Double Birds Rearranged

The morning slipped by rather fast and the coffee pot emptied faster than normal as I edited some images. When I was about to transition from editor to getting my daily dose of sunshine, my phone rang. It was a representative in the field for Oncor, the electric delivery arm for TXU Energy, better known as just TXU. I call them, 'the Edison'. Electric Utilities up north are know as 'the Edison' and I grew up knowing my childhood electric power company as the 'Power and Light'.  Basically, I like 'Edison' better.  She said that she would be here in about 10-minutes to run the meter test and needed the meter closet unlocked.

Oncor changed over the meters to the new digital meters over a year ago and frankly, people have been a bit concerned and do not trust the new meters as much as the old ones. Because of that, Oncor provides a free meter check. I had not used mine because I had not had any issues...until this past month.

Here, the male relanded just below his mate. The nest may be along White Rock Creek in the deep woods. This tree is surrounded by traffic on three sides.

This is the male taking flight but he didin't leave the tree. I ended up just below his mate.

The male is on the left side and the hen is on the right side of the tree just a bit higher.

By the time I got done, I had a late start and the cloud cover was beginning to move in again. I was looking for the Buffelhead ducks that I had seen yesterday. After making an uneventful trip around the lake, I was on the way home and was one intersection away from being out of the park when I spot a hawk sitting as pretty as  you please high up in a large tulip tree. Then, I spotted the mate sitting near her in the same tree. Dang! A double header if  I wanted the general shot. I did. It was a good twenty minutes  of shooting. I sure wished I had my longer lens that I have and can't use because it doesn't fit this camera.

We have a couple of days coming up over the weekend with temps into the 70s. The question is how much cloud cover we are going to have.

It's Nesting Time Again.

There is a pair of Red Shoulder Hawks that I have followed for the past five years. Even on the days where I don't go specifically to the lake, I will drive by the area from the upper road to see if I can see them surfing the thermals. Today, was one of those times when all the bells and whistles went off as I drove by a road sign and saw the female sitting on the top of the sign.

 Quickly, I made the block and came back around  from another angle. To my surprise, there she sat in the same place on the sign top. Putting the window down on the passenger side before I came to a full stop, her attention was on me but her focus was on the ground below the sign. I had a clear shot of that area. Even without checking settings, I fired off three quick shots for reference. Then, in a flash, she takes off from the sign and glides over the grass area between the shoulder and the incline were I was parked. Into the grass she landed. For a quick bit, I had begun to wonder if she had been injured. She stood up  with a field mouse in her beak. I had gotten the shots of her in a final moment of a hunt that was successful. The next thirty-eight minutes was just amazing as she flew off over the road into a thicket of trees. I decided that I could not miss this action and gave in driving around to the entry of the park about a mile or two away.

Parking the car, I got out and slowly walked into the thicket watching for shadows on the ground and any movement in the trees. Nothing. It was at that point that I wanted to get a fix on the location of the sign where I had seen her first and  where she had flown this way. Walking quietly and slowly through the thicket, I came up on the road from the opposite side from where I had been in the car. Walking down the roadway on the shoulder with traffic whizzing by has plenty of room to walk and not be in an unsafe spot. My intentions were to walk around the thicket and come back to my car  that I had parked in one of the lots. For some reason, I stopped to photograph the sign from across the road when there was movement in the corner of my eye.

Looking up, there was the most amazing hawk in just the right spot doing just the right thing. Perched on a branch in clear site, she sat there while I got off plenty of  images. The sun was back lighting her right side (anatomically correct) so I risk moving and upsetting her, but she continued to sit there watching me. I do talk to wildlife. She got the, pretty bird routine. I moved back and forth several times covering and recovering 20 or so yards. She continued to just sit there on her perch. Then, I hear the screech of her mate from overhead. I looked up to see him appearing to be ridding the thermals, but in reality, he was busy defending his territory as I found out later when the aerial battle began.

