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 . . .

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Orchard Oriole and Friends

Orchard Oriole.

Eastern Phoebe.

Female Yellow Warbler?

Spotted Sandpiper.

American Turkeys.

The Perch

Great Egret and a passing Purple Martin.
Little Blue Heron.

          I know of a dead tree where several species of birds enjoy a look-out into the countryside and Lake Kickapoo. Great Horned Owls, Red-tailed Hawks, Scissortail Flycatchers, Purple Martins, Great-tailed Grackles, Cardinals, Mockingbirds, among others. 
Green Heron.

Beaks with Food

Cricket. Yum. 
A Blue Grosbeak eats grass seeds.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Resident Geese

        Increasingly, a population of Canada Geese remains in the area.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Heritage Round These Parts


       My friend Ellen wrote, "If we are the sum of our parts, as history defines, in Wichita Falls remarkable people embody that perception." She added that, "It [heritage] is more than a house. It is our clothing, our manners, customs, buildings, memories, origins, businesses, leisure, animals, jobs, all encompassing countless integrated daily lives [ . . . ]" It would not occur to Ellen, modest and altruistic, that she belongs to that group of remarkable people who embody the conception of which she speaks! The organization to which she devotes some of her time, the Wichita County Heritage Society, and its other remarkable volunteers, occasionally host a visit to some of the homes, businesses, and buildings which Ellen mentions in her piece. Find Ellen's full note here: WCHS Site
      Today we travelled to Henrietta, Texas, a hot spot of history. My photographs do not show the buildings or the homes, but only the objects that make part of their owners' memories.

             We heard that this jar of over one hundred fifty years in age contained a small iron kept safely since the 1920s with a note from its owner's mother, "[ . . . ] this small iron that [name] gave to me [ . . . ] I give to you now as a love gift [a wedding gift]." And such is part of the heritage of which Ellen writes.
              Loving iconography and animals, I focussed my camera on every piece or dog I saw.





Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist!


D's dogs would rather join us than remain inside her cottage.


          Remington sculpture stands before an historic sign announcing the Pioneer Days, still celebrated today in Henrietta. The objects people own show part of what makes them happy, and part of their heritage.

Cotton Sack.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Revisiting Lake Arrowhead

Snow and Cattle Egrets.
Great White Egrets
Little Blue Heron
           I found in an old, dusty, file in an old computer photographs that I took on June 24th, 2008, of birds on a little island on Lake Arrowhead. Other species I saw there: Great-tailed Grackle, Turkey Vulture, and Canada Geese.

Great Blue Herons nesting. A Snowy Egret watches.

Neotropic Cormorant

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Golden in Gray

Gray County, Texas.
        MyMrMallory and I interrupted a Golden Eagle standing along the road of the native grasslands in Gray County. The eagle took a running leap into the air and resumed his hunting. A hawk, feeling threatened by the immense eagle, attacked him in flight.


American Turkeys.
House Sparrow, female, and her hatchlings.
       We had a good day, birding-wise, in addition to having watched  the remarkable Golden Eagle, we saw a large flock of Lark Buntings, Western Kingbirds, Great-crested Flycatcher, Eastern Meadowlark, Cardinals, Great Blue Heron, Northern Harrier, Red-tailed Hawks, Rufous-headed Sparrows, Lark Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, Killdeer, Turkey Vultures, Turkeys, and countless birds we sped by so fast that we could not identify.

Lark Bunting on a cow patty surrounded by flowers.

Antelope.

Deer.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Gail's Birds

      I visited the South Plains Rehabilitation Center located in Lubbock, Texas. Gail took the found fledgling Great Horned Owl in her arms, weighed him, and then, with hemostats, gave him mice to eat. He ate with relish. Gail received another owl that same afternoon, and fed him, too. And he seemed mischievous by clamping down his beak so hard against the hemostats that Gail could not retrieve them until he let go.
Gail and the owl I brought to her.

He held the hemostats in his beak.

He looks comfortable and satisfied in Gail's arms after his meal.

Linda, from Amarillo, gently held one of the satisfied owls.


Gail took the owls to the flight rooms. Ours jumped from her arms and flew up onto a perch.
We both felt happy that he seemed strong enough to fly.

Gail nurtures resident owls. Two Barn Owls (above) live year-round at South Plains.

The Barn Owls above are parents to chicks, which Gail raises and then releases in the wild.

These nestling Barn Owls were born at South Plains.

The juvenile Golden Eagle above suffers from head trauma after colliding with a car.
He will remain under Gail's care until he can fend for himself in nature.




Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Westward with Owl

Westward with Owl. A good day for a birder. I began by watching a Painted Bunting and several females at the feeders at Wild Bird Rescue. Then along Highway 82 I spotted an oriole, nine Swainson's Hawks, a raven, and a Ground Dove. The treat today included delivering a found fledgling Great Horned Owl to Gail at the South Plains Rescue. There I saw Percy, a resident (very old) pelican among several resident or recuperating owls, hawks, and a Golden Eagle.
iPhone image of the fledgling Great Horned Owl, post-processed with 100 Cameras app.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Raindrops Keep Fallin' on Their Heads

       Happy ducks in the pool nearby as it rained for several hours this morning -- our first significant amount of rain since last year.

A white Rock Pigeon (bring out your magnfying glass) flies under storm clouds.

Poetry: Highway Delay

Highway Delay

I can learn right away to pee downhill
but that doesn't mean that I'm a good camper.
I won't stay our here in eastern Turkey
just because there's a guy over here
with a bright yellow hard-hat and blue eyes
telling me he's dynamiting the mountain
so I have to stop right here to wait
on this highway that beckons more travel.
I don't care how good-looking he is
or that he looked the other way
when I bared my buttocks
between those two composite rocks --
pale yellow streaming down the cliff
toward the green of the Coruh River.

Highway Construction Crewman, Turkey, 2008.

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.