Greetings everyone, hope all is well with you. My spirits have definitely been lifted thanks to yesterday being my first day in the therapy pool! Feels good to actually walk again albeit with the assistance of water dynamics. For an hour there I felt somewhat whole again, enjoying the various strengthening and stretching routines and even the treadmill didn’t fill me with dread like it normally does during the off-season – something about it being submerged made it more intriguing. Of course, reality hit when my time was up and re-emerged into gravity – a solid reminder I still have miles to go. The best part, I was completely exhausted later that night, forgotten muscles fidgeting and squawking. It has been 11 frustrating months since I’ve had a really hard run and last night brought a flood of good memories back (runners are wired differently ha). While I sit here in anticipation of tomorrow’s pool session, thought I would crank out another post from the recently processed Colorado trip.
Hit the jump to see a few more shots that “could have been awesome”
We are technically at the first post of September. My last post was published 2 minutes before midnight on the 31st, but the WP servers sit in different time zones so it might look like it creeped to the 1st. Normally I would be in full panic mode and wondering if I’ll make it to double digits in total sleep for the week while getting ready for the Haunted Trail event. Due to the ankle injury, I have a bit of reprieve as we had to push the party date three weeks into October. My ankle was pretty adamant that there would be no trail work until at least the brace phase. Still have a lot of work to get done, but I’ll have a few more weeks of some decent sleep before the pressure builds. In the last post I mentioned I just had to get through the tins from Colorado and I would be current to this year. That is now complete – and there was copious amounts of rejoicing. In recognition of this momentous accomplishment, going with a featured feathered friend from that trip.
Hit the jump to learn more about this stout looking bird.
Last day of the month and we are officially in the “bonus” round. Thanks to the additional time being sequestered in the den, this has been a highly productive blogging month. Believe this is the 8th post of the month which includes the two browser cache burning recollections from last year’s 2024 Haunted Trail Event (link here). I am incredibly shocked we are only a month and half away from the 2025 extravaganza. Note, we had to push it three weeks this year due to the ankle mishap. Might as well update you on that front as well. Thursday I was officially released from the 6 week no-weight sentencing. According to the doctor, everything is progressing as prescribed which is really good news. Apparently the massive swelling that occurs in the foot soon after releasing it from the air-cast is normal (quite the surprise). The original expectations of being released for “walking” fell a bit short though as he wants me to continue to use both crutches to assist the walking effort for a week or so then take away one of the crutches for a period of time before unassisted walking. Honestly, that seemed like a good plan based on the “owwww” that escaped my lips the first time I put the unprotected foot down on the floor. Physical therapy also started that day which brought some additional mutterings, but those came with a smile – that I can handle, suffering is kind of my game and honestly, what got me into this mess ha. I am looking forward to the pool work that starts soon. Only 4 more weeks and I am graduated to a brace and minutes after getting into that I’ll be out on the trail getting it ready to entertain our guests.
Probably not a secret, but my life is driven by goals. As much as I hated putting them together while in the grind, they are a cornerstone on the personal side. Life with purpose as they say. Before you ask, this commitment continues in the retirement years. One big goal to complete while laid up was to tackle the massive backlog of photos. Managed to get through the Texas March 2024 tins (560G) and over half of my Colorado September snaps. That trip just needs a few more hours of work and I will be current to 2025 (assuredly my long-term readers will be flabbergasted). Just to give you a taste of the newly processed Texas folder, thought I’d go with a fitting featured feathered friend immortalizing that rarely uttered word “Owwww”l.
Well, we will get to the Owl part in just a sec – right now you are basically staring at a hole in a telephone pole at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. Linda, myself and about 30 other hardcore birders spent a good hour plus staring at that hole in hopes of getting a glimpse of what was to be a +1 lifer for me. Hit the jump to find out if we managed to get something in the tin!
It is a big week for me. The first phase of my medical “bad boy” sentencing is up this Thursday! Fingers crossed everything looks good so I can transition into the next term consisting of a walking boot and physical therapy. I cannot wait to be at least semi-mobile again. Before the good advice comes pouring in, Linda already gave me the “treatment” yesterday at dinner. {With a stern look that would be truly forbidding to those less conditioned to it hehehe} “Now, you know what to do the next time you think you turned your ankle in a race RIGHT!?!” “Yes” I proudly responded without a moments hesitation “..not tell you about it!”. She may seem flabbergasted, exhausted, disappointed and claws out ready to pounce, but deep down inside she knows me better than that (and still agreed to marry me – crazy eh!). Honestly, I will try to be more careful – these last couple of years have been rough on the body. While I mentally prepare for what is going to be some brutal first therapy sessions, going to let Brad take you with him on another Colorado adventure. Oh, Brad’s suspicions were correct, I just finished processing almost all the tins of the 2024 birding season (over a terabyte). Just have a quick trip to Colorado to get through from last September and then I’ll be current to this year!!
