This great blue heron had just launched across Brewers Creek in Carrollton in search of food when Raymond Foster snapped this photograph. (Submitted photo)

High up in a large beech tree at the end of Titus Point Lane in Carrollton last week, a buzzard eyes carefully the suspicious photographer, Albert Burckard. (Submitted photo)

Times reader Gina Jefferson captured a beautiful fall sunrise across her neighbor’s yard on Mill Swamp Road. (Submitted photo)

Times reader Kelley Ryan captured the fall colors at Windsor Castle Park for a college photography class. (Submitted photo)

Before the cotton started blooming, this guy found the perfect camouflage in a field on Wrenns Mill Road. Kim and Paul Graham spotted him on their evening walk. (Submitted photo)

Draeva Jones snapped this photo of peaceful Titus Creek from her home in Carrollton. Titus Creek connects with Jones Creek. (Submitted photo)

Sunset on the Pagan River never fails to produce beautiful images, such as this one by Renee Bevan of crab pots being retrieved.

Birdbaths aren’t just for birds, as Dianna Keen was reminded recently when this mother deer and her fawns visited her back yard in Gatling Pointe. (Submitted photo)

Smithfield businessman Fred Walls deemed it the “Attack of the Giant Mushrooms!” when these large ones sprang up in his yard at Morgarts Beach. (Submitted photo)

Times reader Maury Talbert used a Nike D500 camera with an 80-400 Nikon lens at its maximum zoom to “snag” this dragonfly taking a break in the setting sun. (Submitted photo)

Donna Smith, a nurse practitioner with Family Medical Care of Smithfield, captured this evening scene with her cellphone at Battery Park. (Submitted photo)

Dianna Keen enjoyed the bluebirds this summer in the yard of her Gatling Pointe North home. She snapped this shot through her bedroom window. (Submitted photo)

Raymond Foster snapped this image as a female mallard makes her way up Brewers Creek, followed closely by her five offspring. (Submitted photo)

Matt Baranak snapped this shot of a red tailed hawk taking a break in Scots Landing. (Submitted photo)

Lunch is served as an osprey brings fish to the nest in this shot by Debbie Saunders. (Submitted photo)

Carrollton resident Jose Hernandez has been monitoring osprey activity at the Smithfield Station bridge since 2006. A new nest was built on the south side of the bridge two years ago and housed a chick this year. (Submitted photo)

Jonathan Butner snapped this shot of sunset on the James River on Farm Road on June 4. (Submitted photo)

Reader Raymond Foster says the Yellow Rumped Warbler is one of the most common warblers in North America. He snapped this shot recently in Carrollton. (Submitted photo)

The kingfisher’s raucous voice is ubiquitous and unmistakable in the salt marsh, according to Raymond Foster, who snapped this shot on Jones Creek. (Submitted photo)

An Eastern bluebird encounter brightens any day. This male was photographed by Raymond Foster in Carrollton. (Photo submitted)

Fred Walls caught this shot of Memorial Day sunrise over the James River off Morgarts Beach. (Submitted photo)