In Search for the Black-capped Vireo

        MyMrMallory as yet had not spotted the Black-capped Vireo, so Beryl, determinedly, guided us along the river -- and IN the river -- toward other locations for a potential sighting. As it turns out, the river provides most of the roadway for vehicles traveling along some parts of the Hill Country.

 

     Our friend Crested Guan drove the SUV downstream, yes, in the water, as have many generations before us during travel in the Hill country.

 Wagon ruts on the river bed remain from decades in the past.

 Sometimes we drove off the river (feels funny to say this) and on to dry land from which we could see the beauty of its banks. 

 A dam along the Sabinal River.

Old Home on Edwards Plateau

      Along a river in Hill Country and far away from any town and anyone, a widow raised six sons at the house below.

Searching Golden-cheeked Warbler

      Walking leisurely, and quietly, along the Winstead Creek spring-water area, we looked for the Golden-cheeked Warbler, at the moment nesting in the Hill Country. During our walk, the sweet melodies of birds all around us, we managed to admire, too, the flora and rock formations around us.

 

Beryl stands next to a Texas Madrone tree. 

 

The Black-capped Vireo tears the duff from the Cedar to line its nest, he explained.

 

 We walked through old growth forest on the Edwards Plateau looking for the Golden-cheeked Warbler and spotting, in addition, Hutton's Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, White and Black Warbler, Eastern Phoebe, Hermit Thrush, and male and female cardinals. Turkey Vultures kettled overhead. 

 The rock on the ledge along the wash shows the burrows of worms living 125 million years ago.

 

Beryl walks along the Winstead Creek bed. 

 One of hundreds of springs in the Hill Country area. 

The slowly dripping water creates travertines. Ferns and other flora grow around the travertine column in the photo above. The cove provides a good location for nesting by the Green Kingfisher we spotted there.

Old Barn in Concan

A structure that dates back to the old guano-exporting days near the Frio Cave, Concan, Texas. 

Seventeen-million Bats

Every evening after sunset, millions of bats emerge from the Frio Cave.

Cave Swallows share the front part of the cave with the bats. 

           Our friend, Crested Guan, invited us to join Beryl in a tour of the Texas Hill Country. MyMrMallory and I flew to the airport in Leaky, an airport that consists of a nicely-maintained runway, and not much more. We drove to the Frio Cave, Concan, Texas, where Beryl began our tour before an estimated seventeen million Mexican Free-tailed bats began to emerge. So many bats provide food for the hawks nimble enough to catch some of the them while in flight. See more Frio Cave bat flight photographs at Chuck Williamson's site.

 

 

Interestingly, the guano from the bat cave provided gunpowder for use during the Civil War and WWI. 

Poetry: Gardening and Mesquite

Gardening and Mesquite


Gnarly trunks grow

along muddy
waters

meandering

through brown
grasslands

Brindled Longhorns shove itchy hides
against
scratchy gray trunks

on the mesquite.

In the summer heat
a green leaf
hangs limply.

But in the spring the mesquite

will wait --

they know to wait for the last freeze --

and then
they'll bloom.

In the spring I know

to wait

for the mesquite to bloom
and then
I'll plant

my tomatoes.

Poetry: Before Cowboys Mourn

Before Cowboys Mourn

Fires lit the sky over the Texas Panhandle. Flames stung for miles over the grasslands. Hosweat singed the men who rushed to halt the steel grasshoppers that pumped oil on the smoldering hills. In the glow, cowboys shoveled dirt. Sweating in the heat they bailed water

saved the foreman's house, exhausted, beat, they lost the barn, the trailers. Driving through 
the rough, the trucks that brought firemen were not enough to save three friends trapped
while rescuing their horses. The fiery wind sent smoke across I-4o toward  four blinded drivers

who in a single breath met death. Over the scorched grasslands on Taylor's ranches, the cowboys saw the hide off the wretched calves' haunches. They rode all day on horseback
their rifles aimed to shoot the blistered, moaning cattle. Grasslands, eight hundred thousand

acres gone, ashes windblown, clearing the way for growth on land only nature can own -- 
more cattle, calves, fences, trucks, more steel grasshoppers around which cowboys mourn.
  

The skull of a cow rests on the grass in the North Texas Panhandle, 2007. 

Fires Over North Texas

Fires still raged after two days. 

     It is awfully dry around these parts and we've had no rain. Yesterday the temperatures reached in the sixties with a dewpoint of six and winds howling at sixty miles per hour. In the neighboring town people lost their homes to the fires. This afternoon, firefighters still fought the fires.

Fisher Pond.

Firemen still doused smoldering grasslands.

Air crane taking off from Kickapoo Airport.

 Below I show a Great Blue Heron and a flock of Cattle Egrets flying over the dry grasslands.

Great Blue Heron

Are they Cattle Egrets flying over a cow?

Bedraggled Eagle

 

It snowed throughout the night in Decorah.

Poetry: Tattered Silk Robe

 

Artemision Bronze, Athens, 2007. 

Tattered Silk Robe

Would you consider it a lovely thing if every man

and woman would write about the life of a lover? I ask

as my husband's life careens on and around the oceans

dusk until dawn and spring to autumn before the icy

caps on the waves hurl inland to slap his shins --

he runs and skips and dances and makes love

until sunrise shows the pink of his ageing cheeks . . .

and so I write about him -- wouldn't you in my bare feet?