Take it away Brad…
At Wildlife Intrigued, most of the photography team (OK, Brian and I) have a backlog of photos as you might expect. Brian’s backlog is an order of magnitude greater than my backlog, though I suspect with his upcoming ankle “upgrade” he’s going to have lots of time to sort through photos. Writing a story isn’t necessarily a linear event. Oh sure, I could go back to the oldest photos and start from there. However, sometimes a story just sings to me and keeps working its way through my brain until my fingers hit the keyboard. Voila! A story is born. Stories are usually not published, or written, in sequential order either, meaning that back-to-back stories published on Wildlife Intrigued come from different assignments on different years. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
As Jan and I neared the exit of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Preserve (RMANWP) Wildlife Drive we began to notice the large bison fences. In reality, I’m not sure these wire fences would stop a determined bison from going where it darn well wanted to go. Growing up, there was a farm near us that had exotic animals on it, including a camel (one hump), an ostrich, and a very small herd of bison. Did you know that bison are extremely agile despite their large size? One evening, at my parent’s dining room window we heard a loud snort. Glancing up, there was a large bison looking straight into the first story window. The large furry face stared at us for a few seconds before something off to the side caught its attention. The bison was off like a shot because two people on horseback were chasing after it. We were later told the chase lasted several minutes until the bison decided it was tired and hungry. Once the bison neared the 5-foot-tall fence marking its home, it simply leaped over the fence, in stride, back to its normal corral and began quietly munching on a big bowl of bison chow. Problem sorted. That’s when I learned how agile and strong these animals are. Important safety tip from the National Park Service: Don’t pet the fluffy cows.
Back to the previously scheduled story.
Today’s feathered friend is not new to Intrigued. You may have seen today’s featured guest before here. The prior story is from nearly the same location, just a few miles closer to the mountains of Colorado than I am today.
Sitting on the top wire of the bison fence was this guy, or girl, I’m not really sure. Unless a pair is sitting side by side, the subtle color differences are not as obvious. Males can have slightly brighter, or more vibrant, yellow coloring, some might say “lemon” colored. The black “necklace” may also be darker or more sharply defined. Not seeing another one nearby for comparison, I’m sticking with my original assessment.
Hit the jump to read more about this winged lemon with a dagger of a bill.
I am excited to announce that today marks the official 5th week out from surgery! Let me get my calculator out..tap, tap, tap, tap 6, tap tap tap, minus, tap, tap, 5, tap, tap, carry the one, tap, tap, divide by PI, tap tap invert, tap log, tap, tap….tap tap tap equals…YES the answer is 1. That’s right, only one more week left in this 6 weeks of no weight hell. I now have firsthand experience how people can go batshit crazy. That will just get me to the boot, but PT will start that day and physical pain means strength and strength is the road back to the trail! To my credit, I have been keeping busy since getting the stitches out. Maybe a bit too close to former “work”, I’ve been in front of the computer for hours on end each day getting caught up on the photo queue (almost done with Texas March 2024), tackling the heavy lifting posts (2024 Haunted Trail recap), producing the Intrigued Haunt YouTube tutorials (Haunted Tree) and doing my very best to get caught up on all my post reading – whew!
In case you are interested, here are the links to the 2024 Haunted Trail recaps:
Trail of Fears 2024 – The Clearing, the Build and then the Panic – link here Haunted Trail 2024 – The Dark Woods – link here
I’ll put the latest tutorial video at the end of this post for those that want a behind the scenes look at how we created our 9′ by 10+’ haunted tree in tribute to the previous broken elbow “incident” – yes, the Root of all Evil!
Of course, we know the main reason you are here and that’s feather watching – we have something for that as well.
Today’s featured feathered friend is a fitting selection for the “hard work” theme. Hit the jump to learn a bit more about this diminutive bird.
We are officially at the 4 week mark since the ankle surgery. That means it is has been 4 weeks since I have put any weight on it. I have noted that is quite an accomplishment for me. Unfortunately, I have ANOTHER two weeks of this insanity before I can start the physical therapy phase and finally get start introducing weight bearing (in between the screams from the PT). I have been doing my best to keep myself busy. A huge chunk of time has been devoted to working on my backlog (did I just hear cheers, someone definitely cheered), trying my best to catch up on my post reading and all the work in the haunt lab – I’ve linked the latest short video at the end if you are interested). YouTube is now my friend – there isn’t stupid Cat video I haven’t watched! In all this, there are always posts I can work on, so let’s get to it!
