Tag: Barn Swallow

The Story That Almost Wasn’t…by Brad Marks

Unfortunately, it has been a bit since we last talked. Not to steal any valor from the fine men in the Seals organization, but we are officially in our Hell Week[s]. Traditionally, our big haunted trail event (link here) would be scheduled for next weekend, however, due to the insubordinate ankle, we opted to push the date to mid October rather than cancel it outright. Good move as there is no way we would have been ready by this week. That delay doesn’t mean we can sit back and take it easy – for the last several weeks I have been getting very little sleep due to coordinating tasks, fixing broken props, building new scares and everything else related to the haunt. I just looked at the current project plan and there are 306 tasks at the macro level and that is growing daily ugh. Add in dealing with rehab visits, daily workouts and everything else life has been throwing at us (more like a barrage) and sleep has become a luxury. Fortunately we live for the haunt so that is wrapped in enjoyment (big thanks to my brother Ron who has been spending every weekend down here to help us out). Long story short, overly pressed for time, so I’ll probably be a bit scarce for some time going forward. I’ll try to keep you updated as we progress to the big event. Upmost apologies for delays in responding to comments and keeping up with all your fine blogs during this time. For now, Brad is going to take time away from preparing for his upcoming field assignment and step in to give me a breather with one of his adventures. While I take a brief few minutes to celebrate being released from crutches today, I’ll let Brad take it away…

Lately, Jan and I have been taking on more global photo assignments for Wildlife Intrigued.  It’s not that we are running out of birds locally, far from it.  We want to get to the far-flung parts of the map while we are young enough to handle the strenuous travel distances and locations.  Sometimes, Jan and I use a travel agent to help with details in a part of the world we’ve not yet been to.  Often times we have already been to a location and take pleasure in setting up travel on our own, even if the Intrigued corporate jet isn’t available.  (Isn’t that worldwide pop tour over yet?)

For the same reason, these stories almost never appear in a linear fashion.  It’s sort of a “timey-wimey” thing.  Sometimes I have a story just waiting for me to take photographs to complete it.  Or I have a bunch of photos, and no story.  A TARDIS would be helpful in the story writing process sometimes.  This story was actually started way before the one about an Eastern Kingbird (link here) that we found about 100 yards further around the lake a bit earlier in the same day.  Circumstances, our travel assignments, and me almost deleting all of the bird photos lead to this one being delayed for over a year. (see end of story for details)  

During one of our back-to-back-to-back photo assignments from Intrigued HQ, Jan and I were on the downhill side of an early summer trip to Colorado visiting our daughter Allyson.  She is also the editor working in the Wildlife Intrigued Western (or Mountain) office.  Both the Intrigued corporate jet and motorhome were otherwise occupied, so we completed the 14-hour journey in our Regional Office vehicle.  Truthfully, I like travelling this way because we can take much more gear along than the airlines allow.  As an added bonus, Jan and I get to stop at Runza for lunch on our way across Nebraska.  Both directions.

Barn Swallow found by rad Marks

Hit the jump to read more about today’s featured feathered friend.

Continue reading The Story That Almost Wasn’t…by Brad Marks

Project Chekov: Sparrows, Swifts and Swallows

Today is one of those difficult days in the birding realm.  If you have spent any time with this blog you probably know by now that when it comes to Sparrows I generally throw in the towel.  There just isn’t enough differences discernible in the field to really come out confident on what you have in the tin.  There are also difficulties when it comes to the Swallows and Swifts so figured it was time to get them all out of the way.

Let’s start with the Sparrow.  Now, throughout this post please keep in mind that the identification can be freely debated and if you know specifics please share!  With that, this is a small brown and gray bird so we’ll tag it with Sparrow.

Admittedly, this on is a little darker hued that we see and it has some darker tones in the under feathering along the neck.  One cause may due to the fact that this shot (and the one below) were taken in a storm which may have deepened the colors from either the wetness or the clouds.

I do like the picture and why I tell everyone there is no reason to get down if their designated day to hit the field turns out dreary.  Sure, you’ll need to tap that ISO dial up a bit and probably even back off the shutter speed but you have one thing going for you.  The rain tends to slow down the birds and cause them to spend a little more time on their perches (under cover of leaves of course).  For the hyper birds this is a godsend when it comes to getting shots of them.  UPDATE: By the way, while doing  quick search for one of the pictures below I stumbled on the House Sparrow which does match the neck coloring – pretty darn close in my opinion so let’s go with that for now.

Here is another Sparrow likely taken in a similar setting.

If I had to take a guess, the reference books tend to point to a Chipping Sparrow with that rust cap and eye-line.  Small, brown, gray … it’s a Sparrow in my book – any finer classification is just icing on the cake.  Again, I do like how the composition came out on these two shots – the branches seem to push the viewer’s eyes right to the desired focus of attention – granted it is just Sparrow.

Hit the link to read more about this difficult to identify set of birds.

Continue reading Project Chekov: Sparrows, Swifts and Swallows

Things I Am Unable to Explain

Deadlines Deadlines Deadlines.  Cutting it close this time, but this post brings me to my self imposed minimum of 6 posts a month.  Before jumping back into the trip pictures, something strange occurred today while working in the yard.  It was time to deal with the trimming so I brought the trimmer out, gassed it up and reved it up.  As soon as the engine fired a barn swallow flew up behind me and started hovering in the air.  Actually, it was more like a bird backstroke because the birds body was actually vertical while the wings did a backward flap.  Not phased in the least by me turning to look at him, I decided to play out the situation.  As I was whacking down the weeds a moth flew up into the air.  At that point it all became very apparent.  The bird launched into action, chased that moth down and caught it.  I was impressed, not only was he pretty agile, he (assuming a male at this point) was smart enough to associate my trimmer with dinner.  This went on for about 15 minutes until he was either full or needed a rest.  For the curious, I could care less about the insect.  I draw the line there in favor of actual animals unlike PETA which apparently doesn’t know what the ‘A’ actually stands for based on their recent declaration against Obama killing a fly.

With that out of the way, I’ll lead with this picture.  Take a minute and just absorb the image….

Rock Hard Man

Linda thinks I’m crazy, but it sure looks like a rock man with ummmm… well… let’s just say that is some hard rock.   She vetoed my idea of merging it with one of the pictures of Old Faithful.

While in South Dakota, this truck passed us on the highway.

Truck Skull

All I could think of was the movie The Jerk when Steve Martin picks up the red chair and claims that is all he needs.   I would think the paint would be getting scratched up pretty good, but I must admit, the skull was a nice touch.

Catch a couple m0re shots after the jump

Continue reading Things I Am Unable to Explain