Category: Observation

Thanks, I Just Had It Stuffed

Tired of Chain ‘O Lakes birding posts yet? Fine, let’s shake it up a bit and feature something different, something unlike the other recent posts. Today I bring you a post from the birding outing that my brother Ron and I took at Chain ‘O Lakes. Ummm, maybe that doesn’t completely fit the definition of different.  Yes, it is another post from the Chain, but this time it isn’t about a bird.  Nope, today’s featured subject happens to be an animal I’ve never seen in the wild before.
Beaver at the Chain O' Lakes State Park

Now I’ve seen a lot of Muskrats in my day and one might think those are Beavers if they have never seen one before.  They live in a similar environment and kind of look alike from a brown furry animal that swims in the water perspective but to be honest, you can tell the difference pretty quickly in the field.  First off, the Muskrat has a skinny “rat” tail compared to the paddle the Beaver sports.  Although relative sizes are tough to judge when you don’t have both animals close by, the swimming rat is significantly smaller than the Beaver.  I didn’t realize exactly how much until Ron and I stumbled on this one swimming in a remote part of the Fox River that cuts through the Chain O’ Lakes park.  Quite surprisingly, it could care less that we were even there – some of that may be the fact there was another one – possibly the mate – that was cruising through the water ahead of it – note, I have NO idea how to tell the sexes apart based on the angles we had.  None of them ever made it onto land so these are the best looks you are going to get.  I can bring you in closer though!

Beaver at the Chain O' Lakes State Park

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this Beaver

Continue reading Thanks, I Just Had It Stuffed

Cunning Defeated By Cheaters

Greetings all!  I finally got the race pictures processed and uploaded so the race post I’ve been promising time after time is finally a reality.  On May 9th my merry band of runners set out on a new adventure, this time in Springfield IL  If you read this blog regularly, you should know that one of my favorite events are prediction runs (link Screaming Pumpkin Race).  For those that are not aware of what this is, I’ll get some quick details.  Essentially you can have a team of runners (up to 4) to complete a marathon distance.  Your goal is to have the last runner on your team cross the finish line before midnight.  The catch is you are not allowed to have timing devices so you have to rely on whatever pace each member feels they can complete their leg in.  Your team starts running whenever they want …but obviously not too early because the closest team to midnight wins the race.  I like to call it the perfect race for slow runners like myself since it levels the playing field and relies on cunning to come out victorious.
Oak Ridge Cemetery Prediction Marathon Relay in Springifield IL

My wife actually found this race online somehow (never did ask where she heard about it).  The rules being eerily similar to our Screaming Pumpkin run right down to the fact they are both held in old, hilly cemeteries.  Springfield is not that far from where we live and I happen to have some roots there – I’m in! that was an easy decision.  Lucky for me, my training buddies and Pumpkin Team (Sung and Ryan) were onboard as well.  To add more excitement to the festivities, Linda also signed up for the fun run/walk 5K event giving all something to do that night.

To say this was an interesting night is an understatement.  About a week before the race I started digging into the details to become familiar with the course and get a feel for the required timings.  Unlike the first pumpkin race we would not have a practice run so we would be estimating blindly.  By now the team is pretty familiar with their paces on our hilly training courses so it was a matter of determining if Oak Ridge was flatter, as hilly as or more treacherous than our comparison base.  One statement on their website was a bit unnerving since they referred to the course as one of the toughest in the nation.  Sung, Ryan and I have been training all year on the toughest courses in the area so this brought a quick chuckle between us. The other pre-race intrigue involved some start changes for the other races being held there – they were shifted for .. wait for it .. wait for it .. PROM.  The excuse was some kind of picture event that happens near where the race started – that would be interesting.

We headed down to the race early that Saturday to drop the dogs off at my parents and then drove over to the race venue to pick up the packets.  First thing that stood out is the lack of people.  Based on the numbers we were seeing, it looked to have small participation across the board.  We picked up the packets, Linda had to deal with a shirt size issue since they didn’t have the size she ordered and eventually found a perfect place for the Wombat a short distance from the starting line.  The Ultra race (basically a fifth loop of the 6.65 mile course) started first with a whopping 8 or 9 people in it.  It is an Ultra for god’s sake so the low entry didn’t surprise me that much – those dudes and dudettes are CRAZY. After that came the competitive 5K, then the Half. the numbers picked up a bit, but still fairly low in my opinion.  Here is our traditional pre-race shot (thanks Linda).  It was a number of hours before I had to run which is why I wasn’t suited up yet.

