Howdy everyone, been a bit of time since I last posted. Big thanks to Brad for leading the ship while I was preoccupied. I have two quick running updates to give you before we get to tonight’s featured feathered friend. The first is I want to wish Jan and Brad best of luck on their St. Jude run. They headed down to Memphis, TN this week with the rest of the St. Jude runners to make their annual charity run ALL THE WAY back to Peoria, IL – and you think ultras are hard! Luckily the runners are given segments to run so there is rest involved, but I believe at least one group is running on the road at all times with an accompaniment of chase vehicles. Jan is the one doing the running and I just got a report from Brad she completed her first segment in the rain and will be up bright and early for her next stage tomorrow morning. Brad has a chase vehicle role making sure everyone has the support they need to make it all the way back home. It is a wonderful charity event and wish them all the best. I am sure Brad will be able to give us an update in one of his future posts.
The second running update is … hmmm.. damn, I forgot what the second one was. Let me try my trusty mnemonic I’ve used since my freshman days in college to remember things (see end). Nope, sorry. Anyway, let’s get to our “purdy” bird.
Hit the jump to learn more about this rather stupid officially named bird … and details on my mnemonic if you are interested.
First off, we want to send our wishes out to our Texas based family, friends and others that were recently impacted by Hurricane Beryl. Texas is our home away from home and it is disheartening to hear about them experiencing another severe weather related event. Over the years, we have barely escaped crippling ice storms, hunkered down for a wicked tropical thunderstorm and witnessed the destruction at Rockport from Hurricane Harvey (link here). You are all proven Texas Strong! Locally I am going stir crazy waiting out the final days before the big race. Been getting some Beryl fallout as it has been raining extensively here the last couple of days and likely to continue up through the race. This race is already a “sufferfest in the valleys of death” – adding in a mudfest isn’t going to help my spirits any (link here). While I make tweaks to the final race plan, Brad is going to take you back to California…no wait, Vegas…so confused ha.
Take it away Brad…
Ever have the feeling you’ve done something before? Or been someplace before that you’ve never been to. That sort of happened to me when I was reviewing photos from a recent trip to Las Vegas and points nearby.
This story, and the bird, are nearly identical to another one, except that all of the facts have been changed. The venue is different. The nearby airport is different. The bird is different (mostly). The desert setting is nearly identical. The lighting conditions are nearly identical with the featured bird sitting high on a twig like before. The camera body is the same. The lens is different. Jan took all of the photos of both birds. The fact that I was nowhere nearby is identical. In fact, I didn’t even know Jan photographed this bird, too, until I reviewed the photos at home, just like last time.
Wait a minute. Is he just re-publishing the story about the California Thrasher (here) and simply retitling it? Has Wildlife Intrigued gone bonkers? Well, sort of. See if you can spot the differences from this photo.
Jan and I were, can you guess, on vacation again. Last time we were in California at the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve in California. This time we were at the Clark County Wetlands Park just outside Las Vegas, Nevada.
As is the custom, once we park the car, I assemble Jan’s camera first. This was the first trip with her brand-new Nikon 200-500mm lens. (Wildlife Intrigued uses exclusively Nikon equipment. If anyone from Nikon is reading this and wishes to sponsor the Wildlife Intrigued blog, please contact our Legal department.) I knew she was itching to try it out on birds. Once the lens was on the camera, I handed it over and got out of the way. For some reason, it took me a few extra minutes to assemble my camera this time. Maybe because we traveled by air and had to use two camera bags with bits scattered all over. It could also have been that I was tangled up in my new Black Rapid strap (not their fault). After a minute of untying nylon webbing knots, I was ready to go. In the meantime, Jan was busy capturing this feathered friend.