There was a Red-Tail Hawk along with the Red Shoulder. Both were attacking a pair of big crows with sticks in their mouths in mid air. It appeared that the crows were starting to build a nest in the hawks territories and they both joined in the fight to defend the range. I have a blur shot of one crow in flight with the stick as nesting material and at least one of the hawks. I'm still learning how to switch back and forth from pre-set settings and those images are more blur. I am always amazed that I can shoot jets coming in from 130 to 170 MPH and not blur an image but something about real birds gets me excited and I blur the images. I'm still working on the problem. But, to me, at this point, the experience is captured in clean shots and the blur shots all the same. That tells a story, too!

It was a good day and I came home.

The Field Mouse Is No More

The Female Red Shoulder Hawk that just  finished  the mouse.

The Male Red Shoulder had to defend his own territory from the crow after the Red Tail drove the crow into the Red Shoulders Territory. Boundaries are Boundaries!

Birds Picnic At The Lake, Too!

These images come about more about knowing where to find them and when they like to eat more than anything else. Like us, they are also creatures of habit.

Don't forget to click on the image to open up the view 

Lunch Is Served.

The dark at the left is a fork in a tree. I shot between the forks. If they don't see you moving around, they are more likely to stay put and let you shoot more. There are a couple of squirrels below that has its attention at the moment.

Sweeping Up The Dust

Well, this morning, we were able to call the remodeling of the website complete and while we are still sweeping up a bit of dust and picking up a few scraps and leftovers here and there, our main website has been published and is up and running.

We found a bunch of things that really needed revamping where codes had become corrupt by hook, crook or default. We cleaned up the last one of those this morning. Been so busy, the second cup of coffee is still in the coffeepot!

We don't do encryption because when you link to the sites that handle ordering information, they are secure sites already. You can always tell by the little padlock and the http {S}  If we sold directly from our site, "yes, by all means we would be encrypted" . We don't ask for your credit card info or your social security or anything like that. That is the main reason for encryption in the first place. The shadowy stuff, we want no part of anyway, so we keep the site open. It is prowled by a company that searches for our images that have been hijacked from our site. If they find one of our images that have not been licensed by us or by our agents, then they will be knocking to collect the license fee. If you use an image that we licensed through our agent or any of the stock houses we use, you already have that license and we know what image we have licensed. So..... subscribing to the the old theory, "keep it simple, stupid" we do!

We sincerely hope that you enjoy reading our blog and our little dry humor here and there. Yes, we will ruffle a feather or two now and then. Look at our latest image on the blog about the Love Birds--Hawk Style and even the hawks feathers were ruffled. Imagine being those hawks and having 100 photographers pointing a camera at you all day. By days end, you would have some ruffled feathers,too, and not just from the wind.

This month has been our best month for readership ever. We are pleased about that. We hope we have made a few smiles, provided you with a look at nature in the Dallas Metroplex as well as keeping up with some new buildings or sights or transportation changes. Since we started our site and reflecting back on old images, many of the things we photographed are not even there anymore. The biggest example is, of course, Texas Stadium, the previous home of the Cowboys. More subtle things have changed such as the relocation of the Union Pacific Big Boy to Frisco from Fair Park and Reunion Arena that was used to house those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Time moves on and photography captures the past. It makes history visually which stirs emotions both good and bad. It enhances the mind and it quenches the human need and want for more.

So, until next year or the need to revamp the site again. You can revisit the navigation and learn how it can take you to our other sites if you want to expand you viewing pleasures. At the beginning of this year, we have over 3,000 images accessible from our main website. Our image totals per week are running right at 1,000 images. Obviously, not all of them make it to the web .Currently, that's about 0.07 percent after edits for one reason or another. Sometimes, we accidentally shot the ground if our bag hits the sh

346-1F119841 White Egrets

346-1F119822 Cormorants

utter button. Yes, that counts in the annual total of 51,078. But we have fun!! That's the main thing when you peers like David Bowie begin to appear in the daily obit columns. Of if you see us out and about and you think we are mad or grumpy or irritating.....perception on your part might be totally wrong.  We certainly hope you can find both joy and enjoyment on our site. We do this for you, or readers!

