Swan Lake -Seven Springs, PA

We took a mini family vacation around New Years eve, to Seven Springs, Pennsylvania.  We've been here before many times without the kids but this visit was special. First snow tubing experience for our children was memorable. The day we arrived there was no snow, so what is to do? We saw this lake on the way to our villa so we decided to stop and take pictures. It was named the Swan Lake. Lovely creatures!

The Flicker

One more woodpecker variety that was new to our yard and feeder this past winter was the Northern Flicker woodpecker.  Quite a different habit of eating which got me confused at first on what bird this is.  It likes to eat from the ground and not the feeders. It is a great companion of the Red Bellied Woodpecker or the Cardinals which are frequently eating from the suet feeder.  Anything that the other birds drop becomes lunch for the Flicker.

Birds in our winter garden part 3

During last week we noticed two large birds flying around the woods but could never get a good clear shot of them.  We suspected hawks but the coloration on the belly was very light tan. Two days ago when my camera happened to be in my hand I thought I saw a large woody in our evergreen. And then it flew out of the shrubs and landed right above the sun room giving me a pretty good angle.

Hawk - suspecting that it may be Red-Shoulder or a Sharp-shinned but not sure.

For more birds photos in my garden, check out: part 1 and part 2

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Birds in our winter garden part 2

This is new to me but I absolutely love it! Watching the birds that come to our feeders.  Weather I work on my laptop at the kitchen's table or wash dishes at the sink, and I have a great view of the bird feeders and what wonderful surprises we had this winter. Woodpeckers are the biggest surprise. We spotted three varieties so far, two of which we managed to capture in photographs. The large Ohio woodpecker, a very large specimen has been escaping the camera so far.

Here is what I want to share with you today:

Downy Woodpecker, Male Cardinal, American Gold Finch, Carolina Wren and again the Red Bellied Woodpecker who is a daily visitor at the feeder this winter

You may also want to visit part 1 of the series Birds in our winter garden click on the underlined word.

Sharing with I'd rather be birding  ,  Saturday's Critters , Wild Bird Wednesday blogs where magnificent pictures of birds are being shared.