Electric Blue

UPDATE: Thanks to the keen eye and birding expertise of Ted Jennings (link here), I’ve learned something new as a result of this post. My original identification of this post’s featured feathered friend was an immature Little Blue Heron. This was based on the overall white coloring, dark legs and the two toned bill…and not seeing the markers for the other options pointed out in the original post. Ted brought up the possibility of something I had not considered, the much rarer white morph of the Reddish Egret. They have very similar markings to the immature Little Blue, but are a bit larger and more distinctly have, a “shaggy” feathering on their head and neck. That fits my specimen perfectly! Updated my post accordingly – THANK YOU TED!! It is a good day whenever I can grow my birding knowledge.

Greetings everyone! I have been a bit out of pocket since we started or migration south just before the start of the New Year. Always a hassle to get from overnight camp to the next stop and then the connectivity can be sketchy, although, admittedly I must admit, Internet access via phone or local Wi-Fi is much better than just a few years ago. Guessing a surprise benefit of the Covid years. From the trip perspective, we have been lucky enough to meet up with some friends of ours who moved out to Benson, AZ. Always good to catch up on the latest activities in person – novel idea eh? (for the record, I am NOT a Facebook user). Birding has also been good, now up 67 birds for our Average Year ’24 which includes 5 lifers so far – that means 5 more posts coming out say sometime in late 2027 hehehe. Some of us at Intrigued have an embarrassing large backlog. There has been one glaring negative to this point (and likely to carry well into next week)…IT’S COLD!  I know, shocking to hear someone from the Midwest say that in January, but remember we travel south to get away from the heartland tundra. We are not ruling out that we were voodoo cursed while in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl back in 2002. Ever since then, we have brought unseasonably cold weather to whatever destination we vacation – just ask Texas about the ice storm they had a few years back. So far we have just missed snow in New Mexico and bracing for freezing temps the next couple of nights here in Arizona ugh. It is what it is, but the birds have still been active and my brother Ron is flying down here today to add to his checklist – writing this post as we wait for his flight to arrive. 

To warm up a bit, thought I would feature an encounter from last year’s human migration.

Little Blue Heron found at South Padre Bird Viewing Center in January 2023

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this “Electric Blue”.

Continue reading Electric Blue

Chickadees Three…by Brad Marks

January is the time when the word Midwest becomes Latin for “find your mittens”. Lucky for us, some Mesopotamian genius in the 4th millennium solved this problem by strategically placing a sturdy stick between two cylindrical objects and soon after, “Snowbirds” was being etched on cave walls. Of course, now we have fancy glamping portable homes sitting on those rolling contraptions making this human migration far more pleasant. Pleasant being a relative word as our annual trek hasn’t exactly gone as planned. We go south to shed the layers of clothing, this year we are adding them thanks to a band of frigid air riding shotgun to Arizona – and now we might be greeted with the fluffy white crap looming near week’s end. Damn you Mr. Snow Miser (link here)! While we get this setback sorted out, Brad is going to jump in and bring us his first post of the new year. Let’s hope he found his mittens. 

Welcome to 2024 Brad, take it away…

As birders all know, the little birds are the hardest to catch successfully.  They blend into the trees.  Little birds tend to be spastic.  But they have some great calls and fantastic colors.  Little birds are also very rewarding if you are able to capture photographs of them sitting still for a millisecond, or 1/1000th of a second for those thinking in photographic terms. 

Todays’ three subjects have similar calls, but they are different enough to get your attention and all come from different parts of the country

Chickadees by Brad Marks

Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) have a three- or four-toned call with different notes.  The three-note call (Chick-a-dee) has the first note being the highest, the second a fifth lower and the third up a half-tone from the first (sounds like the last three notes from Close Encounters).  Their four-note call (Chick-a-dee-dee) is a series of two notes repeated, but about a half octave apart.  Most of the Black-caps near us use the three-note version, and this one from our back yard in central Illinois is no exception.  This is the first bird call our daughter Allyson learned to recognize and tried to imitate when she was about four years old.

Hit the jump to learn more about the Black-capped’s kinfolk.

Continue reading Chickadees Three…by Brad Marks

So Long Bunny, Happy New Year!

