A First For Us Today

It's hard to be modest at times, but we try very hard to be modest in our accomplishments. Today, one of our images was celebrated in a way that made us smile with some degree of pride. The thing about this event today is that we actually got to see it take shape in real time and just stopped what we were doing and watched it play out on our site. And to the parties involved we can only say,"Thank You" for the confidence and vote of support in our work. Again, "thank you" to those who know who you are. Our customers are our heart beat and it means so much to us to have you as customers and agents in step with our mission. When all three come together in harmony, it's a celebration for all three.

In the meanwhile, here's some more bird pictures

A songbird fledgeling

The family of Turkey Vultures with last years and this years fledglings. The near right and left of the inflow allowed two big carp to swim inland.When the water receded the carp were left high and dry and soon died. The vultures are nature's garbage men and these two each have one of the carp they are working on. These are the same birds seen thermal riding over the marina area and sitting on the light post along Mockingbird and Flag Pole Hill.

See the Osprey in flight? Two years ago there was a nesting osprey, then last year, I didn't see one at all. This early January, I spotted the osprey coming across the lake from  Mt. Vernon area. It seemed to have favored the woods around Poppy and Sunset Bay. An would you believe---there it is hugging the treeline. The white on the head with the bar markings can sometimes be missed by the most experienced 'bird watchers'.

New Red-Tail Hawks: This Years Fledglings

As previously stated, it was not my intention to turn this blog into a bird blog. However, it seems that a lot of focus has been on the darn birds. My eye does pick them up much more quickly now and that could be the reason. However, this morning, I had gone to McDonald's for carry out coffee rather early for me and as I was heading out the back way, it was almost instant that I spotted a young red-tail on a soccer field. I stopped, backed up and parked in front of  the gate, which blocked my view. Quietly, I got out of the car and stepped up to the gate where I could get my lens between the wrought iron  bars and started shooting. Almost instantly, another one flew by me and up into a tree.

The one in the tree began calling and I thought that it was to the one on the field, but then, mom comes sailing by. So, in short order, I had three red-tails that I am watching. Some pretty interesting stuff was developing and I  moved to another spot for a better shot. The one on the soccer field took flight to the roof of a shed. Now, from there, I can see both. Shot a few stills and then turn to the other and do the same. Mom, as it turned out, was at the senior assisted living facility at the end of the field up on the roof where there is a widow's railing.

Fledgling Red-Tail Hawk. Pretty white stockings.

The one at the very top is #2 fledgling. #1 that was on the field flies to the roof of a shed, then flies to where #2 was sitting. #1 is the lower one. There is not much to hold on to.

A better view of both fledglings. Mom is over on the roof railing of a senior citizens assisted living complex.

The Tales of a Beaver Are True.

When I got up this morning, the National Weather Service said that there was a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms today. After eating breakfast and sitting down at the computer with my morning coffee, the days normal routine was underway.

First , is the daily check of the website to make sure everything is running well. Sometimes, people leave messages on my site's email. That comes next. Normally, things go pretty much to Hoyle and the morning checks of systems, emails, sales data, licensing date and such usually takes me through my first cup of coffee. When I get up to get the second cup, before sitting back down, I usually will check on my flowers and give the sky a glance as to the sun, clouds and wind. Even though I can get that stuff on the NWS site, it's still that old Farmer's mentality that, "when clouds are high and thin, a weather system is moving in" type of check My grandfather taught me a pile of them as a kid. You don't get that old folk lore on the NWS page.

Second,  I did a couple of projects, wrote a few emails and finished up about lunch time. Once again, I got up to look out the window and half the sky to my right was clouds and the second half of the sky to my left was clear. Strange, I though. I stood watching the clouds move for a minute to see if they were coming this way or going elsewhere. Things were not in a rush to move and I gave it another fifteen minutes before checking again. When I did, it had cleared and the sun was just like I like, so it's time to get the street cloths on and leave the comfort cloths behind. In short, after eating lunch, I'm out the door by high noon.

