Why Yes, I am a bird-watching dork :)

There is a beautiful place here just about 20 minutes from where we live called the Lee Mettcalf Wildlife refuge. It has beautiful nature trails, wetlands to explore and wonderful open fields.

I love to drive through there to watch for wildlife. To me, there is nothing more relaxing that getting out in the open beauty like that. Boy, did we need it this week, too.

As you may have read, I am in a battle over depression currently, and to top it off, we have the city replacing the water mains right in front of our house. It's noisy, it's annoying and it rattles the house all day.

Back to the beauty of nature before I go on too much of a tangent.....

There is one particular bird that is always at this site and it is very common around the US, but I have to say I just love it. I think it is very pleasing to watch as it shows off and the colors are bold and dynamic. It is the Red-Winged Blackbird.

Although this bird likes to show off, he was hard to get a picture of up close. Our camera has great clarity, but it only has 5x zoom.

The wild rosebushes are in bloom in the refuge and my husband swears he saw a beaver in the marsh.

And yes, we do have white sand here..next to the riverbed. The water is so cool and crystal clear.

Whenever I need to clear my head, I do so out in nature because I can see God's beauty and his glorious paintbrush.