Mother's Day Excursion
Nicole and I decided to try and get out and take photos today after we didn't have much luck getting photos of the Northern Lights that happened the previous night.
First we tried to go to Catoctin Mountain Park but with road closures, it was hard to get in and out. I took a few photos there but nothing worth keeping. After that we went to the Fountain Rock Nature Center in Walkerville, MD.
We saw some Sandpipers, various common birds, and also a Tufted Titmouse going around eating bee hives. Unfortunately none of my Titmouse photos turned out well. Just as we were about to leave all of a sudden I heard some hooting and I decided to go look for it - hoping to finally be able to get a picture of an owl. Something that has alluded me for years.
After wandering around for about 5 minutes, we finally saw it about 30-40ft up near the tree tops. We had a hard time getting a good look at it because of all of the branches getting in the way but for the first time I was able to capture an owl - one of my bucket list photo items.
We moved around a bit trying to find a better vantage point to get an unobscured shot but it started branch hopping and eventually we lost visual contact with it and couldn't find it after that.
It was still kind of early so we decided to go back to Gambrill Mill - Monocacy National Battlefield which is a favorite spot of ours to get cool photos. Soon as we got there, I saw a hawk eating some sort of small mammal but by the time I got my camera ready to shoot it flew away into the trees to finish it's meal.
This time around it was kind of lackluster and wasn't a whole lot to get photos of. We did notice that they opened up a new trail section so we decided to go down some of it before heading home. After about half a mile, we weren't seeing too much worth continuing so we turned around and headed back.
Out of nowhere, Nicole let's out a really loud gasp and started freaking out. I asked her what was wrong and she ran into the tall grass and pointed out one of her bucket list items - a luna moth.
It was still waking up and not ready to start flying yet so she was actually able to pick it up and hold it for about 5 minutes. After it finally warmed up it's wings it fluttered away into the tall grass.