I wandered across the empty parking lot to the first trail into the brush. Literally, as my feet hit the well-groomed trail, my mobile phone rang. I didn’t recognize the phone number (it wasn’t in my contact list) and was going to let it go to voicemail. But remembering I’d had a call from that area code a few days before, with a similar number that was legit, I answered it. It was the hotel we had booked to observe the eclipse (booked 18 months prior to the eclipse). The little town near the center line of totality for the April 2024 eclipse had been hit by a tornado. About the only buildings left standing in town were our hotel and the school gymnasium. As tragic as that is, the senior center and senior housing were completely leveled. The hotel was going to house the newly homeless seniors and needed my room. After a bit of teeth gnashing, I realized I really had no choice and let the room go. It’s now scramble time for finding a spot to view the eclipse. At the time, the eclipse was less than two weeks away, which meant that finding a hotel room anywhere near the centerline of the eclipse, without costing my firstborn child, would be impossible. (See the story Twice in a Lifetime for the result of the search if you are curious.)
Just as I hung up the phone Jan came back and wanted to show me a bird. As we walked up to the twig where it was sitting, it had chosen to skedaddle. (I really didn’t get to see it until later.)
Hit the jump to find out today’s feathered friend.
Hoping those here in the States had a happy and safe 4th of July celebration! Our Intrigued HQ is just down the road from an individual that puts on a rather impressive annual show for us ruralites. Had some of our staff over (including Brad and Jan), filled the coolers with drinks, threw some meat on the grill and capped the night with things that light up the sky and make you go Oooohhhh and Ahhhhh – life is good. I did manage to come out with a losing record in our highly competitive JARTS tournament (the real ones, not those pansy ones they try to pawn off on kids these days). That will have to be remedied during our next Intrigued outing!!! As promised in my previous post, Brad has posting duties while I taper/rest/heal/plan/worry/obsess/fret and generally drive Linda crazy this week leading up to the first ultra of the year. One of those planning tasks is to set the crew schedule. In this case, only a cast of one (well, and 3 furry assistants), but I can tell you without hesitation, Linda is the secret sauce to success. While I go through the details with her, we’ll have Brad bring us an adventure with a much larger crew!
Take it away Brad…
After a very long and productive day of birding at Harris Neck NWR in Georgia, Jan and I decided we needed just a little bit more birding in our full day. Our memory cards weren’t quite full, and what’s the use of having large memory cards if you don’t fill them? Plus, we had plenty of battery life left on our cameras.
We decided to visit the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, which sits on the South Carolina state line shared with Georgia. While on a bird walk on Hilton Head at the Audubon Newhall Preserve, we heard people talking about the “millions” of ducks at Savannah. Others on the walk said there can’t be more than 10-20 birds there, there has never been a “million” in one location. A million ducks would be interesting. That sounded like a challenge for us.
Savannah NWR, at least the part we visited, is a drive-through nature preserve. The gravel drive is mostly a causeway type of thoroughfare, raised a few feet above the tidal water on either side. We had just entered the preserve and rounded the first corner when we saw a large grey pickup parked along the side of the road. That usually means there’s something worth photographing nearby. I pulled within a respectable distance of the truck and parked the car. Jan and I already had our cameras assembled and ready to go from earlier in the day. We saw the owner of the truck on the other side of the road on a smaller walking path. He was looking into the distance.
As we approached the driver was shaking his head and muttering something about, “every time I move, they move.” He had just driven non-stop from Virginia and was a bit worn out chasing ducks back and forth across this little pond.
What’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down on the other side of the jump!
Welcome to July everyone, or as we say here “Grind Month”. With the turning of the calendar page, I am roughly 1.5 weeks out from the first ultra race of the year (link here). This is one of the few times I’ll complain about all the cool temps we’ve been experiencing lately as it is definitely impacting the heat acclamation period essential for these long Midwestern summer races. It’s already a sweat filled grind with the benefit of the conditioning and I am definitely not lucky enough to carry these low 60’s temps much further into this month. Need to get through that ultra and then close the month out with my 20th consecutive and last running of the Bix7 up in the Quad Cities (link here). Although usually hotter, the Bix is 25 miles shorter than CMAR so at least the torture doesn’t last as long ha. I am going to take a break from Intrigued as I finish up the ultra race prep – Linda accuses me of turning into a basket case as I fret the details up until the starter pistol goes off and she doesn’t want me passing that on to our readers. Sooooo, I’ll bring you this pseudo 4th inspired post and then let Brad keep everyone entertained until I’m out of the hospital..I mean done with the race!