Oak Ridge Cemetery Prediction Marathon Relay in Springifield IL

Hit the jump to see how we did

Continue reading Cunning Defeated By Cheaters

A Super Cooper

I managed to get distracted tonight and didn’t get a chance to prep the images for the running post I promised last post.  The weather was outstanding tonight actually turning cool enough to put a coat on.  That translates to the perfect  conditions to get half my yard trimming down – by half I mean literally upwards of 2+ hours to get the upper portion of the lot done.  The lower will take an equal amount of time but I’ll let that go a bit more.  Since I am just sitting here watching for ticks to start randomly appearing on my skin, figured it would be a good time to get another post out (helps keep my mind off the fact there is likely a tick crawling somewhere on my body – shudder).  Lucky for me I can always go back to the bird well for content so like last offering, today features another +1 from the Chain O’ Lake State Park birding outing with my brother Ron.

Cooper's Hawk at Chain O' Lakes

This is one of those sets that came out a tad soft, but based on the conditions, a lot better than expected.  Just before we located the Fox Sparrow from last post, we noticed the bird pictured circling above where we were standing.  Unfortunately, it was quite a ways up and at the time we were not really sure what it was.  My first guess was a Northern Harrier based on seeing them there on numerous trips.  I remember telling Ron to try and get the white strip on the top of the tail so we could quickly identify it later.  At the same time something seemed odd about this particular specimen (assuming it was a Harrier).  First off, Harriers tend to hang in the air a bit while hunting prey (that being one of the special abilities of Harrier).  This one just kept circling more characteristic of the Red Tails seen so often around here.  The other thing I couldn’t seem to figure out at the time but later confirmed was the wing shape.  This one was a bit thicker and the head seemed pulled back a bit into the wings.
Cooper's Hawk at Chain O' Lakes

Hit the jump to find out what we decided this bird was

Continue reading A Super Cooper

Fox in the Brush

About time I got the dust shaken off of this blog.  To be honest, the long delay from the previous post is just laziness since I have PLENTY of blog fodder from a number of recent birding outings with my brother Ron.  Well, maybe not all laziness since there was a big running event earlier in the month, which I’ll be getting to soon.  Since my last post was all about a race, figured it would be a good time to break out a bird post.  Not just any bird post mind you – a +1 on the birding type of featured bird
Fox Sparrow at Chain O Lakes

Before I go any further, these shots of this bird are sub-par at best from an execution perspective.  I totally blame the bird for this!  As eluded to earlier, I’ve had the pleasure of birding with my brother at several locations recently.  These shots came from Chain O’ Lakes State Park up in Antioch, IL.   Chain is one of my favorite State Parks (second to Jubilee) because it never fails to produce good subjects to shoot.  If you recall, I’ve already featured inhabitants like Sandhills (link Sandhill Cranes), Egrets (link here), Deer (link Deer)  and Teals (link Blue Winged Teal).  Linda, the boys and I were staying the weekend at the park for an agility dog show.  This left me a whole day to trek the land, so called up Ron who was glad to see what they had to offer.  I cannot remember at the moment how far or how long we spent that day, but let’s just say it was a loooong time.  We covered the entire perimeter of that park and then some more along the Fox River.  I had found some interesting trails on a previous visit and was lucky enough to find them again this time.  This particular bird was shot next to what appears to be a gravel pit of some sort.  It is also bordered by an archery range which is a little unnerving.  A little bit into the trail we noticed some rustling in the underbrush.  For the next 20 minutes we hunted for the source, catching glimpses of it from time to time.  The following was one of the few luck shots that actually came out from the brush that showed any characteristics at all.