I sit naked on a log near my soul mate, pen in hand,

he wears a silk robe suffused with the oils of his body

and the energy of his prayers that do not cease except

to begin again praying for the many people he loves.

Then he looks out the window, walks on the sand

finding the piece of an oar, he lifts it above his head

and like the Artemision bronze he poses  . . .

breathes deeply the salty air, and squints at the sunrise.

Poetry: Woman

 

Water color artist, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2006. 

Woman

Everything began when Adam
asked me if he should sell the stock
of a company that he bought years ago
and that consisted of his only savings

He wanted to know what I thought
about trading his savings for a camera
Should he follow his dream or not?

Like Eve leaning against the tree
munching on an apple, I said, of course --
trade your only savings for a camera

Adam sold his stock, paid his taxes
bought a camera, set to work
He photographed loving couples
who paid him for his images

He became well known around the globe
for his work in portraiture and weddings
People everywhere paid him for his images
except me -- mine are free.

Poetry: In Gallipolli, Generation Skipped

 

Gallipolli, May 2008.

In Gallipolli, Generation Skipped

He washed his feet as I entered the cemetery
having put his jacket on the bench nearby
and his hat placed gently on the arm rest.
He turned the faucet to release more water
then looked up at me as I walked past him.
I looked away up the hill at the monument
to the Fifty-seventh Regiment whose soldiers
laid before me resting in peace under rows
of marble stones showing their hallowed names.
I sat on the edge of one of the rows of graves
framed by lovingly-tended flowers and roses.
These graves of Turks were as tenderly cared for
as the graves fo the Johnnies near the Lone Pine
looking lonesome as the man who now finished
put on his shoes, his jacket, his hat, and knelt
next to me with his palms raised toward God
and wept, our tears falling down our cheeks.

Poetry with Matthew: After Joanna Solfrian

      I feel pleased to say that I've studied poetry for some time now with Matthew. Every week we delve into the work of a particular poet. This week we studied Joanna Solfrian. Matthew commented about Solfrian's poem 'First Snowstorm, 2003,' "It's a slow poem, a quiet poem. I guess, all poems about snow try to be slow and quiet. Snow has that effect. Wouldn't it be interesting to write a poem about snow that was loud and fast?" The effect of his words made an image in mind of thunderbolts through falling, wind-blown snow, a response to semantics that I often find fascinating. But this week's exercise has more to do with having three or more abstractions to weave in one poem, which Solfrian does effectively in "First Snowstorm" as she touches upon a church, a snow, a belly-ache, childhood, and death. I chose the appearance of a gnome at my doorstep the same day I returned home with three rose plants. My first observation during the exercise came quickly, and now helps me to articulate that a work alluding to, or weaving together several things adds depth to a poem or a story. Note: I have not heard yet about the golf gnome. I left her on Ann's doorstep, and that is the last I saw or heard about her.

First Gnome  

At Garden Club last month I learned

Plant the rose bushes on Good Friday  

and I with the brown thumb wait

the upright thorny green stalks  

with a scant few leaves sit by the window

waiting with me for Good Friday  

I walk outside my front door

to get my mail and see a gnome  

standing on my front porch

looking up at me. I blink and ask

Are you here to live among my roses?  

but looking closely at him --

rather, her, I see she wears a skirt  

despite her beard, and a necklace

from which dangles flamingos

and in her hands she holds a golf ball. 

To confirm her gender she calls

herself Juliette, and she hands me a note 

Please take on this mission. Please

take on this mission. Take me to a

golfer's home and leave me on her porch.   

Will you return by Good Friday?

but I thought better about asking her

to live among my pink hybrid roses

her skirt being tangerine, her gnome hat red --

What would Garden Club think about that?  

Cherie McBride's Tousled Crow, Louie

 

Posted on the infirmary door at the Wild Bird Rescue sanctuary. 

 

Yellow-headed Blackbird

      Yellow-headed Blackbirds migrate through Wichita Falls, dropping by at Wild Bird Rescue for food and to benefit from abundant food on the shore of Lake Wichita. They nest along with the Red-winged Blackbirds, but behave aggressively toward them. Here I show a Yellow-headed in one of the trees at the sanctuary.

Perry in the Sky

Fires in Texas

Bonanzas!

      Our local members, Glen and Bonnie, organized a fly-in for the Southwest Bonanza Society. The folks at Kickapoo Airport shuffled aircraft around to make room for every one of the guests and stored them in hangars . . .  without charge. Most of the hangars were packed with Bonanzas, as shown in the photo below.

Homer a Feminist? Eek.

            Above I show an iPhone image of Lynn giving an illuminating lecture on Homer's works. Lynn's intriguing observation brings attention to the female characters in Homer's work, specifically, their nurture and intelligence as opposed to the male characters' tendencies to engage in savagery.

Decorah Eagle Cam

  

    The Raptor Resource Project installed a camera to film a Bald Eagle pair in Decorah, Iowa. The livestream has gone viral throughout the world. Indeed, I keep mine streaming most of the day to occasionally glance at the eagles. Here are some shots I took of them today.