Grouchy Swan

           Dr. Stengle checks on the swan pair that nests along the creek. The male, though, still does not appreciate him approaching their nest. In the foreground, Great-tailed Grackles continue their springtime displays of courtship.

Scissortail Flycatchers

. . . surround us in great numbers, I feel delighted to say!

Stoic Rehabbers

      Though grieving for the sudden loss of BirdManBob, rehabbers at Wild Bird Rescue continued their life-saving work. MissD from Animal Control brought an owlet. Steve and Alicia, with the assistance from Lila, hydrated the owlet and put her in for the night. Though born only a mile away, Wild Bird Rescue must transport her to Lubbock where they have the facilities large enough to raise her to adulthood. I wish they would bring her back here when she is grown!

BirdManBob

      Passed away this afternoon. Everyone in shock yet stoic. Lila will serve as director now.

Lomographical Rotorcraft

           Fish-eye view of a Cartercopter parked in Richard Stark's hangar, Olney, Texas, and at right, very wide-angle view of helicopter cockpit.

Out Birding in Archer County



Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

Cattle Egret

Greater Roadrunner.

       Delightedly we spotted the Eastern Phoebe, Cedar Waxwings, Yellow Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, femail Painted Bunting, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, in addition to the usual gang, namely, Scissortail Flycatchers, Common Grackles, Turkey Vultures, Red-winged Blackbirds, Mourning Dove, Eurasian Collared Dove, Canada Geese, coot, Great-blue Heron, Western Kingbird, Purple Martins, Bewick's Wren, White-crowned Sparrow, Loggerhead Shrike, Meadowlark, Cattle Egret, Red-tailed Hawk, among other hawks, a possible kestrel, and heard a Great Horned Owl all night.

Purple Martin house in between storms.

White-crowned Sparrow

       Making a first known appearance to my garden! Photo by Donna Dewhurst.

Baltimore Oriole

        I felt delighted to see an oriole, a male Baltimore, in my garden in the late afternoon yesterday. My plan to plant as many bird-attracting plants as I can has begun to show some benefit (in addition to the added exercise I do). Below I show a picture shared by Planet of Birds of the the Baltimore Oriole.

Terje's Milky Way Time-Lapse

Film by Terje Sorgjerd. Breath-taking.
Check out this great MSN video: Milky Way Time-Lapse

Poetry: Ride a Horse with Me

Do Me a Favor and Ride a Horse with Me

Through pictures and books have I journeyed there
turning the pages that describe life on the pampas
I saunter across those grasslands on my horse
squinting like a gaucho under my sweat-stained hat
strolling along with the rays of the morning sun.

In my living room I have unfolded as many
maps of southern America as I could find.
I hover over them as if I were in another time
kneading the landscape like a cat obsessed
until the clap of a thunderstorm makes me jump.
I curl up and fall asleep.

Unfolding my maps past Tierra del Fuego
Antartica seems to beckon me to go, so
I plan a route beginning from Machu Picchu
sliding down the Andes and then across the pampas
I travel past the Patagonian tip to find myself
standing with penguins -- I'm not dressed in a tux
mind you, but bundled up dry as a bone in Gore-Tex
that seems almost as good as the impermeable feathers
that penguins wear all day and look so good wearing.
I curl up and fall asleep.

We never go anywhere anymore my husband said to me
as I uncurled myself from my sleep and looked up at him --
love of my life who recently began to express his concern
about me falling asleep in a room covered in maps.

Do me a favor, I asked him, and ride a horse with me.

Above and In Hill Country

View of the Edwards Plateau in the Hill Country, Texas.

Two Turkey Vultures fly above the Sabinal River.

Mingus Canyon provides a home for ferns and other species, with a Basswood tree alongside.

Moss covered travertine.

Passion Vine

Worm burrows in rock that at one point, millions of years ago, consisted of mud.

Here we can see the worm burrows left behind by the eroded rock.

Juvenile Blotched Water Snake.

Holes made by sapsuckers on the barks of the Cedars that grow in Hill Country.

Yellow-throated Warbler.

Fishhook Cactus found in only eight counties in the Hill Country.

Two Bedraggled Eagles

     Snows fell heavily and steadily over the eagles, so much so that the flakes covered the camera lens for several hours. Here I glimpsed the two huddling eagles after some of the snow dropped off the lens.

Fledlings at Wild Bird Rescue

 

Strong winds knocked birds out of their nests, including the two hawks shown above (Photo by Bob Lindsay). Wild Bird Rescue volunteers and board members have begun to work toward raising funds to build a raptor center. For now, because Wild Bird Rescue does not have the facilities, they transport the raptors to Lubbock, where they are raised and released there.

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.