Tag: Galveston Island Texas

Palm Warbler

Greetings from the northern state of Minnesota.  Should not be a surprise by now, but we are up at Mayo getting Linda’s heart a slight rebuild to take care of a birth defect.  I am going to spare you the details, but the good news is the new valve is officially in and functioning.  There have been some unexpected events and side effects that the doctors are currently working to resolve.  Hoping Linda will be back on her feet soon and checking the Iron Man off her bucket list… okay, that last part might not be true, she leaves the running to me.  Her attitude is good and I know the thought of being able to run her dogs in agility again is keeping her drive up.  To help pass the time and give a bit of relief on the stressometer,  thought I’d go ahead and see if I could get a post out.  Let me introduce you to my little friend.

Non-breeding Palm Warbler found at Galveston Island, Texas January 2017

Pretty stoic looking if you ask me.  This somewhat overall dullish looking bird with the yellow butt happens to be a Warbler.   Now Warblers are known for being pretty flamboyant especially in the Spring or breeding plumage. It just happens this particular Warbler is one of the more ornate ones out there.  Imagine that yellow coloring on the under feather washing through the belly and shooting highlights to the back of the head where the white highlights are shown on this specimen.  Now add to that a bright rusty colored cap and you have yourself one “purdy” bird.  The truth is I have shots of this bird in its breeding plumage thanks to a trip to Montrose with my brother Ron.  We are still trying to get those pictures properly ID’d  so I can start posting those … and racking up the +1’s.  Hey Ron, let’s get that done, my peeps are waiting!

Non-breeding Palm Warbler found at Galveston Island, Texas January 2017

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this colorful Warbler disguised for the off-season.

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A Snowy Redemption

Definitely sticking with the game plan for this month, staying ahead of the game and getting the posts out early.  It definitely  helps when you already have the images worked up in the digital darkroom.  To be honest, short of getting the birds in the tin, the major effort in this whole blogging thingy is working up the images to make it worth my reader’s visit time.  Of course, this doesn’t always happen, case in point the horrific Cave Swallow pictures I forced upon you a few posts back.  I try my best so you can at least tell it is a bird – not to mention Ron is starting to push me with the quality stuff he is putting up over on his blog (link here).  You probably didn’t know this, but I credit him for getting me into photography while I was in high school and the reason I can navigate around a camera (although I did introduce him to back-button focus).   Today’s featured bird is a bit of an atonement for a slight I made in a recent post.

Snowy Egret found at South Padre Island Bird Viewing and Nature Center December 2016

Within the Cinnamon Teal post (link here), I unintentionally dismissed one of the most regal birds there is (at least in North America).  It wasn’t the species that dimmed my excitement, just that I was revved up to add a new +1 to the list.  I am lucky enough to have a large number of Snowy Egret shots from just about everywhere we’ve traveled along with tins full from Emiquon and other local water hotspots.  When I saw this set of Snowies in the post queue, I immediately decided this was the perfect time to bring them out.

Snowy Egret found at Galveston Island, Texas, January 2017

Hit the jump to see some more picture of this immaculate bird.

Continue reading A Snowy Redemption

With Skim Please

Feels like I’ve been away from the blog for weeks!  Alas, it has only been but a day or two.  I’ve been busy with getting some work done around the house and trying to get ahead of the backlog that is starting to pile up at my day job.  On the positive front I was able to get a loop in at my favorite hill training course (Springdale Cemetery).  It has been awhile since the weather cooperated and finally got a chance to run with Ryan to see how our legs fared over the holiday break.  Pretty happy where I’m at, but need to start ramping up the mileage to be ready for the race season that starts in April.  If things keep going as planned, I should have no problem being ready for back to back 5K and half.  What I am little concerned about is finishing my current race against none other than Father Time.  Will be coming down the wire to get all my Texas birding posts outs.

Let’s not waste any more time getting to that task.  Welcome to the blog, the newest bird in my list.

Black Skimmer encountered on Galveston Island, Texas January 2017

That intriguing bird you see is called a Black Skimmer.  I guarantee you will not forget your first encounter with this relative of Gulls and Terns.  One reason for this is you likely will not see just one.  Possibly 2

Black Skimmer encountered on Galveston Island, Texas January 2017

Hit the jump to see and read more about the Skimmers!

Continue reading With Skim Please

Coming to Your Emotional Rescue

Welcome back to check mark January!  As a recap, this month has brought with us 9 new birds and an additional sub-species.  Haven’t been this productive at the beginning of the year since I ran Project Chekov back in January 2014.  26 consecutive bird posts featuring at least one bird named with that day’s consecutive letter (link here).  Now that was a chore, figuring out at least one bird for each letter and then hunting pictures down.  The letter Q was quite the challenge and had to bend the rules just a bit to cover the letter U (thank god for zoos on that one).  Not going to make it to 26 this month, but I can get us to 10!

White-Tailed Kite Shot at Galveston Texas State Park in December 2016

Having just recently featured another bird of prey, thought it was fitting to bring you an additional cool feathered killer.  This sinister looking bird is a White-Tailed Kite.  Some birds shots are obtained by canvasing particular areas in hopes of spotting something interesting from the vehicle (some like my brother Ron would consider this the absolutely best method for winter birding).  Other finds come from getting your shoes dirty, braving briar and defending against the mosquito horde just to get a glimpse of a rare lost bird.  Both methods produce the same check in the book, but clearly one has a better experience than the other aka – blogger gold hehehe.  Interesting enough, this sighting didn’t bring with it that much effort.

White-Tailed Kite Shot at Galveston Texas State Park in December 2016

Hit the jump to learn more about this Kite!

Continue reading Coming to Your Emotional Rescue

Gaining My Marbles

I almost went with “A Wasted Endeavor” for the title of this post, however, my not so clever play on losing my marbles won out in the end.  A little insight into the inner workings around here at Intrigued – there’s one key ingredient that brings it all together.  Sure, the foundation of it all relies on being able to make it out in the field and discover content to feature.  Then there’s the digital darkroom where I try to make everything as pretty as I can for you.  There’s close to three years of outings in the queue that I am desperately trying to get through (thus the more than usual production as of late).  Have to get everything uploaded to the galleries in order to reference into the posts and then the actual finger pounding the keyboard to give it all context.  The fact is, all of those elements require a bit of effort on my part.  Not exactly the effort you might be thinking of …

Marbled Godwit shot on Bolivar Peninsula Texas January 2017

I’m talking about the effort involved in trying to maintain your sanity being a distance runner.  Trust me, people like me who feel guilty when not meeting the mileage quota for the week probably need some therapy – “Hello, my name is Brian and I am a Runner.  [all] Hello Brian.”  To keep myself from thinking about every step during the run, I set my mind to planning out the next post.  What is worth my reader’s time, what interesting photographs do have that will give life to that topic and the most important element – what is the title going to be.  It is downright embarrassing how many miles I cover thinking about that component.  Hardest part is being able to remember what I came up with by the time I hit the stopwatch.  To be honest, it really is a giant life circle.  I exercise so I can go into the field, hike all day with heavy equipment, take photos to bring back and then use my exercise time to put it all together.  Wash, Rinse, Repeat.  Honestly, there isn’t anything I’d rather be doing to pass my free time than out in the wild staring down the barrel of large glass at a new bird for my North American Birding List.  In retrospect, that seems like a long intro to simply introduce the first Marble in my collection.

Marbled Godwit shot on Bolivar Peninsula Texas January 2017

Hit the jump to learn more about this tall wader.

Continue reading Gaining My Marbles