Battling my inner Venom:
“Do it!” “But I don’t want to do it” “Yes you do, do it now” “Umm, really don’t wanna” “You shall do it and like it” “But it pains me” “You are already in pain, what’s the difference!?!” “Hmm, that is a valid point, but I’d rather do something else…anything else” “Do you really want to stare at that series in the queue anymore?” “Sigh, but I’ll say you twisted my ankle”
Here you go, today’s featured ugh, feathered ugh, friend double ugh Finch – make it stop.
As a general rule, I take at least one picture of every bird I see when out in the field. The amount of additional shots I take of a specimen is based on a complex internal mental algorithm which would probably rival any current AI engine. Is the lighting halfway reasonable, did I get a good enough shot to officially claim the check, is there a good story to share on the blog, what is likelihood of seeing it again, are there new behaviors to document, where does it rank on my “cool birds” list, is it on my “crap bird” list (I’m talking about you Asshats link here) and is it out of region all come into play. The logic engine turns, the lights dim and depending on the results zero or more pulses will be triggered to the shutter finger. This processing is repeated, of course, on subsequent shots.
Every once in a while I surprise myself in the digital darkroom and ask myself – “what the hell Bri, did the algorithm glitch?” Hit the jump if you want to see more of apparently one of those surprise results from the field.
It is ironic that most of the time here I am complaining about how fast the year is progressing, but now that I wouldn’t mind the minutes rolling by more rapidly…it seems like everything has slowed to a crawl. Such is fate I guess. Actually this is a good week at Intrigued. Brad and Jan have wrapped up everything related to the annual St. Jude charity run and on their recovery phase, Home Depot FINALLY released this year’s Halloween offerings yesterday (at 5am) and tomorrow my stitches come out. Fingers crossed that leads to better night’s sleep! It also officially marks the halfway point for the 6 week no-weight segment. Looking back I have to applaud myself for being the “good” patient (got a lot of people ready to drop the hammer on me if I don’t) and looking forward, well, “holy hell, get me out of here”. Thankfully there are plenty of pictures to process, Halloween props to wire, haunt tutorials to make and posts to keep my eyes off the clock. Speaking of all things haunt, a curious reader brought to our attention that we missed the post quota last month (we have some demanding readers ha) – turns out they missed my 2024 tombstone review on the Mothership (Boy’s Got Some Stones link here). Feel free to take a look if you are curious how those turned out. While I mentally prepare for thread being pulled out of my ankle, please enjoy another adventure from Brad and Jan.
Take it away Brad…
Jan and I first saw this bird at the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Preserve (RFNWP) a couple of years ago. However, one of my rules for publishing photos is that the image must be usable if I have to resort to severe cropping. I am always saying, “I don’t want a 6-pixel image of a backlit dark object.” Well, with our new cameras, that may have increased to a minimum 60-pixel image. But still, who wants to look at dark fuzzy thing on the screen and try to guess what it is. With my years of experience photographing wildlife (all couple of years of it), I don’t even try for those photos any longer. Not taking them saves time sorting and editing later as well as saving clicks on my camera shutters. That 250k mark on the shutter assembly rolls around quickly enough as is.
On our semi-annual Wildlife Intrigued Rocky Mountain editorial staff visit with our daughter Allyson, Jan and I went to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (RMANWP). One of the perks of visiting is that we get to use her Honda CR-V to drive all over the place while she is working her primary job. RMANWP is a very large park at nearly 16,000 acres. The park is large enough to have an 11-mile, mainly square-shaped, Wildlife Drive embedded within it, plus a couple of miles of road on either end. Visitors enter the one-way Drive by crossing a set of bison guards embedded in the road and then driving anti-clockwise around the Drive. For those not familiar with a bison guard, or cattle guard, it is a series of horizontally mounted rails or pipes embedded over an empty space in the roads. The theory, and reality, being that hooved animals will not want to cross the guard; therefore, no actual gates are needed over the roadway. This means easy access for vehicles while keeping livestock inside, or outside depending on which way you are travelling. Fencing is obviously required up to the edge of the gates in the roads and beyond.
At the end of the 11-mile wildlife drive, just before the final set of bison guards in the road, a dark object flew through the sky and landed in a tree less than 50 feet from us. Since it was far larger than 60 pixels, Jan and I wanted to begin taking photos.
Now what do we have here, hit the jump to learn more about this spiffy looking Hawk.
