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.

Inside Yesterday--Had To Get Out Today

The rain and gray clouds and cold were closing in inch by inch by inch. By noon time, it was out the door with the bumper shoot  in one hand and the camera bag and tote in the other. Just at Love Field, already, we have picked up an inch and a half of rain. The snow went north to soon.So, to be positive about the matter, we got liquid snow instead.

For a bit, I had the wipers on intermittent. The drizzle was just enough to have them on. When I got to the lake, it was clear that the water levels were even higher than they had been with the most recent flooding on the parking lots and roadway. The dock at one of the boat club marinas had been smashed and rearranged by logs floating down stream and striking the under carriage, raising sections out of the water. So with that siting, it was a full sweep of the lake to see what else might be amiss, all- the- while looking for the pairs of hawks that are getting ready to nest. Not one hawk did I see. Not one. This is the second day and it somewhat worries me. The weather can cause hawks to go elsewhere.

What I did discover was that the pelican's island was totally under water for the second time in less than two weeks and what was worse was the the logs that they like to nap upon and preen their feathers were totally gone. None!! Even the ones out father into the bay area were missing. I also noted that the number of pelicans were  much less than what normally hangs out there. There were only a dozen more on the lake drifting and none down by the dam when I was there. It was on the way home when I made a sweep over the  top of Flag Pole Hill and down to Goforth along White Rock Creek when I discovered about thirty pelicans on the creek bank between Northwest Highway and the cross road that runs east and west behind Flag Pole Hill. There were even many more Great White Egrets and a few more Great Blue Herons that I have never seen all together hanging out like today.

It will be interesting to see how the return goes when the lake levels drop a bit and the creeks flood stage currents lower and slow down . Will the group of pelicans stay there or return to  Sunset Bay? The Park Superintendent told me about a month ago in his office that he can't put logs back into the water. Environmental control factors, nor can he take them out unless they wash ashore like the ones did along the lake shore and the marina docks. I fully understand that process. And there is a lot of loss limbs and branches  on the ground where the disease and rot weakened the branches to where finally, the rain soaked wood's weight pulled them down. Big ones. There is a good semi load of wood on the ground now just along East Lawther from trees down and branches down. So the hope to have nature replace the logs for the pelican and cormorants has greatly diminished after the scouting mission today. 

At least the temperatures will be normal and even well above above average for the next ten days or so. I noted a 70 degree day just a few more days down the pike. Tomorrow will be seasonal but the mitigating factor to all of this is sunshine!! Sun, Glorious Sun!!.  Annie, yes, "the sun will come out tomorrow"!

See the log on the left. It runs to the right middle of the undercarriage. That's what lifted the dock up.

Slightly blurred. I'm not a memeber of the 600mm club.

The Sailing Club Has been Around and Around again. It's the anchor of the Marina.

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.