With that, let’s get started with a little red, a bit more white and a lot more blue.
Hit the jump for today’s Independence Day themed double feature.
Good news, Brad is back from his field office visit (in actuality he made it back just before I released my last post, but I didn’t see his expense report come in before hitting publish). I can definitely use the break as tomorrow morning is my “simulation” run for the fast approaching ultra trail race. Plan is to cover ~75% of the course, but 100% of the terrain (there is an 8 mile repeated section). The 24 or so miles shouldn’t be an issue, but the heat is the big unknown as temps have been climbing steadily since last week. It could be a “devil” of a time which makes Brad’s post on point. Enjoy this “spear-ited” adventure while I go talk through the battle plan with the crew.
Take it away Brad…
Sometimes with wildlife photography, I’m not really sure what I’m seeing, but I keep the shutter going just in case. I’ve been lucky enough to get the precise moment a Bald Eagle snatches dinner from a river. We’ve also caught the precise moment dinner exits a bird (not pretty, so no more details here) on more than one occasion. This time, both Jan and I were very unsure what we were seeing. Luckily, we took a combined few hundred photos over the course of a minute or two. As the subject moved along and came into focus (pun intended) we were able to tell what it was, but really couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
Jan and I were sitting on a berm at the end of Woody Pond at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia. Even though there was no one at the gate to check our National Park Pass, we felt better that we had one with us. What?! No National Parks Pass yet? Go get one right now, it’s well worth the time. Of course, if you are reading this blog, you probably already have one.
Let me paint a picture for you. The berm at the end of Woody Pond acts more like a dam for the shallow-ish pond-like sort of area. It seemed to be more of a deep marsh because the thick parts of the tree trunks (you know, where they normally come out of the ground) weren’t sticking that far out of the water. To our right, a few dozen yards away, was a very large alligator sitting right in the middle of the path. (link here) To the left was a Great Blue Heron (GBH) trying to fish. Right behind the GBH were three more alligators: one very large and two bite-sized versions.
I was standing on the berm about halfway between the two groups of gators. Jan was to my left and a bit closer to the set of three alligators, but also very near the car. She was also somewhat protected from them by being across a small arm of water, just in case. There was a tree stump sitting in the water 15-20 feet from the bank. A minute before, a bird had been perching on it, but now it was empty. Butterbutts (Yellow-rumped Warblers) were flitting about like mosquitoes. Luckily, even in this marsh area, there were no mosquitoes in February.
We were watching the GBH on its morning snack hunt when Jan pointed and said, “What’s that?”
Hit the jump to find out what kind of “snake” this really is.
Brad (and Jan) are still out wining and dining our editor staff at the Denver facility – tells you how important they are to us I.T. professionals. I can hold my own in the coding world, but my knuckles still have not recovered from the damaged inflicted during my first class in deconstructing a sentence under the iron rule of nuns wielding heavy wooden rulers (WHACK). They eventually wore me down and got the basics past my defenses and honestly, these past 17+ year here at Intrigued has helped, but I still prefer talking bits and bytes. In Brad’s absence, you are stuck with me again for today’s featured feathered friend.
I know, I know, a bit of a letdown from the more colorful specimens featured in my previous posts. We still need to give the species that overslept the day when Mother Nature was waving her paint brush.
Hit the jump to read more about this species that could easily be mistaken for a member of the Sparrow family.
Greetings everyone! Brad and Jan are out visiting one of our favorite editors at our satellite facility in Colorado. Always good to see our employees when we can…and I hear the view from that facility is magnificent! While they enjoy their trip, going to jump our typical alternating schedule and bring you another series of shots from our Texas Gulf Coast trip back in 2023.