Fox Sparrow at Chain O Lakes

Hit the jump to find out what this intriguing bird is

Continue reading Fox in the Brush

I-Challenged I Conquered

And before you know it, it’s a new month!  Greetings all, it has been awhile but that is mostly due to some very productive birding outings with my brother and the official opening of the 2015 race season.  I would be underestimating the blog fodder to say I’m covered for birding posts for the rest of the year thanks to those outings.  Since I ended April with a bird themed post, let’s go with the race season to start off the month of May.  April 23 was the beginning of the Illinois Marathon festivities.  It started with an evening 5K run to get the kinks worked out and the muscles warmed up.
Illinois Marathon 2015

Unfortunately, the weather really wasn’t cooperating with us that weekend with a heavy dose of rain scheduled for that Friday as well as the rest of the weekend.  Figures the wet stuff would come down after a string of nice days leading up to it.  Oh well, that’s how the weather gods treat us runners.  We pretty much lucked out for that 5K.  It was nice and cool and besides being overcast, the rain basically stayed away until after we had finished.  Oh, forgot to mention there was a “we” this year.  My running buddy Sung signed up for the festivities as well.  It is ALWAYS funner when you can run with someone especially someone that you have been training with through the cold snowy days of Winter.  Here we are before the start of the 5K – relaxed and focused on not getting hurt during this short 5K run.  I can’t remember the last time I entered a race under 7 miles – general rule, if it takes longer to take a shower than run, might as well just take a shower.  However, this was a special 5K and trust me, worth skipping the shower .. at least until after the race.

LL

One of the cool things about this race is it ended up on the 50 yard line of Memorial Stadium.  Even after going to the U of I for four years, this is the first time I’ve ever been on that field.  We started together in the first corral thanks to Sung having a small math mix up.  The first corral was meant for 27 minutes and under.  That fit well within my expected time and easily in the expected time for Sung.  Only problem was, he did the conversion from kilometers to mileage incorrectly – simply halved it so 27 minutes for 2.5 miles … oops, 3.1 miles. I think he was a little concerned about his start position after I reminded him how far it really was – NO WORRIES.  We carried an 8:34 pace through the course – congrats to Sung for owning that course.  Granted, there were a couple of incentives during the race – like the rabbit in the orange shirt with the number 5 on it and the frequent course crossers in very attractive dresses and high heels.  Guessing there were sorority activities going on which we both agree should be made a requirement for all future races!

Final numbers – 26:39 42 for 45-49, 544 for males and 741st overall.  All this fun and they even gave us a medal for completing the short run.  Here we are for the official post race shot – happy faces and most important no injuries.

 

KK

Hit the jump to see what the race weekend really had in store for us!

Continue reading I-Challenged I Conquered

Sora, Glad to Knowya

I decided to go ahead and stay with the programming interruption for yesterday.  Normally the fruits of my photography shoot labors go on my FIFO darkroom queue.  Unfortunately, that means you might not see anything for a long long time – (as regular readers may know, the Yellowstone trip from May 2013 is just know being worked up.  Since yesterday’s post was such a downer, thought I’d brighten it up a bit and talk about a silver lining that came out of the tragic event.  Once everything was wrapped up with the wreck, we continued on to  Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge – or intended destination before we were sidetracked for an hour or so.  The wildlife was primarily made up of water chickens but my golden rule is to look for the outliers.  This was what I was doing while standing on the cement blocks along the shore.  Disappointed that a potential find ended up being just another chicken I lowered The Beast.  At that time movement was detected.  Absolutely stunned, this appeared.

Sora shot at Havan, IL - Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge

Up came The Beast and the snapping commenced. To be honest, I was not exactly sure what it was.  It definitely did not fit the Sandpiper family – the bill was way too thick and those feet where mega-thick.  As my brother can attest, I’m not one for really doing my identification in the field.  If it is bright out, it virtually impossible to see the 7000’s LCD screen anyway.  Check the image histogram (which is easy to read) to make sure the full range of exposure is available and focus on getting as many angles as possible to aid in the ID process.

Sora shot at Havan, IL - Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge

Hit the jump to read a bit more about this unique bird.

Continue reading Sora, Glad to Knowya

Start Wearing It

USE IT! We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring you this public service announcement. “If you are going to risk your life on a motorcycle (especially in the Peoria County area), please at least wear a helmet at a minimum and definitely consider protective clothing!!!”  I’m probably not the model template for safety awareness, but some things seem too logical not to do.  Take for example when snowboarding.  I swallowed my pride long ago and always wear a helmet and wrist guards.  Why?  Because I know what happens when you don’t both firsthand and through the powers of observation.  I don’t ride a motorcycle so I do not have firsthand knowledge of what happens if you don’t bother to don the dome but thanks to an event this morning I can attest through the powers of observation that they do indeed save lives.  This morning’s event will be with Linda and I for a very very long time.

