Tag: Texas 2024

The Earl of Terns

Not sure who we pissed off, but the 75 degree weather we were enjoying has turned downright cold along with a steady 20-30 mph. By Monday they are expecting snow with a nightly windchill into those nasty negative numbers. One last gasp for Mr. Winter I guess before it gets its butt outta here. Braved the biting wind today to post my first 8 mile run since well before the ankle surgery last year. Admittedly, managed to see my lungs as they flamed out of my rib cage, but an excellent benchmark for the upcoming visit with the surgeon this week. Would like to push it a little more before the appointment if the weather calms down a bit. Beyond that, not much new other than after the run I braved the cold to stand in a large meadow in the middle of a forest in order to get the Timberdoodle checked off the list for this year. Accidentally got up close and personal with a Coyote that didn’t see me until it was too late – we both had a brief but intense moment of reflection – me hoping it didn’t see my weakened ankle and he wondering if that large black glass held projectiles. I waved, it pointed to its fangs and we mutually agreed not to send Christmas cards.

“Birds Bri, they are here for the birds.” Sorry, let’s get to that. I am actually planning on taking a break for a bit with the doctor’s visit coming up and we need to get our Washington trip planned. Brad and Jan are back from the field and figured that would be a good time to pop a few of their adventures off the queue to keep you entertained. Before I do that though, wanted to get this companion piece out to the previous Least Tern post. Like that featured feathered friend, todays is also a +1 for Intrigued (just leaving one Tern in my backlog queue if you are keeping score ha).

Sandwich Tern found on Convention Center Flats, Sout Padre Island, TX in March 2024

This Tern leaves quite the first impression eh? Hit the jump to see more shots of this readily ID’d Tern and learn a bit more about this particular species.

Continue reading The Earl of Terns

The Least of Them

So, last night Linda and I gathered up a few critical items and took them to the basement in light of the tornado armageddon that was supposedly heading our way. Things you don’t want to be looking for in your neighbor’s lots should the winds rip your roof off. We then went about our normal business as that is life in the Midwest. As per usual, predictions here were completely off (well wishes to those much further north that took a twister to the gut). The real oddity was I ran Friday – 72F, ran on Sunday – 61F, rucked on Monday – 68F, ran yesterday – 80F, the front comes through last night and today I headed out – it’s 33F and snowing. My body does not take too kindly to shorts one day and then a heavy coat the next.

In order to accelerate the hand warming, decided to do some tapping on the keyboard and bring you another featured feathered friend.

Least Tern found at Port Aransas South Jetty, TX in March 2024

One that also dislikes the cold winters and heads down to the Caribbean Islands and the northern shores of South America to keep its talons warm.

Hit the jump to read more about this diminutive Laridae family member.

Continue reading The Least of Them

Sawbills – and Call for Help

Greetings everyone! Good news, Brad and Jan have checked in and all appears to be going well on their current trip into the field. Luckily I had several years of Spanish so I could translate their message. Although at the ready, we will hold off on sending our lawyers guns and money. Not much really to relay from the Intrigued HQ beyond a personal highlight of getting in my first 7 miles road run since the ankle surgery. Not pretty by any means, but it means the hard work is finally paying off and on the trajectory to the end of the year 100 miler goal (crap, did I say that out loud – forget you saw that).

I do need some help from my birding friends familiar with the Northwest. The Canine Performance Events Agility Nationals are being held in Auburn, Washington at the end of May and I am looking for advice on good places to bird in the area. This is my first time visiting there in non-official work capacity and want to make the most of the birding opportunity. We are still planning our route, but it looks like the southern trek through Wyoming-Utah-Idaho-Oregon-Washington out and then across Washington-Montana-North Dakota-Minnesota back in order to catch Glacier NP. Any recommendations are welcome, but the Oregon/Washington hotspots are my main focus right now as that is the biggest opportunity for lifers for the trip. If you have some, feel free to drop those in the comments or I can send you out my email address if you prefer a more direct communication. Thanks in advance!!

Let’s not keep you waiting any longer and get you right to today’s featured feathered friend.

Male Red-Breasted Merganser found on North Jetty of Bolivar Peninsula in April 2024

Quite the splash of color on this specimen eh? Hit the jump to learn more about our thin-bill waterfowl.

Continue reading Sawbills – and Call for Help

Fancy Tail

Taking a break from fixing all our Haunted Trail decor that failed for one reason or another during our last event. Most of these are pretty easy having been at this for a while now, but there are those spirits in the machine that require a deeper dive into the finicky world of electronics – especially ones that were exposed to a nonstop deluge of rain like on our last night – damn thee weather gods ha. Needed to step away a bit to clear the head and figured it was a good time to relax and get a post out. In honor of the colors of Halloween, let’s go with a black(ish) and orange(ish) specimen for our featured feathered friend of the day.

Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher found on Laguna Madre Trail by South Padre Island Convention Center, TX in March 2024

Absolutely gorgeous from my perspective, but completing the theme, a nightmare for any insects that try to cross its killing field. Hit the jump to see more shots of this fancy-tailed Flycatcher.

