Two Fluff Balls Way Up Top.

Palm Blooms

Two Barred Chicks Branching

Field of Wild Poppy Blooms

The owl season has been an amazing year. It seems that the Barred Owls had another species this year raising their chicks, too. A pair of Great Horned Owls were in the same grove of trees and hatched and branched their chicks early. The Barred owls have two chicks that are just now branching and are so cute. They are a pair of fluffy grayish white chicks.

While there has been watchers camped out at the foot of their nest tree, This is the first time this year that I have chased the barred owls. And, while I could not get a good shot of their faces and profile like I got in years past and profile shots of the Great Horned family this season, I could only get a shot from directly underneath  upwards. It came out a bit abstract in view, but the fluffy down that they have now while waiting for their feathers to come in is very evident. The clarity of the little guys is yet another look at the life of a barred owl chick.

Later, I found a patch of wild red poppies growing above the lake. These were good size blooms and the patch caught my eye. It would have been nice to get into the underbrush and get some better shots but this is May in North Texas and it's mating season for snakes, which are more aggressive now than at any other time of the year. Coming from a spot along the lake near where the owls are nesting, I was talking to a group of fishermen and while we were standing there, we saw, and counted, no less than a dozen snakes.

And, one thing that I enjoy shooting here in Texas is when the palm trees bloom. The displays are so big, and always unusual. The spines are sometimes more photographic than the blooms but in this case, I could shoot both. These were not that far from my house and while I go by there several times a week, I had never noticed the old palms until today when the blooms caused me to turn around and go back to shoot them.