Finally, as I headed toward the lake, I had not gone a mile before the rain drops starting hitting the windshield and they grew larger and larger until they were the size of big snowflakes. The slow speed on the intermittent wipers had to go to a steady downpour. By the time I got to the lake, it was raining cats and dogs. I stopped under the Mockingbird bridge overpass hoping that it would let up soon. There were four guys  with drones seeking shelter to keep their drones from getting wet. One was a standard big guy-type drone that can carry a DSLR type camera on its gimbal while the other was a about the size of a saucer with a built-in camera smaller than a Go-Pro.

Before we knew it, we were being pushed from the area between the creek and roadway to the area on the other side of the roadway that is even more protected. The wind was blowing sheets of rain almost horizontally like  I had witnessed in Hurricane David. The rain would let up for a bit and just when you thought that it was going to stop, it brought harder downpours. The guy with the big drone had stowed all his gear and had headed out. The three guys with the start up company were building straw and stick boats and were having races down the cement channel that flows from the top of Scout Hill down and under the Mockingbird bridge toward the ramp to the the westbound  Mockingbird  entry. They were talking about putting them on YouTube but I haven't checked the channels yet.

Getting some break in the heavy downpouts, I decided to make my route around the lake. By the time I got around to where the Katy Trail meets the White Rock Trail, the water had flooded the road. It is a stream that flows directly into a channel  that empties into the lake at that point.

I could not see that I was looking at on the edge of the road. I stopped and looked more closely to discover a big beaver that had been flooded out of his den and was seeking refuge up on the roadway. The pictures were made through my windshield with some frosting on the inside where the cold air and hot air were giving that "bathroom shower" effect to the inside of the car.

By the time that I made my way home, it was nearly three o'clock and once inside, it was time to start dinner. I usually start cooking about 3:30 and sit down to eat about 4:45. When I eat earlier, I don't have as many problems with my meds The days of the 8:00 p,m. meals are long a thing of the past.

Big Beaver

He didn't like me stopping.

A red star in green grass from yesterday

A Giraffe Will Show Up Eventually

The giraffe

Many years ago, I would tell an old friend, complaining about setting in traffic, that if they just watched the trucks that would pass, eventually they would see a giraffe. We laughed and went on about the day.

Sure enough, one day, not so many years afterwards, a truck passed with two giraffe's being transported to, or from, a zoo's vet facilities. It had to happen! It just had to happen.  And so, from that point on, when there was doubt, I would remind myself to just keep looking for that giraffe to show up.

Yesterday, my younger brother, his wife and I, meet at lunch time before resuming our activities for Memorial Day. My brother would mention places were he had eaten and ask if I knew where that place was. "Sure, I've been there," I would reply. Long story short, it grew into a game. Both of us are practical jokers and pranksters anyway. Because we were bookend siblings, we never got much of a chance to pick on each other growing up. My middle brother got that from both sides. So it's just natural that my youngest brother and I should resume that part of our lives that we missed out on growing up.

My sister-in-law ask me if I had seen the baby giraffe at the zoo. Lord, that was an invitation to walk back down memory lane and recall names of cousins and tales of snake spottings and such all the while thinking in the back of my mind of the old giraffe story. After saying good bye and pulling into traffic, they were soon lost in sight as I made a turn onto a street that would eventually lead to White Rock for some Live News Feed shots of Memorial Day in Dallas. I had not traveled more than a mile from the restaurant when out of the corner of my eye, I spot---a giraffe--I kid you not!  I made a turn around at the next left lane turn and came back to where the giraffe was standing. Parking, then getting my camera bag out of the trunk, I got a couple of shots of the infamous---giraffe. As it turned out, it was not real, were in the real story, they were. Still, a giraffe is a giraffe is a giraffe, regardless if it is alive or a man-made material one.

Above, is the giraffe that I saw from the road. A couple more shots below are those that didn't make the live feed. It was a beautiful day of low humidity after a cold front passed and the winds were light and variable from the north at about 5MPH. A perfect, gentle and cooling breeze to be outside,

A young couple fishing

Times up on the rentals!

