Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Friday, July 20, 2012

Katydid on Windshield while Viewing Hogs and Coyotes

For wonderful photographs of grasshoppers, visit Bev Wigney's Pbase site.


Nikon D7000, f5.6, 1/1,250s, 100ISO.

      For the first time while on the ground and not from the air, we spotted a grouping of 25 to 30 wild hogs.  If you had asked me when we would see a group of hogs, I would have answered that they might reveal themselves at dusk or at dawn; but there they were at ten o'clock in the morning, leisurely munching on grasshoppers and sniffing around the grass, thinking hogly thoughts. They walked briskly away from our truck as we stopped near them to watch them. 


    Driving around the north Texas countryside along the wheat fields, we encountered another unusual sight: Three coyotes raced across a swathed field toward a half dozen or so turkey vultures on the ground. The vultures lifted themselves out of the way as the coyotes arrived at whatever carcass had fallen, perhaps a calf. In the background, cattle in the shade gazed warily at the coyotes. Above them roosted a large number of egrets. 


    Birdlife fascinated me today, as usual, for we spotted several great egrets, at least two little blue herons, two great blue herons, sandpipers, nighthawks, meadowlarks, stilts, and the usual gang, namely, scissortails, grackles, blackbirds, robins, and unidentifiable little gray birds. 

    After about four hours of criss-crossing the county, our friend, Jo, mused, "All the country we've seen this morning and not much wildlife." Indeed, I wish we could have spotted deer -- mule and white-tailed are somewhat prevalent everywhere -- and the beautiful, but skittish, turkey, and perhaps heard the sweet tone of the bobwhite quail.  MyMrMallory added, "There are more eyes on us than we have on them." 

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Let Lovely Turn of Phrase Begin

JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.