Love Birds--Hawk Style

 Headed out about 11 after packing a lunch.  Meds were ready at the pharmacy. Needed to cap off the tank at the gas station and do a little fill-in grocery shopping. Heading for White Rock. Drove to Dreyfuss Club, parked and took my lunch to the picnic tables overlooking the lake.

Just as the last celery stick, red grapes and peanut butter was eaten, something caught my eye in the trees between the tables and The Bath House Cultural Center. Packing up my lunch utility materials and putting them in the trunk of the car, I got the camera out and headed toward the tree, thinking it was probably nothing more than a squirrel. About that time, a guy walking his dog called out to me and said,"that's a pretty big bird." I said to him that I was just checking it out because I didn't know if it was a bird or squirrel. He confirmed again that it was a bird. Just then, I spotted a second hawk in the big sycamore in the middle of a small thicket and said to the guy as the bird was flying toward the second bird. Then, he saw both birds,too.

Continuing to walk toward the thicket, I was shooting as I walked. I would stop and shoot, watch, walk a few steps. Stop.Shoot. It was an amazing site to see both of them setting side-by-side out on a branch at the top of the tree with one of the best views for hawk eye anywhere at White Rock. Plenty of over site of the territory. A meadow of prairie grasses for rodents. Water, fishing, insects.  Plenty of small birds. It is a perfect territory to nest and it looks like the two have been discussing where this years nest will be if they are nesting for the first time.  They might have a nest from last year. That is only a guess, however. I've seen a lot of single red shoulder hawks lately and the big red tail, but this is a first to see the two together as a pair. That was the shot of the day. With that, it was time to head out to the pharmacy and grocery.   As a sidebar of information, I paid $01.629 for gas at Kroger's. It really was a good day.

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Click on any image to enlarge all three.

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Three, Four Birds

Buteo Lineatus

Great Blue Heron

Lake Stock

Yesterday, was a low cloud, foggy-type day. When you consider that we see the sun way more than most places, it seems like we have had a lot of gloom-type days recently. Still, life goes on and you take it in stride and wait for the sun to shine again.

It was the second day to see the coyote out hunting. I found the place where the red shouldered hawk (oops sorry, I would not want to misrepresent the species... but hey, it was a red-shouldered hawk) claims his territory. In the past several days, he has been in one of three places.

What was so interesting was that the hawk and the coyote were near the same tree and in the one tree that I had done a post about (Haunting old trees of White Rock) a Great Blue Heron stood on the top of the tree. The coyote was hard to spot at first. Only movement gave him away. He was after a mouse or a vole or some type of rodent. And, he would pounce on it, then pounce again as it made its get-away. Interesting to watch, as the hawk and the heron were doing the same thing...watching the coyote.

On the other side of the lake, the  water birds were following the fish and drifting. The contrast against the grey low clouds as the dew points and air temps were close together, also gave a backdrop  that made the contrast of bird feathers and colors stand out. So, it wasn't a bad day for viewing wildlife forms. The day before, I was talking with one of the guys from the water filtration building as the coyote was in the meadow of the old fish hatchery. He had been watching him from the parking lot in front of the filtration building, too. A couple, on a nature walk caused the coyote to duck into the thickets and disappear that day. When I ask them if they had seen the coyote that they had just passed they said that they had not but that they had heard him moving. So the verify was upped to three humans plus me.