Hit the jump to read more about our brightly colored and slightly devilish feathered friend.
I have to thank the weather gods as of late, nothing like waking up on a training day to temps in the low 60s. Basically for the past week or so I’ve had the luxury of enjoying cool temps for at least the first part allowing me to stretch out some of the longer runs. I have to be extra careful on the hot days that I don’t over-cook. My thermostat was severely impaired by a couple of unfortunate mishaps over my running career and now more susceptible to “going over the edge” so to speak. The impact to the body would be one thing to overcome, but worse would be enduring the scorn from Linda. I’ll still need more heat conditioning before the July ultra race, but for now focused on taking the legs to exhaustion and then pushing them again before they’ve fully recovered – little ultra-secret, you NEVER train for the full race distances (similar to marathon training), but we can simulate those hardship miles by training on tired bodies. Now, tired doesn’t mean injured so we have to make sure to keep those heavy feet ABOVE the roots of all evil! I was thinking about those careful foot placements on today’s run when this post topic popped in my head.
About now you are probably wondering what a Ruddy Turnstone has to do with trail running. As a general warning, there is a high occurrence of hallucinations and mental disconnects during long runs, so keep your expectations low – hit the jump and I’ll do my best to explain.
Thanks to the return of the wet stuff, I am officially in a forced recovery day. I should probably give a hat-tip to the weather gods based on the muscle whining while getting out of bed this morning. Instead, I get to spend the day learning about the traditional muscle structures of those “grotesque” creatures that watch us upon their high perches and hopefully test out some new wing linkages – Halloween is nearly here people ha! Meanwhile, Brad is going to give us a look at another creature with wings that do not illicit the same level of nightmares… unless you are foolish enough to let them see your cheese curl while strolling along the beach. Time to grab your favorite dark chocolate treat (thanks for the recent restock Brad and Jan!), sit back and enjoy a few laughs.
Take it away Brad…
Jan and I had just returned from a long day of birding along the Atlantic Coast. I think we carried our cameras for 9 miles that day. No monopods. No fancy shoulder straps. No sherpas. Don’t feel sorry for us–we were on vacation after all. And we are retired. But after chasing birds in swamps, marshes, and forests (and avoiding the more than occasional alligator) we decided to have a little bit of fun.
Our resort on Hilton Head was right on the beach (aren’t they all). Keep in mind that it’s mid-February on a beach; the high temperature that day was almost 60F (but only if you rounded up). Normally, a beach and cold weather don’t go together. Beach (more specifically sand) and camera gear don’t go together either, but there was nary a breeze this time of day and no fluffy blowing sand to worry about. I remember Brian and his brother Ron getting caught in a sand storm on a beach in Texas and I didn’t want to repeat their adventure. Plus, I didn’t want to have to extricate sand castles from my lenses and cameras. My camera gear coverage from Wildlife Intrigued hasn’t quite started yet; still the newbie I guess.
The light breeze didn’t stop the gulls from entertaining us.
Welcome to June everybody! We are almost halfway through ’24 and assuredly you are thinking ONLY 43 days to the first ultra race of the year and ONLY 120 days before this year’s annual Haunted Trail Event. The horror, the horror (link here). Linda apparently heard my Marlon Brando impersonating as she just walked by and stated “No dork, that’s just you!”. Harsh, but she is probably right, however, looking back, you are likely wondering where the year has went. While in the grind, I could always look back at the two quarterly performance reviews and see the accomplishments, not so easy these days as most of my haunt projects are in a constant state of construction up until days before the event and training is a perpetual endeavor. What I can look back on are the various birding trips throughout the year and the resulting tins. Today we are going to travel back to Texas and bring you a subject from one of my favorite photography settings.
Hit the jump to read more about this “woodwren instrument”.
Life Intrigued 