up into a tree and then realized a short distance away from this bird was another kite perched in another tree. Photo op? You bet! Did we get a photo? Nope! We already had everything packed away in the trunk and we needed to get home. Well, at least we know what to look for when we return to this park. For the short length of time we spent there we certainly found some very interesting birds to enjoy. And just to note, the acorn woodpecker was a lifer for me.