The old and very efficient Red Tail Hawk was seen on 78 at the Arboretum parking lot where the drive to Winfrey Point begins. As I was turning, he came in to land on the old tree on the corner. His wingspan is massive and his tail fan was at least as wide as both hands with fingers spread apart and thumbs touching. I parked and walked back but he was chased out of the tree by a tree full of starlings or black birds. The limb where he was did reveal a great hanging bird's nest, however. It was one of the largest that I have seen at White Rock. (You get the picture, pardon the pun.) My focus was on the Red-Tail. So, it was a gloomy day but great for watching the reds at White Rock (red-shouldered [medium size] and Red-Tail [Large size]). Have not seen any Kestrel's (small) hawks, though. Another day. Another discovery. I'll include the bird nest on another post. It is an interesting display.



09Jan2016: edit birds to bird's

Run This Through My Herr-Voss

When you see "Run This Through My Herr-Voss" it's  a way to say that I've got something on my chest that I need to get off.

Yesterday afternoon,  with the temps going back into the triple digits again,  even the cat was trying to push me out the door for a little while. Since I had a low tire (a down side to front-end drives) I set out to see my friend,Jamal. He operates a stop and shop with gas and an air machine. Also, he had found a new Mediterranean restaurant from our visit of last week and I wanted to touch base with him as to when he wanted to go for dinner.

 On the way home, my eye caught a large ground movement in an area that is mowed regularly by the city and I slowed down enough to see a very large Red Tail hawk on its prey. I drove to the parking area, got out the camera and walked back along the road several hundred yards. This was the second big Red Tail that I have seen in as many months. Last month, I posted one on a squirrel dinner. This one had the same taste buds. One thing for sure, Red Tails keep the squirrel populations in check.

While watching this amazing bird feast on its kill, keeping movement down is always essential if you want to observe the food chain at work and learn about urban life of such amazing birds. The traffic is in a residential area but its on the edge of a popular park. Looking out for traffic on my side of the road and maintaining an eye on the bird, this one car was coming back and forth and pulled into  a near driveway. Thinking it was the property owner, I didn't pay much attention to the car beyond that. A bit later, along came a girl and two guys walking two dogs on the other side of the creek. There wasn't much concern with that in as much as they presented little disturbance with the creek between them and the Red Tail. In a split second, the people follow the dogs down into the creek and the lady in the car comes forward in a fast walk with camera in hand. Both converged on the hawk from both directions. Fear had already registered in my brain what was about to happen. Sure enough, the Red Tail stirs anxiously, stands at full tallness and the wings come out in lift-off position. Sure enough, it took flight with the squirrel that wasn't finished. It flew across another street into a wooded area that is part of a flood plane and wet land. No use looking for the hawk, I didn't feel like running from cottonmouth snakes!!

Here is the "RUN THIS THROUGH MY HERR-VOSS".
Some people are so self-centered, they have no respect for others in public areas. The lady had no clue what was about to happen. She actually thought that she was going to get as close as I had gotten to the Red Tail. And, she might have had a 60/40 chance had she been aware of the dogs on the other side of the creek.

As far as the people with the dogs, they were young 20-somethings and didn't care what a old man with a camera in his hand might be observing on the fringe of a park known for its wildlife-in-Urban splendor. The young couple and friend and the lady with her point-and-shoot in hand immediately backtracked in the other direction when the hawk took flight. It was like watching to cue ball on a billiard table hit to balls at once and one goes to the left pocket and one goes to the right pocket. They knew what they had done. People don't know how to share common space with others who might be enjoying nature  while they occupy or consume their afternoon with no purpose in mind.

Earlier, a business owner had come by, pulled off the road quietly, sat in his Jeep and watched the hawk, got out his camera and snapped a couple of shots. I walked across the road to talk to him. He lives in the area and had experienced the  same two American Bald Eagles seen in the area earlier in the year like me. The point being, you got three people stopping. One can share the common public land with another while the other two groups have no clue how to share nature and respect the observers as well as the feeding animal or fouls. That's what "ruffled my feathers" or as and old steel man would saw: "Run This Through My Herr-Voss".

Here are a couple of pictures from of the beautiful tail feathers of a Red Tail hawk.