Hit the jump if you want to read details about an accident we witnessed this morning

Continue reading Start Wearing It

A Brazen One

Trying to get caught up here at Lifeintrigued.  After the huge outputs of the previous months, this one is off to a particularly slow start.  Part of this is due to focusing on bird processing over the last couple of months and not a lot of other image topics.  I have a ton of those shots ready to go to the show, but it is a tad rude to slight all those readers out there that prefer a little more variety in their blog topics.  This translates into digging into the backlog to find appropriate topics followed by the mandatory time in the digital darkroom.  If anything, this has forced me to get on the ball with the Yellowstone pictures from May 2013.  Yeah, yeah, trust me I am sufficiently shamed but comforting to know I have a huge backlog in the tin in case my brother starts getting to close to my bird count!

Today’s featured animal is one that isn’t on my favorites list.
A Coyote at Yellowstone National Park

There is no love in these parts for the Coyote especially if you have three poodles that don’t understand just how fragile (and tasty) they are compared to their fellow Genus Canis members. I actually thought that Coyotes descended directly from the Gray Wolf similar to our domestic dogs, but a little research – scratch that, a lot of time researching on the web proved me wrong – they are of the same Genus, but Wolves are of Canis lupus where Coyotes are of Canis latrans.  Regardless, if they show up at our door… they go by the word Dead.  However, out in Yellowstone I’m in their backyard and they deserve my respect.  Note, you may recognize the shot above as the one that got blanked out during the UB competition (link here) – a shame since I still really like it.

A Coyote at Yellowstone National Park

Hit the jump to see a few more pictures of this Coyote

Continue reading A Brazen One

Another Cleverly Named Bird

Now that I have given myself some breathing room with the previous non-bird post, I can check a few more off my NA Birding Life List (yeah).  Today’s featured bird is the Yellow Warbler.
Yellow Warbler from South Dakota

My title needed to be wrapped by the sarcasm tags since we once again have have zero originality in our bird discoverers.  “Hey look, a YELLOW bird!”  This particular specimen was taken on our stop at Lake Andes in South Dakota.  Yes, that is the same location that has been producing new birds for my list in a number of recent posts.  Still not at Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve in Nevada levels, but surely worth the jaunt over while on our way to Yellowstone National Park.

Yellow Warbler from South Dakota

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this yella fella.

Continue reading Another Cleverly Named Bird

Hey, We’re not in Wisconsin

Sorry for the long delay between posts!  I was feeling bad having given you so many consecutive bird posts and wanted to give you a break.  Problem is.. to do that I have to find some topics that are … well, not more birds.  That translates into finally digging into the backlog again and seeing what’s available.  Figured the Yellowstone National Park trip back in 2013 was just the ticket.  Technically, it was the ticket for a ton of posts, so the good news is I’m now set for all kinds of posts (Yellowstone trips have a habit of doing that).  I should also mention I had an excellent opportunity to do some birding with my brother Ron over the weekend at Chain O’ Lakes.  Let’s just say that day turned out awesome and looking forward to getting those processed.  I’m likely to jump the queue a bit to keep those fresh.  Eager to get those out, but right now, let’s enjoy today’s featured animal.

Badger in Yellowstone National Park

How cool is that!  This is the first time I’ve ever encountered a Badger in the wild.  If you recall I was able to witness one at Wildlife Prairie Park (link here and here), but that doesn’t really compare to the experience to seeing one out in it’s natural setting.  I was actually scanning the fields looking for some birds (imagine that) while Linda was off taking pictures of a rather stunning sunset on a nearby pond – reminds me I need to check if she got around to processing those yet.   For a better vantage point I was standing on a large boulder about 40 feet or so off the edge of the road scanning the field in hopes of seeing some ground birds (a serious hole in my birding life list).  Unfortunately, not much was moving at all.  Bummed I looked down to judge the jump off the rock when I noticed a rather large hole dug with some serious effort right next to the rock.  Not sure how this escaped me when getting up there in the first place.  Noting how thankful not to have broken a foot off in it, opted to exit on the other side only to find ANOTHER larger hole on that side as well.  What the hell, I’ve walked directly into some devious rodent trap!  Now curious, the fields were given a second viewing.  That is when my eye caught this Badger meandering through the brush.

Badger in Yellowstone National Park

hit the jump to read the rest of the Badger post

Continue reading Hey, We’re not in Wisconsin