Kirat Society Texas for Religion & Culture USA

Greetings, Genghis!

I was able to get a couple of images from this afternoon's events after seeing you there.
This is the second event that I was able to get images from Flag Pole Hill. It's just one of those out of the way places but is still considered White Rock Lake as the lake came up to Flag Pole Hill at one time. In fact, there are places at the lake where you can see the flag on flag pole hill.

I love tasting different foods from different cultures, too. Since this was a respected event, I didn't want to press my luck to much, but the smell a couple of times was like a magnet, drawing me in that direction.

Lotus Flowers?

I had a little picture of your name sake.

Genghis Khan

1162-1227

Baby Ducks Are Showing Up Bigger This Year.

Just a few weeks ago a couple of photographers and I were talking about how we had not seen any baby ducks this year. Normally by this time, we have seen baby ducks all over the lake. As we began to talk and compare stories, it seemed that the ducks were nesting under deeper cover this year. The reason being that there are more bob cats and coyotes at the lake than in the past. The big problem has been the bob cats. They are on the move in relocating from their normal north digs because of all the construction going on in Frisco and McKinney, Plano, and across the northern sector of north Texas.

Well, about a week after that discussion, I saw a Mallard hen in a Richardson park that had a clutch of 20 chicks. 20! Then, last week I saw a hen  with a normal amount of chicks on the lake, out away from the shoreline. That was strange too. To be that far out in the lake with chicks (goslings, excuse me) was not a normal situation.

Today, I saw a Mallard hen teaching her brood how to face into swells from high winds. It was funny watching the little ducks bury their heads in the water until the wave washed over them, then they came out with water all over their feathers. And, if that wasn't enough, my second stop I saw the mother duck that I had seen about 10-days ago in the current flow, but then, I got to looking and it was a wood duck with her chicks. So, what I had thought was a Mallard on this part of the lake was really a little wood duck. They were not nesting where they normally nest, either. There is something the ducks are really afraid of that is causing them to change their behavior to a very noticeable level. When I can catch the environmental biologist making his rounds, I will try to find out what's the word on this situation.

In the mean while, here are the pictures of two of the mom's with their goslings. The, Mallard teaching swimming lessons and the Wood Duck keeping her brood on the move.

The Mallard teaching how to take a lake swell head on.

Here, mom Wood Duck has told her brood to take cover in the reed bed. There were a lot of fishermen and people with their dogs walking along the shore line as I took this shot. She has 8 goslings. The head dress on the female is not near as nice and colorful as on the male. He was not in sight today,anywhere. And, these were a couple of miles from where they were first sighted and nesting boxes are provided. She is nesting in this area. She knows the lay of the land pretty well, too.

There are two goslings here with mom and the rest are  in a little alcove below her and still in the water. NB--- The Mallards are permanent residents. The Wood Ducks are migratory.

Late Spring Is Stil Kite Weather!

These two kites were flying high and proud at White Rock yesterday afternoon. It was a perfect day with gusty winds and very low humidity and dew points. In short, it was a delight to be outside for anything.  There were a couple of times that the wind dropped to near calm before the wind started back up and the gust returned.

These kites need 25-35 mph gust to keep them in the air with their 30 foot tails. People were seeing them on the higher elevation roads and driving by to take a closer look. Some, ever parked and got out to watch for a while.

One of my photographer friends that operates a drone, had a new drone helipad that has LED lighting for night time landings, but it keeps the dust and grass from getting into the drone, too. He was one of those that was driving home and wheeled in to not only watch but to get some shots. From his angle, he was above the kites and behind them. Ever seen a huge kite at 150 feet or more in the air from the back side looking down? I would like to see those shots eventually.

Twins with 30 ft Tails

Wind dropping first time.

This will show the size in relationship to the shelter house size as the wind gives out a second time. Five minutes later it was back up in the air.