What is this baby bird?

On 5-29-2014 I went to my area boardwalk and while I was shopping I noticed a group of people looking in a planter.  I was curious as to what they were looking at and went over to check it out for myself.  In it was this baby bird.  It couldn't fly and it was obvious it had fallen from the tree that was in the planter. I didn't see its parents and was curious as to what type of bird it could be.
Here's the few images I got of it.

 I did crop them but I did not enhance it in any way. 

What is this baby bird?

The only other birds I saw were sparrows and this bird was too big already to be a sparrow.  If anyone could tell me what it is I would appreciate it.

Friday the 13th Full Moon (June 2014)

It was Friday the 13th and the moon was a full moon. That just doesn't happen very often and  I just had to get an image of it. In fact the next full moon on a Friday the 13th happens in about 35 years on August 13, 2049.  I figured I probably won't be around then and so I better enjoy this one while I can.

 I thought it was so neat to see the halo around it.

Puppy time - June

It's been awhile since I've done a puppy update.  They sure have grown and don't look like puppies and because of that I've cut back on taking pictures.  But every once in awhile they do some stuff and you know they are puppies.
Like the other day when it rained and we were cleaning some of the debris away.  They just had to help:

 They quickly got bored and decided to play in the run off instead.

 This is what there living area looked liked after they came in from playing in the rain. 

 They were just too adorable to get too upset with them, after all I hadn't taught them to wipe off there paws yet. 

At least their room has a drain in it and I could wash it down without any problems.

I we did have a rug by the door but it didn't do any good.  They think it's to sleep on and here they are exhausted after having all that fun.

I've been busy with some other things and hopefully will get some more blogging done soon.

2014 Peaches

I like to keep track of the peaches and when they first are ready to eat.  This year I noticed that they were ready on June 6, 2014. 

I did notice that there were not as many as there normally is and that was because we had a couple of hard freezes after the tree started to blossom.
Here's the link to the first blossoms http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2014/03/first-peach-blosoms.html
And here's the one if you don't want to go look.

Incredible Cruise: Day 8 - Tahiti

Today was the last day and it found us back in Tahiti.   Most of the people live in Tahiti and because of that the bay has a lot of industry. These pictures were taken from the cruise ship while we were waiting for our turn to disembark from it.

Moorea is not far away and you can see the island in this picture.

The port was a busy port and it was constantly changing. 

Once we disembarked from the Paul Gauguin cruise ship they had us get onto a bus and took us back to the intercontinental hotel.  We were on the same road that we came in on but this time it was during the day and we could see more of the area.

This was the local market area. 

There were still pretty things to see along the way.

We stayed at the hotel until it was time for us to catch the plane.  Here I am just enjoying the view and strolling around the place.

view from Tahiti's Intercontinental Hotel, Moorea is the island in the background

While we were there we saw this wedding couple waiting for their room to be available. I asked if I could take their photo and they said yes.  Then they wanted me to take some of them with their whole group with their camera and I was glad to be able to help them out like that. What a place to get married. 

The way everything was open reminded me a lot of Hawaii.  It was nice to have the breeze go through.  There's very little bugs and flying insects around there so they can have the place open like that.

All good things must come to an end and so did this trip.

This was an unbelievable experience and I'm so grateful to my spouse for giving me this opportunity.  What really got to me more than anything else is this is an area I had never really considered going to but now that I have I can highly recommend it to others.  Its truly paradise on earth.

Incredible Cruise: Day 7 - Moorea- Dolphin Watching excursion

    The cruise spent two days at Moorea.  On the second day we decided to take the Dolphin/ whale watching excursion while on Moorea. I was so glad we made that decision because it was by far one of the best things we had done on this vacation.  When we got to the dock the guide told us we were so fortunate because only 9 had signed up for the trip and he needed a minimum of 10 to run it.  Someone on the boat chipped in for the other spot and we were able to go.  And oh what a excursion that was!! 
     I wasn't expecting our guide to be a doctor of marine biology.  We had his undivided attention for the whole morning answering any question we may come up with and lecturing us on so much.  I couldn't believe we had someone like that taking us to where the dolphins maybe hanging out.  When we got on the boat we were told there would be no guarantees of sighting anything since these were wild animals and sometimes they can be unpredictable. The one thing he did guarantee was that we would be seeing some unbelievable beautiful scenery.    He pointed out that the dolphins are sensitive to the wind patterns and try to be away from it.  On the day we went the wind was blowing a certain way and he said that they would most likely be on the other side of the island.  This was good for us because it meant we would get to see more of the island than most people ever get to see.  It also made our excursion last longer that way since we had to travel to and from it.

Wasn't he right about being incredibly beautiful?

Moorea - Society  Islands

One of the many things he told us was when the water is this blue green shade you know its shallow water, while if you see the deep blue waters that's the deeper water.  The dolphins like the deeper blue water.  And they like to eat at night.  The go out into the deeper ocean waters and like to go over a 1000 feet deep looking for food, that's why they go at night so they will be protected from the whales.

