Monarchs Are In Town

Brought in by the latest cold front, the Monarch butterflies that were seen on the US Weather Radar have arrived. Yesterday, I counted about 50 per half-hour on the wing at or just above treetop levels from the driveway. Today, I counted a total of three at the lake. That includes both sides of the lake.

While that is not an impressive number, neither are the totals for the species, which has also suffered big losses over the past few years. There is talk about putting them back on the Endangered Species Act List. For those that seem to think that the Earth's weather is not changing, more and more of these types of examples go a long way to document the contrary.

With rain and more cold fronts due over the next week, hopefully, the butterflies are resting up from their winged flight south. I can remember in years past seeing Monarchs hope a ride on the mast pole of a sale boat across Lake Erie. They are crafty in such ways. Talk about thumbing a ride across country, by land or by sea, they make it down the Central Flyway and complete their cycled journey right on time. So, I'm hope full to see them at the lake drawing energy and nectar from the plants along the shoreline of the lake. 

Meanwhile, it was a jackpot of birds of prey at the ball diamonds. There was a red shouldered hawk, a Kestrel hawk and the colorful Cooper hawk. I actually got to see him make a kill. Albeit a grasshopper, by ratio to size, a pretty big meal.

Cooper Hiding in the tree before it targets its lunch.

Got Ya! Lunch is served

This is about a dozen of these that I have seen this weekend. Saturday I made a trip back into the old neighborhood of  tiered stone walls dropping down some 60 feet,  foot bridges, and winding walks from the street across White Rock Creek to the homes that I have loved from the 60's. The Japanese Maples were just stunning.  I have not been homesick for a very long time, but remembering mom walking her dog, Murray ( a white Eskimo)  and knowing that my son had walked those same paths brought a flood of memories over me. With my son's birthday coming up, it was even more a walk "down memory lane". He would have been 49 this year.

Japanese Maples in the Old Neighborhood

Cuteness That Is Just Cute to the Max

It's been pretty busy but I have gotten 250 images published.There has been a lot of Live New work as well as a few that I even just passed on because there were so many irons in the fire. There are festivals about with more coming up at the end of the month. The weather has been great. 78-81 during the day and 54 at night. That is good sleeping weather and I need that sleep.

It's also the end of the first week without my TV. That was a choice thing. U-verse just got so greedy I pulled the plug on it and my LAN line telephone. For the first time since I was 21, there is not an AT&T in my life. The funny thing is that I have not missed it. I stream my news programs local and national and that's all that I need really. I still want to know what's going on in the world. Besides, I do enjoy listening to Classical. I regained by surround sound and tuner as a unit again with the TV gone. I had forgotten how nice it is to work on the computer and listen to classical in surround sound.

But now that the chicks have branched and even flown to parts unknown. It doesn't seem like that much time has gone by already with the owl nesting season, but I was watching the owls and the red-shoulder hawks since mid January. Here it is clicking away into May already. So, I have a set of images of the owls that readers might like. The published ones are (naturally) better, but for those of you that use stock for your blogs, this will give you some indication of how to use the images in another way if a person steps in while you are shooting and the image comes out with an elbow or a hand. Don't toss those. They can be edited down to remove those things without that aweful  thing they call Photoshop.

New York Times Opinion

When you are young, you dream about things that sometimes stays with you for a lifetime. Some would say that is because no goals are set. To them, they know not what they say. They, as I call them, are the naysayers of social media and i-phones today. To them, I say: Shut up!

My goals that were set as a young boy, a teen, a college student, a young married have all been meet ten times over. I have no complaints. I have only praise.

 The difference between then and now is youth vs. old age.

 For the bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1,

 "For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born,and a time to die;

a time to plant,and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time  to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace."

From what I gather from this is that I have had my time  to be silent. Now, it is my time to speak. There were times after my divorce that I would say to my mom that she had escaped the 60's worries that moms had then with protesting kids. I was to busy working and going to school to be bothered with that stuff. "But, now--" I said, "I'm not gonna shut up!" We had a good laugh about that many times, but she knew what I meant. We had all weep together at one time and we had mourned. And now it was a time to dance. We would mourn again for my son and then laugh and dance together for the memories each of us had of him while he was with us. 

This morning, I read the most inspiring essay that I have read in a long time. It brought back many memories about dreams somewhat fulfilled but never achieved; dreams that were never meant to be fulfilled. As my uncle, The Reverend W.T. (True) Watson,would say, paraphrasing:"God will speak his wishes for your life if you will shut up long enough for HIM to tell you. Just listen to people over talk others today, from CNN reporters to their interviewees and many other media newscasters. Quickly, you see how no one is really listening anymore. 

This brings me to the topic about that essay. The essay appeared in the The New York Times Opinion Page. The essay is entitled: In Flight: Enroute from London to Tokyo, a pilot's-eyeview of life in the sky by Mark VanHoenacker, a senior first-officer of a 747 for British Airways.

Mark has published his first book: Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot" and you can link to his webpage at:                                               http:www.skyfaring.com

especially if you want to purchase the book direct. I would highly recommend reading the essay from the book that is published in The New York Times. The graphics are fantastic, the essay allows you to visualize on your own much of what he is experiencing as a pilot.

Anyone still young and dreaming of aviation as a career should read this essay and the book! If the good Lord wants you to fly as an aviator, He's telling you to check it out if you shut up and listen long enough (laughing).

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/14/opinion/14-in-flight-mark-vanhoenacker.html?_r=0