Every Day is a Gift!
Many thanks to Terri for this week’s Flower Hour challenge The Flower Hour: Maple Leaves
Watch for a new Flower Hour Weekly challenge from Terri of Second Wind Leisure Perspectives every Tuesday. If you would like to participate you can find out more about this challenge here.
Every Day is a Gift
Terri’s latest Sunday Stills challenge is World Animal Day which was celebrated on October 4, 2025. Two animals that were on my bucket list were Whooping Cranes in Texas and Elk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Seeing these animals in the wild was an amazing experience.
According to the International Crane Foundation – North America, Whooping Cranes were near extinction with fewer than 20 individuals in 1941. Today, over 849 Whooping Cranes exist in the entire world.
We traveled to the Texas Gulf Coast one year hoping to see some of the Whooping Cranes who winter in and around the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. These birds breed at Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park and migrate to Texas every winter. Today there are more than 500 of these beautiful birds.
We found these magnificent Whooping Cranes near Goose Island State Park, south of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. I posted about this amazing experience at Magnificent Endangered Whooping Cranes.
Pair of Whooping Cranes, near Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas
One fall we traveled to Waynesville, North Carolina in search of Elk in Cataloochee Valley on the eastern side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I posted about our Elk viewing adventure at Cataloochee Valley Elk.
In February, 2001, the National Park Service began an experimental reintroduction of elk into Cataloochee Valley by releasing 25 elk from the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area on the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Another 27 elk from Canada were released in 2002. Today there are approximately 200 elk.
The breeding season, also known as the rutting season, is in the fall. During this time the bull elk make their bugling calls to attract females and challenge other bulls.
Female Elk, Cataloochee Valley, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina
Many thanks to Terri for her Sunday Stills challenge World Animal Day
Every Day is a Gift
White zinnia in my coastal Georgia fall garden.
Welcome to the first Flower Hour Weekly challenge from Terri of Second Wind Leisure Perspectives. This new challenge will come out every Tuesday. I hope you’ll join in.
Many thanks to Terri for her first Flower Hour challenge The Flower Hour
Every Day is a Gift
I was getting ready to make a trip to the grocery store yesterday when one of my friends texted me to let me know there were Roseate Spoonbills in some trees by the side of the road on the way out of our neighborhood.
I grabbed my camera and my telephoto lens before I left home and hoped the birds would still be there. Lucky me! Two of them were still still around.
Roseate Spoonbill
It’s always a special treat to see these pink beauties here in coastal Georgia. I’m grateful to my friend who let me know where they were.
Every Day is a Gift
Terri’s theme for this challenge is Trees. She asks us to share any kind of trees and be creative with the simple prompt. I am going to focus on three types of trees we see all around us in Coastal and South Georgia.
My featured image is a mixture of Live Oak trees and palm trees in our neighborhood. The first image in the below gallery is a Maritime Forest on Jekyll Island. The other two are Live Oak trees draped with Spanish Moss.
Cabbage Palms, also known as a Sabal Palmetto, is the only palm tree native to Georgia.
The final gallery shows Cypress trees in the Okefenokee Swamp in south Georgia.
Many thanks to Terri for her Sunday Stills challenge All the trees in the field
Every Day is a Gift
Wandering Dawgs 