Best Wishes for a very happy New Year Everyone! This morning I was thinking to myself how overjoyed I was to finally close the door on this current year. According to a site I was reading regarding Chinese astrology, the year 2023 was supposed to be the “worst luck” for anyone born in the year of the Rooster, Horse, Rat or Rabbit. Immediate assumption – I was a Rabbit. Looking back on it, this past year lived up to that prediction. Up to this point in my running career, I had made it to every single starting line. Banged up at times, feeling under the weather, sure, but my ass was on that line to let the chips fall as they may. That streak was ended thanks to the “root of all evil” (as Tim over at Off Center & Not Even has accurately coined it) and a devilspawn tree. The 50K ultra trail race lost and still doing nightly therapy to try and get the broken elbow back to something closer to pre-break mobility. Then managed to blow my back out the day before the 50 mile ultra race. More recently, for the second year in the row we planned to head out to Arizona only to have Linda come down sick the day before.  Canceled it last December and had to delay our departure this year. As I began to mentally list all the shortfalls for the year I started visualizing giant ears, button nose and those monster feet of the Nevada Jackrabbit. 

Jackrabbit found at Henderson, LV in March 2023

Then I stopped and smiled – because that is EXACTLY what you do when you encounter one of those absolutely adorable creatures. My outlook changed immediately and a flood of counter offers came flooding in.

Hit the jump if you need a shot of cuteness to right any frowns.

Continue reading So Long Bunny, Happy New Year!

Haunted Trail 2023 – Night Tremors

Hi folks, are you up for a night of frights? In the last post I covered some of the prep that goes into bringing our haunted trail to life. It is definitely hard to express just how much work is required to pull this off year after year, but one thing is for sure – I have no idea how we were able to do this while I was still working!! All those years leading up to retirement, I was thinking how much easier the Halloween event was going to be with all those extra hours. I have NO idea where those supposed “extra” hours went as once again we were scrambling right up to the start to get everything in place an operational. The only thing that really matters though is through the invaluable help of amazing people…we got’er done.

Our friend in haunt, Paul, did make our annual teaser video. Feel free to watch that walkthrough and then we’ll take a more static look at the trail after the jump.

Hit the jump to take a closer look.

Continue reading Haunted Trail 2023 – Night Tremors

Haunts to Eleven – The Build

We are beginning to believe that Arizona must be cursed in some form. As I’ve commented on previous posts, we were supposed to start our migration south right after Christmas. Sorry to say that didn’t happen. Two years in a row we’ve tried to make it there and for an equal amount of times – stymied. Fingers crossed this is only temporary this year and we’ll be on our way soon – last year we had to outright cancel our December trip out there. Decided to use the unexpected time to do a little tidying up around the Intrigued Headquarters. When the staff is away, the boss gets to play ha. The office is quiet, no spreadsheets that need filling out, no requisition approvals, the performance reviews are all wrapped up and thankfully no post holiday party legal issues to smooth over. Figured it was a perfect time to for a little after Christmas haunting. 

Yes, it is time to finally get the Haunted Trail 2023 recap out of the way. These are mega posts and although the trail is the highlight of the year, I dread the work that goes into getting all the pictures ready for the post. Clear your browser image cache ‘cuz we are gonna fill it up again. Hit the jump to see all the work behind the scenes that is needed to put this event on every year.

Continue reading Haunts to Eleven – The Build

The Intrigued Family Wishes You a Very Merry Christmas

Everyone here in the Intrigued family would like to extend a hearty Merry Christmas to each and all! We have had a wonderful year here and that is entirely due to all our wonderful readers. 

Intrigued Family Christmas 2023

Hit the jump for some more merry good cheer!

Continue reading The Intrigued Family Wishes You a Very Merry Christmas

Western Meadowlark…by Brad Marks

We are nearly to Christmas, the stores are bustling, the roads are jamming and the last minute shoppers are starting to panic. It also means we’ll soon be shutting down Intrigued headquarters so our staff can spend time with their family and friends. Brad is going take us along on another one of his birding adventures today, our traditional Christmas Day post and then we will probably call it a year to enjoy the festivities and play with all our new toys. Maybe another one while Linda and I are migrating south, but we’ll play that by ear.  Before Brad takes it away, wanted to extend congratulations to my brother Ron who reached the 300 unique species annual goal today towards our Average Year (link here). He scored a +1 lifer to put the proverbial cherry on top – if you recall last year, we both fell short of the goal (link here). Quite fitting as today’s post features a +1 for Brad as well!

Now you can take it away Brad…

When we left Hill City, SD it was relatively early morning for the kids, but mid-morning for Jan and I.  By mid-afternoon, we had already been to two National Parks (Black Hills and Devils Tower) in the same day mind you.  Why not try for a third?  By the time we arrived at The Badlands, we had already travelled 300 miles that Saturday morning.  After we flashed our National Parks Annual Pass at the gate, we followed the winding path to the depths of the park.  Gotta love the Annual Park Pass!  What, you don’t have one?  Go get one right now . . . go ahead . . . you can catch up on the story in a minute. (No, Wildlife Intrigued doesn’t receive any commission from Annual Park Pass referrals.  But hey, maybe that’s something productive our Legal department can work on.)

