It Was A Double Headed Kind Of Day

Seldom do I do two contrasting thing in one day, but today was an absolute kind of day to do such things. By nine this morning, I had turned off the computer after checking the mail; gave a quick check on my agent, checked on the coffee pot, then packed a sandwich and snack, drinks, cold packs for the cooler and was out the door by 9:30.

The trip was to make the Belt Line Road north segment of the east west beltway. It's one of Dallas' first beltways and makes a complete circle around the Dallas-Metroplex. It also runs tandem with the old Cotton Belt Train that will be running from Plano to the rail station at DFW--the third train to serve the terminals at DFW. There was so many changes to things that I include in the Urban scene that it was 11 before I landed at DFW's Founder Plaza. Actually, it's been a spell since I was last there. Even there, so much had changed. That's why those wagon wheel spokes are so important to circuit drive on a regular basis. But, it's not always that easy with Doctors, Dentist, Eye Doctor blah blah blah---blah blah blah. And, it does run up the mileage. With the cost of gas, it cuts into everything overall as prices are soaring almost faster than you can turn around. Even with all that, I still could not cover everything. I had wanted to make the cut at MacArthur and go by the old Cowboys Headquarters in Valley Ranch before they moved to the "Star" in Frisco. I heard that it has now been bulldozed. I had wanted to see yes or not,

While there, I also got a chance to shoot the new flowers that grace the grounds there at Founders. Spoke with a gentlemen who just signed on his new house in the Metroplex this morning. His wife was in the car and didn't get out. They are moving here from Boston. His one son lives on Grapevine Lake and his other son," is a pilot for United Airlines", he said. He mentioned that he had painting in the Pentagon. It was a bit funny that the two of us knew one person that we shared as a friend. I find that totally amazing. As they say in the land of Disney, "It's a small world after all."

I ate my snack first today and then headed out chomping down on home made ice chips that I had packed in the cooler. Lately, this chomping on ice has become a past time bigger than chewing gum for some people So, taking Airfield Drive around to the south entrance, I decided to take Valley View to Walnut Hill for most of the journey back into Dallas but instead of taking Walnut Hill into Los Colinas, I took Northgate that comes into Northwest Highway just west of Love Field. I had the sunroof open and I had been shadowed at DFW by a 787 landing on the 18s and I got shadowed by a Southwest at Love. When I say shadowed, I mean shadowed as the entire planes shadow come over you at the same speed that they are landing (somewhere around 137MPH plus or minus a few miles per hour). From there,  took Northwest east to Inwood to the Lover's Lane United Methodist Church on the corner as I wanted to then take Park Lane a bit farther west going east than I usually travel. Why? Well, if you have ever been to Ashville, North Carolina and visited the Biltmore, there are many homes like that there. Some of the lots have been filled with Ronnie Houses that try to look like the massive blocks of stone that form the walls of the estates that I mention. Frankly, architecturally, they don't come close.

Then, from there, it was a direct shot to Flag Pole Hill where I parked and found a picnic table under some big trees with lots of shade and being on the top of FPH, the breezes were gentle but felt so good on the skin. In short, it was a pleasant,perfect comfort kind of lunch as I overlooked the traffic coming and going through FPH. White Rock Creek flows toward the lake just west of where I was having my lunch. By 4:30, I was home. It did take me a bit to recoup my strength but all-in-all, it was a delightful day.

15 hours in the air ends with the "painting of the runway". That is the smoke coming up from the runway as the rubber is burned off the tire and deposited onto the runway as a black rubber stripe. It has to be cleaned off the runway by a night crew several times during the course of a specific time frame.

A very complex flower bloom, but one of utter beauty, too. 

One of the picnic table canopies at Flounders Plaza at DFW. The only clouds in the sky were there high-thing whisp right above the airfield.

Something Missing With Flood Flow in Lake

Yes, the weather has been pretty crappy this spring. Weekend after weekend was a washout. Then, we got a break only to have the rains come back every Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and Fridays. This is the fourth flooding at the lake this year. True, the past two has not been as bad as the first and that is the focus of this post. That hasn't stopped the big trees falling as the soaked soils will no longer hold the shallow roots and the massive trees topple. I saw one today by the Stone Tables that Parks  had cut as it lay on the ground. Crews will get the rest.

The one place to go if when flash flood warnings are issued, if you want to see a creek as wide as a river and currents as strong as any flooded river current flowing downstream, is under the Mockingbird Bridge. The plastic bottles, soccer balls, and big Tide laundry bottles (empty,of course) flow into White Rock Lake with these flash floods from bank to bank and the currents take it across the lake from east to west. The tide and egg cartons come down from the northern communities was trash containers are blown over in the alleys and the runoff carries it out into the storm drains that flow into White Rock Creek and its branches.

