Around The Lake On the First Good Fall Day

At first, it felt like a dream. Then, it actually registered that this is a Great Lakes Cold Front. When you fell that cool air on your face, it's a "OH! Yes!" type of recognition.

Last night, I went out on the porch and just stood there as the front blew past. For me, it's a welcomed arrival delivered by mother nature, although late, but still delivered! Thank goodness. It came on a day of record high temps for the day at 97.

While my wagon wheel route has shifted with the new arrival of October, a once around at the lake is still done, just not spending the time daily while the hummingbirds and cutting of the meadows is ongoing. The big thing this month will be to see that the American White Pelicans make it back on or about October 12th. From previous post, you will see that a massive kill of waterfowl occurred at the nesting grounds where most of our pelicans go to nest. So, it is an anxious time to see just how many do return of the main flock of 72-90 that winter here annually. The scout did arrive about 10-days ago and that was a positive sign.


Meanwhile, at the lake on that first trip on the new schedule, there was so fun, some gladness an a chance to look into the eye of the most evasive waterfowl that I have ever photographed--the Great White Egret, part of that family known as cranes.

Here's the finds of the day! Click on an image to enlarge all three.

Great White Egret Fishing

Bright, Smart, Polite, and  Funny Young Men enjoying that Fall Afternoon Waited for all Summer.

Finally, Dallas Fire and Rescue and Parks and Recreation, have created an official launch area. Those wooden post with fading red paint were being ignored as people parked there. Earlier in the year it caused a critical delay prior in getting a boat into the water to go up White Rock Creek. A rescue  of an elderly couple that got stuck in their boat was the call. Heaven only knows how much I have complained about this and other areas that are not marked that are causing confusion to the new people that visit and use the park. Several are beginning to speak out about the same problems. A dead duck, pelican, 5 armadillo, two red shoulder hawks, two rabbits have been killed this year. The city spent $42 million of Hike and Bike trails. Bikers and runners still use the roadways and have ruined the peace and dignity of  the park. We finally got the Park Rangers to say who had the responsibility to write tickets on bikers that blow through stop signs like they didn't even exist; runners that make their own rules about using the roads with the 3' foot rule in place. A car cannot drive down E. Lawther or W. Lawther on the weekend without having someone that are in the class of being bullies, screaming, yelling and trying to intimidate those that are 65 and above.

Eagles at White Rock in February 2013

February 2013 Pair of Bald Eagles Fishing

February 2013 was my first sighting of the pair of bald eagles at White Rock Lake. With love for nature, I did not hold back my sightings and have talked about the eagles steadily since 2013.Contrary to what is being spread around about me misrepresenting or giving out bad information,the only reason I dug into the archive to find there images was the fact that I have seen plenty of smoke screens in my 70 years and it seems that those who hope to discredit my sighting have had  a nerve struck and they (men and women alike) feel their little grip on, and having to share their wildlife with, an ever increasing population of Metroplex nature lovers slipping out of their grasp.

Nesting Pair of Bald Eagles over White Rock Lake on February,2013

February,2013 at the Dam

Now, having said that, I can go back to enjoying the nature and wildlife of White Rock Lake.

26Dec2015: edit for punctuation clarity.

Museum of Tomorrow

While Dallas does have some noted buildings built by world famous architects, our latest architect with his second structure still under construction at present Santiago Calatrava has a masterpiece in Rio de Janiero. The Dallas City Hall and The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center were designed by I.M. Pei. Santiago Calatrava designed the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and did redesign his original design work on the Margaret McDermott Bridge currently  under construction. But this week, was the opening of Calatrava's  Magnum Opus in my opinion. It is the new Museu do Amanha (Museum of Tomorrow) in Rio de Janeiro on December 19th. The site is in the old port section of Rio and is part of a major redevelopment program in the area. I have seen the area personally on my first trip to Brazil many years ago. It is an amazing work of design and while I am proud to talk about the Arts District in Dallas and what it has to offer, I did a bit of work figuring out just how big this new Museu is. By loose calculations, the entire arts district could be placed in one third of this structure. The transformation from the old site to this new structure raises the bar for other cities in this old world if they want to compete for tomorrow because tomorrow has arrived on yet another continent of the Americas.

For those of you that want to see an image of the structure, you can search for the Museu do Amanha in Rio. Or, you can go to Alamy and enter in the search box FA1AG5 to bring up the image. I just tried it and it worked. Alamy.com  and enter FA1AG5 (That is FAone AGfive) to be clear.

For those of you who do not want to see Calatrava's non-bridge work, I have some pelicans,geese and ducks for you.

The angle is a duck having just had a drink tilting his head upward.

The pelicans can be so funny to watch.

Two migratory geese fighting. It lasted a pretty long time.

They Work Not In a Big Cathedral but do Cathedral Work

Most of the time, people do not stop to read the signs that the city is required to post for various reasons on projects underway. Generally, I read the projects post. A couple of days ago I was taken aback a bit when I came across one the size of the smallest yard sign at election time. It was a most interesting read. The posting was the formal post by the city. The work being done on the new trail improvements on the east side of the lake, as the lake follows Mockingbird and then Buckner Boulevard is also part of the work. The dog park revamp also got new stone work from these guys.The signs said: Small Business Contract.  I guess small businesses do not rank enough to have the big SWOPP sign postings, In fact, I almost missed the sign completely.

Then, as if the sky parted, there was this white sedan on the trail hidden by the tall prairie grasses. With camera in hand, my  route meandered around the water system put out to water the new sod that was being laid down. Then, as I got closer, I could see a human head level with my feet on the trail, only off the trail by four or five feet. Then, as I got even closer, there was another head. EERIE, I thought. Then the one head moved. In short, the two men were down in a drainage ditch with stone, chisels, hammers and mortar board. They were, hand crafting stone around the culvert below the trail were the hillside had natural drainage.  As it turned out, each man was on one side of the trail about 20 yards apart, but Martin, had come over to get a tool. The work on both sides of the trail was magnificent.

Here is part of their work

A master at his work!!

The car was the only clue but if you look closely, you can see the tops of their heads.

Martin waves

12Sept2015: Edit to correct the word train to trail. It had been corrected prior and shows corrected in master but not on the public side of the last two sentences of the article.