Just outside the car on the right-hand side was a small group of Bighorn Sheep, lounging and munching on the sparse early season grass.  I slowed down to take a look since we rarely see them in the parks.   But after rolling down the windows, the soundtrack I was hearing didn’t fit the scene.  There was this solitary sweet song coming from across the road.  At first, all I could see was dried prairie grass and reddish-brown dirt.  But then something bright yellow moved in the grass.  This little fellow was singing its heart out.  As far as I could tell, no one else was around to appreciate the song:  birds or humans.  It was singing for the joy of singing.

Western Meadowlark found at the Badlands by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to read more about this little yellow fellow!

Continue reading Western Meadowlark…by Brad Marks

Rare and Paranoid

Christmas (or other seasonal holiday event you happen to celebrate) cheers to everyone. Hopefully you are getting everything wrapped up for the year and guessing those that are not already retired will likely be getting a temporary break from the corporate grind. We have one more family event left and our own Christmas celebration before calling it a year and heading to warmer places. Admittedly, it hasn’t been that bad this winter. Today is the coldest it has been in a while (15F) which is nothing for us here in the Midwest. I’ve been working hard in getting the January Texas pictures processed adding a lot of new content for the blog queue. With the recent drop of new adventures from Brad, we are looking good for entertaining content well into next year. My last post on the Mangrove (Yellow) Warbler (link here) had some pretty soft images thanks to the dense habitat. Cannot use that excuse today as we had a clean shot at today’s Featured Feathered Friends. 

Aplomado Falcon found at Aplomado Falcon Viewing area in Camron County, TX in January 2023

Problem was the “distance”! It isn’t often that The Beast falls short on the reach, but this is one of those times I could have used bigger glass. For some reason I didn’t think of putting the 1.4 tele on – doubt that would have help much with the combination of horizontal distance along with the vertical elevation of the massive cell phone tower.

Hit the jump and I’ll bring you in a bit closer so you can see these rather rare Falcons.

Continue reading Rare and Paranoid

Panorama Point…by Brad Marks

Shockingly December is ticking off faster than the previous month. In this case, it is a good thing since it puts us closer to warmer weather – Linda and I head south soon after jolly St. Nick squeezes down our chimney. It is getting a bit stressful as another Average Year effort (link here) is also coming to a close. Currently sitting at 337 and Ron has added two since I updated the stats putting him at 299 – just one under our pre-kickoff 300 species goal. You may recall, we both missed it by a feather last year (link here). Carrying on the sub-species theme from my last post, Brad is going to bring us another adventure from his Colorado trip. Unfortunately Brad, no extra partial count credit for sub-species ha. 

Take it away Brad…

I’m one that always like to take a new road to see where it goes.  However, I’m not always successful and sometimes have to do a fair bit of backtracking.  Jan and I had just returned from a whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here).  The kids had to work that Monday morning.  Jan and I had the entire day to explore the Front Range of the Rockies near Denver.  I know, I know, a very big task for only a day.

This is really part two of a trip to Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) in Colorado.  We had succeeded in getting to the park before many other visitors.  In fact, thus far we had seen ZERO other visitors.  After leaving the Mountain Bluebirds behind (link here), I found a wandering, spaghetti-like curved road. 

Red-Backed Dark-Eyed Junco by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to learn about what was “eyed” at the end of this Colorado adventure.

Continue reading Panorama Point…by Brad Marks

Mr. Rusthead in the Tin

I had hoped to be full time on the new computer by now, but what has probably been the case since KENBAK-1, upgrading/migrating is a total pain in the ass. I lived IT day in and day out for over 31 years – you’d think this would be a walk in the park, especially now in the digital age of 2023. Nope! Now have purged most of the ghosts in the machine (“if it’s something we can’t buy, there must be another way”). Fingers crossed the final bits will fall into place in the coming week – too many January Texas pictures left to process before we head south! In the meantime, thought I would go with a featured feathered friend I was working on before the new computer showed up.

Mangrove Subspecies of the Yellow Warbler found At SPI Birding Viewing and Nature Center in January 2023

Here at Intrigued our motto has always been “Story First, Images Support”. This post is a perfect example of that philosophy as I’ll admit right up front, these shots are not technically sharp. Don’t get me wrong, we strive to bring you the best images we possibly can. In the case of this colorful specimen – this constitutes the best I could deliver given the circumstances (over the last three years!).

Hit the jump to learn about our brightly colored Warbler.

Continue reading Mr. Rusthead in the Tin