Our guide Dr  Michael Poole

I've had friends ask if this is the place that has huts over the water.   Here's the answer.

I did not do anything to touch or auto-enhance these photo's - this is just the natural color of the waters.

Here was just looking straight down onto the coral reef floor of the lagoon.  It was worth the trip just to see this.  The water is so clear and everything seems so pristine.  It doesn't surprise me at all to find out that this area is one of the best scuba/ snorkeling places in the world.

One of the things I found out that was so interesting was he had us look at this valley.  Then he had us look at the coral reef development around it.  What we noticed but doesn't really show up in this photo is that the water was a deeper shade of blue - which means deeper water.  Then he told us that the fresh water runs out into the lagoon and the corals don't like it.  They don't grow as well there as they do in the more salty water.  Since the coral isn't there as much as it is in other areas there are these natural inlets into the lagoon.  That's what the dolphins look for - the deeper inlets into the protect lagoon areas.

The boat was taken on the ocean side of the coral reefs.  You can see how blue the water is yet the wave is breaking on a coral reef.  The water drops off pretty rapidly on the fore side of the reef.

Here's a better view of the waves crashing on the coral reefs.

It was so interesting just watching the reef and the beautiful scenery that for awhile you could forget you where there to watch dolphins.  But then all of a sudden we spotted some and boy was that exciting.   He told us that even though these were wild dolphins they have already have a natural aversion to man and as a general rule they like to stay about 200 feet away - about two football lengths.
   I was okay with that - since we went whale watching before and had that same type of viewing.

Then we noticed some other dolphins on the other side of our boat.

It was exciting to see them on either side.  I had a tendency to look to my left since I was on the left hand side.  When I looked right I had to look around some of the other watchers.

But the dolphins would come to the surface for a couple of minutes and then dive down and disappear  so I would switch sides and look at the other side when I would hear things like oooh, & look at that!!! and ahhh.  Most of the time they were doing tricks and I was lucky if I got to see the tail splashing into the water after it had done a flip or some other aerodynamic fete.
     Here's the typical splash that I was able to capture on film.  My camera was too slow to get them while they were in the air.  But the pictures were still pretty anyway and were worth keeping.

 Then the one group started to come closer and closer to our boat.  This was really amazing.  The two groups had decided to merge together.

I liked this one because one was out of the water.

The next thing we knew the two groups were merging right around us and didn't seem to notice our boat there.  It was so exciting to see. 

The water was so clear I could look down and see them swimming all around the boat. And I was actually able to get some half way decent pictures of  them.

dolphin watching in Moorea

My husband went to the front of the boat and was able to get these incredible images with his cell phone.

dolphin watching in Moorea

It didn't take long for the two groups to combine together and then they remade different groups which is a common thing they did and were off again to where ever they were  going to spend the day.  What an incredible time to see the dolphins.  They were so beautiful and the water was so clear - I could believe we were seeing so many dolphins in their natural habitat. 

Our guide was so excited over our excursion.  He said we got to witness just about everything dolphins do in the wild.  We saw them hitting the water with their tails, we saw them doing flips, we saw them getting together, we got to see baby dolphins with their mothers.  He said that they put on quite a show for us and it was one of the better excursions he's ever had and we were so lucky to see all that we did.   He could wait to get back to get all of his notes written up.
    One of the things Dr Poole did do while we were watching things, was he was recording his observations into a tape recorder and also taking his own pictures with his high powered lenses.  You could tell the man truly loved his job and didn't mind going to work like that.  Us signing up for these trips helps pay for his research and his living on the island.  Since most things are imported living on the islands can be quite expensive for doing research.  

All good things have to come to an end and after a couple of hours it was time for us to head back.  While we were heading back we did see a lot of people surfing/ para-sailing using the wind to pull them through the water.  It sure did look like it would be fun to do. 

We went over so shallow waters to get back and even that was interesting to look at.  This trip the boat was going slower so not to damage the coral and to keep in the proper routes. 

This was a group of people who were scuba diving and or snorkeling.  Just look at that water that they were in.  It must have been some experience for them.  Even though that look like it would be so much fun I am glad that we did the dolphin watching instead. 

I was amazed to see this person get pulled out of the water and was actually as high as those sail boats.  It did look like he may have been pulled by the other boat to the right.

We got back to the cruise ship and was exhausted.  I was grateful to be able to rest.  When the cruise ship started to leave the area the boat motion woke us up and it was finally time for us to head out to sea. They like to be in the deeper water at night and try to leave shallower waters before the sun goes down.  We were able to sit on our balcony and watch the sunset.   What a sunset is was to see!!!

If you ever get a chance to go watch the dolphins in Moorea,  I highly recommend it- its worth it just for the scenery alone.  We got to see more of the island than any other excursion group on it.  Plus it was fun to see the dolphins in their natural habitat doing the things they naturally do and not seeing them in some aquarium or Sea World show.