We spent all morning and early afternoon at Tryon Creek State Park today during the Trillium Festival. They were celebrating the Trilliums that are now in bloom. The park was just inundated with tall, blooming Trilliums in purple and white. It was a gorgeous day. We bought a white Trillium for our fern garden in the backyard, as well as a few other native plants to put in the front yard. We'll eventually get our yard in naturescaped shape.
Truthfully, we were at the park on a tip from a fellow birder that there was a pair of Barred Owls nesting in a particular area of the park, so we were there to go owling. We've never seen a Barred Owl in the wild, and we were determined. Once we found the location, Keith played a recording of a Barred Owl call ("Who cooks for you?") and, literally, only seconds passed before this gorgeous owl came flying into the clearing. It landed on a mossy oak and just sat there for us to observe for almost an hour. At one point, we heard it's mate call from somewhere nearby, but we could not seem to locate the second owl. We did, however, get some nice video footage of the two owls calling to oneanother.
It was a perfect day of birding. Among other typical birds, we also spotted a Bald Eagle and an Osprey battling it out over a fish in the air above us, and saw several Gold-Crowned Kinglets, Ruby-Crowned Kinglets, Chestnut-Backed Chickadees and I finally saw my first Red-Breasted Nuthatch.
I definitely need to start saving up for some decent photography equipment to use for wildlife photos. I took some photos of the Barred Owl, but they are very blurry. Let's just say that that was my artistic intent.