First off, I would like to congratulate Brad and Jan on their soon to be completed (later today) St. Jude charity run from Memphis, TN to Peoria, IL. Jan running legs over the multi-day event and Brad in support. Such a good cause for the children (and their parents) going through a really tough time. Makes all of our bumps, bruises and recovery trivial in comparison.
I have been processing pictures as of late and came across a more whimsical series I thought I would share as the first post in August (how can we be in August already ugh).
Hit the jump to view more of our featured feathered…actually make that flowered friends we saw on our April trip to Vegas.
Hello everyone! Going to let Brad have a small break from covering for me while I’m on the mend. Difficult enough bringing you the recent rapid fire posts, but having to deal with all the standard stuff around the headquarters is a daunting task without the added burden of keeping our unruly legal department under control – may have to up his bonus this year, but don’t tell him that. As far as an update on the surgery front, there has been a small hiccup with the transition from the surgical dressing to the surgical boot that has brought some unexpected discomfort (oddly more painful than the surgery itself). Other than that, surgeon says everything looks good. He also reiterated the “no weight for 5 more weeks” edict within earshot of Linda which threw a giant wrench in my well contrived plans – back to the drawing board. Seems like everything I want/need now is just out of reach from my crutches and scooter which is starting to annoy me – oh, except for my running shoes that are beyond just “out of reach” to the point I have no idea where the hell they are now. Linda’s devious I tell you, devious. Let’s see, pull up browser, type in H-O-K-A.com and get me some new sho…oh crap, here she comes…backspace, backspace, backspace, H-A-U-N-T.com, “Who, what, me!?! No, no, I’m, just looking for new haunted trail props” – this is going to be a long 5 weeks. Note, I did make a new haunt-to video which I’ll mention at the end in case you are interested.
While searching through the photo queue, I noticed something in one of the image sets that made me laugh in reference to my current situation. Perfect, welcome to tonight’s featured feathered friend.
Hit the jump to see a Northern Flicker characteristic I have never seen before!
As you can ascertain from this post, I survived the ankle surgery! Quite the ordeal, but Brad and I have two friends going through heart valve replacements up at Mayo right now, so comparatively minor in context. Just wanted to give a quick update as some of you had reached out. Unfortunately, once they got everything opened up, the doctor discovered the injury was worse than expected – not what you want to hear as you are clearing the fog of anesthesia. I’ll get more details during the followup. From Linda’s understanding, in addition to the multitude of expected repairs, the tendon was torn severely beyond initial assessment and strongly suggested those extra 48 miles in the race …..were not helpful (I’ll spare you Linda’s commentary, there might be delicate ears looking over your shoulder). Been some rough nights so far, but Linda is taking great care of me and Brad and Jan are keeping good tabs on me. Won’t keep you any longer as I know you would rather get to another adventure from Brad. Oh, apparently there were some comedians in the operating room as Linda found this when we got home…admittedly, I do laugh out loud every time I see it!!
Take it away Brad…
It’s not very often that Wildlife Intrigued photographers are at risk from their subject matter. Not often, but it does happen. Upon reflection, it does seem to be that Jan is the one that most often steps into harm’s way for these stories.
It was a lovely February day on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. By lovely, I mean clear skies and no rain. The temps, however, were hovering just above the freezing mark. Sea spray overnight had frozen on the fences and seagrass near our hotel on the ocean. Jan and I decided to wait until the temperatures were at least in the 40’s before venturing outside. Cold fingers and cold camera batteries do not make good photos.
After lunch at one of the cool breakfast/lunch restaurants on the island, we chose to drive to Jarvis Creek Park. You may remember Jarvis Creek Park from last year’s visit. The park includes a nice pond/lake (depending on your definition), nearly one mile of paved walking and fitness trails, clean restrooms, picnic areas, a fishing pier, and even a bike repair station. On the other hand, before you let the children run amok in nature, it also has alligators. We’ve only ever seen the gators close to the water in the lake, but nothing stops them from crawling up the bank to the walking path, except maybe the effort to get uphill. (see here for gators from Jarvis Creek Park)
But that’s not what this story is about. This is a story about a threat not from the water, but from the sky. Well, almost a threat in retrospect.
Jan and I had been wandering around the lake trying to photograph some spastic flying blue streaks (tree swallows) when we paused under the pine trees near the water. Jan was a bit further along, still trying to catch the tree swallows (future story) and I was watching a gator try to get down it’s first meal of the season. It was rather gruesome, so no photos here. We both paused for a second to give our memory cards a chance to catch up, when there was a minor kerfuffle from a tree near the water.
Life Intrigued 