However, the past two floods were eeriely absent of debrit flow. Did the first two floods wash it all downstream? Did people start clearning up after themselves? Did people stop drinking water in plastic bottles?  The only big displays I see of water anymore are on TV when the Red Cross Disaster Relief is passing out water. Even worse, did some big limestone cravasse open up a mammoth cave somewhere upstream and it's now flowing into that. Maybe. Something happened to it because even today, the water was level with the banks of the lake but I only saw one styro foam cup. I did see two big chunks of a good size tree but outside of that, it was a clean flow into the lake.

Beautiful Lavender

Since tomorrow is Mother's Day, remember, if you see people wearing roses pinned to themselves, the red ones mean that their moms are living. If they wear white, then they have passed. And the images will be for the moms.

We wish all the mom's a Happy Mother's Day.

Look  how trim Mr. Squirrel is! He's been working out and not sitting in some tree getting all wet!

Beautiful Colors From All That Rain

Archie Has Arrived at the House of Windsor

It seems for many more reasons than we Americans can understand, the reign of the House of Windsor most likely will go down in the second thousand years of English history as one of the most interesting of all the regal houses (sorry Tudors). And that includes the surname change from the German ties to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor by King George V. Therefore making Queen Elizabeth II's father the first Windsor in the House of Windsor. But for what ever reason, Archie will be the one to pull the English throne into the 21st century without reservations and the world is signaling their approval already on social media.  

The Banner Version of the British Flag as seen at White Rock Lake for the All British Auto Show this past weekend. Timing is everything.

Some of the Characters That Surround Me Everyday.

I see this sign almost every time I visit the lake, but until today, I had never stopped to realize that one is a German Shepard and the other is a doberman. But, also, the sign is one of the best security positing that I have ever seen. My brother had a German Shepard that was trained to be a police  dog and Baron could cover ground!! Hats off to the property owners!!!  Well done. 

 

 

 

In the course of life, everyone meets a character here and there that sticks in their  memory for good or for bad. It's one of those things that make us all human, I suppose. But what about those characters

Blue Jays are Comical 365

that make us laugh and we can't communicate with them on a verbal plain? Well, for me, I tend to remember them as pretty special and I carry them in my memories and in my heart.

But this little guy which you can talk to, is so comical that I will always stop and talk to his kind.

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.

Never To Old To Learn

Dad puts himself in between himself and his chicks as mom escorts them to safety.

Snake paces back and forth along shoreline for a reason.

Dad Duck Watches Out For Snake

While I have always loved wildlife and being outdoors, looking back now, the last twenty years of my life have been a new learning experience with a triptych of cameras by my side. In the course of events during that twenty years, going to zoos has been fun, but this isn't about going to zoos. It's that red tail hawk that you first notice by its shadow that it cast on the ground as you walk a trail. It's about seeing fluffy little owl chicks poking their heads out of a hollow of  a tree hole, seeing this world for the first time. Discovering a couple of dozen of Rocky Mountain long horn sheep living less than the number of fingers on one hand from me turned out to be a WOW experience. Or finding not one but two houses where a pair of burros roam a side yard. Kestrel hawks, great horned owls, ospreys, bald eagles, are now spotted on a regular basis as I have learned about their habits and how they go about their days as I take time out of mine to watch such majestic beauty for the majority of the days in a year.

But the most amazing thing that I have always heard about, but never had  observed in detail has been the colorful and sometime funny, wood duck family. This season, I have seen no less than ten pairs, observed how the male and female are seldom seen alone but when you do, its because the males are keeping watch over the females and their chicks.

Yesterday and the day before all the pieces of the puzzle came together and my eye spotted unusual places where wood ducks go. Never observed  in those places observations became answers. For example, the male was seen coming out of the water and flying with the female up into two separate trees. Animals, especially birds, have diversion patterns that they fly when going to their nest. They never go direct to the nest with people around. But why did the female go here and the male flew there?The answer was the nest tree up the side of a old oak  more on the short side of 20 feet rather than the short side of 15feet. That lead the following day to more answer. The female watched as her 12 chicks jumped out of their nest to the ground below and collected around mom on the ground as dad called to the chicks from the branch of the tree where he had been seen the day before flying up into the different tree than the female.

But the big event was yesterday as I observed a big water snake swimming along the shore where I had seen it and another in areas. I have never seen them at that location before. They had been hanging out at the edge of the lake and then a mallard built a nest and was sitting on the nest. She later disappeared. after about three days on her nest, as did the snakes. The sighting of the snake swimming back and forth along the shoreline just a couple of feet offshore gave way to my sighting of the male wood duck on a dock. After a while when he had determined that all was well, he flew from the dock to where the shake had been seen earlier. Shortly after that, mom and her 12 chicks headed across the channel toward the marina  with dad in patrol of the shore back and forth between where the snake had been seen an where the chicks were following closely behind mom. It was nature at its best right here in the middle of 7.5 million people.

Blue Flowers

Nature has more blue colors that are showing up this spring. Blue flowers are regal.