Continue reading Fancy Tail

Days in White Satin

Apologies to those patiently waiting for the far more entertaining stories from Brad and Jan, but I missed a small window I had between their trips into the field. Went with the two-parter on the RomEos (did everyone catch the RE or Reddish Egret secret coding there ha) and that ended up pushing us through February and now they are filling up their tins with new adventures. Have no worries, Brad has filled up his post queue so we’ll be getting to those upon their return – we like to keep our operatives focused in the field and not having to find creative ways to get access for replies etc. Long story short, you are stuck with me for at least the next couple of posts.

Being that we just featured a rather large, white (morphed) shorebird in our last two posts, decided to keep the theme going to start March off.

Great Egrets at High Island Rookery, Texas, March 2024

Granted, today’s featured feathered friend is larger than the Reddish Egret and naturally white versus a genetic variation, but you get the picture (literally ha). Hit the jump to learn more about these breeding plumaged Great Egrets – I promise to limit my use of song lyrics this time hehehe.

Continue reading Days in White Satin

2025 Comes to an End

I sit here alone at the Intrigued HQ. The staff is home enjoying the holidays with their families, there is a warm glow from the single light above my desk, a completed stack of performance reviews sit in the outbox, a nice cup of peppermint white hot chocolate steams by my open laptop and the pad of paper with the end of year to-do list only has one item left unchecked – a final post for the year. Looking back, this has been quite a year. So many bright spots along with some struggles I would just soon forget. On the positive side, I am once again very proud of our posting efforts this year. A quick count shows 77 total posts for 2025 (including this one) with Brad bringing you 23 of those from his (and Jan’s) work in the field. Each of those take a significant amount of time from the captures in the field, image processing, storyline, editor review, legal review and the general administration to get them out to you – a heartfelt thank you to everyone that gets this Intrigued gear to rotate.

Then there are the tougher aspects of this year. Although the ankle break technically happened in 2024, the surgery and recovery (ongoing) took up a bulk of this year. Duration wise, this is the worst injury I’ve had to deal with in my lifetime – which is saying a lot as I have had my share of mishaps. As an update to this saga, my surgeon gave me the green light to start running on flat surfaces. He tapped the brakes on the trail running and wants me to hold off 6 weeks before that level of stress. Bittersweet on that as I already had my trail shoes sitting by the door for when I came home. Swapped those out for the pavement shoes and now have a few sloooow runs under my belt. Pain..some…endurance base..atrophied…a huge smile on my face – DEFINITELY. Still a long way to go, but it is a hard to put into words the feeling of freedom that was felt.

And that feeling of freedom is exactly what led me to pick this particular series for the last post of the year.

Red-Crowned Parrots found flying over Estero Llano Grande State Park, Weslaco, TX in March 2024

Hit the jump to learn more about these tropical sounding residents of south Texas.

Continue reading 2025 Comes to an End

Rip It, Roll It and Punch it

Good news everybody…and much to my surprise… we had a fairly non-eventful staff party for a change, well at least by Intrigued standards. No police, no ambulances, no fire trucks and the always present neighborhood complaints in the inbox were minimal – clearly we are starting to show our age around here. I am sure Brad’s idea to warn our legal department that they were on double secret probation for previous year’s stunts was a tremendous help in keeping things somewhat under control. Note, the clever individual who managed to pick the lock on our copier room will be found, forced to write bad checks and required to disinfect the copier glass.

Needless to say, things are quickly coming to close around here. There are only a few in the office these days mainly working on year end expense reports and finishing up their proposals for next year’s field assignments. I should be working on performance reviews, but I find that is NOT advantageous to the staff this soon after the party sooooo……let’s feature another find at the Port Aransas Jetty.

Sea Turtle found on Port Aransas South Jetty, TX in March 2024

“Let go…and see where the current, ” I mean jump “takes you“.

Continue reading Rip It, Roll It and Punch it

Fish Guzzling

We are winding down here at Intrigued as the last of the 2025 events are slowly coming to a close. Yesterday I finished up the last of the crown work which ended up being far more painful than expected thanks to the temporary cap somehow welding to my tooth – have I mentioned before how much I absolutely abhor dental work – just point to a dental drill bit and I’ll give up my mother in an interrogation. Fingers crossed later today I get released by the ankle surgeon, so I can fully enjoy tonight’s Intrigued staff gathering – trust me, you want to be fully healthy before attending one of those parties – the weak are culled ha. That just leaves Linda’s family Christmas gathering and then ours before the trek to warmer weather. Hopefully we will be able to make a few more posts before we stop the presses and turn the lights out on this injury riddled year.

Before I get into the real reason you are here, thought I would pat ourselves on the back and note that last post from Brad marked our 1,000th post here on our wildlife sister site (the Intrigued mothership is currently at 1,533 – even a few of those were lost as we transitioned to the WP service from our own servers). A big thanks to all the staff that got us to this point!

Okay, since we are winding “down”, decided it would be appropriate to go with another “down” of sorts…this one being down the hatch.

Double-Crested Cormorant swallowing fish found at Port Aransas South Jetty, TX in March 2024

I think you already know where this is going, but hit the jump to confirm!

Continue reading Fish Guzzling

Great Baby Blue

We are working hard as we make the final push to the end of the year. You will be happy to know I have just started processing the spoils of our Texas trip back in January …of this year .. I know you were immediately wondering that based on my usual backlog ha. Not sure I will be able to get through the 700 gigs worth of those shots before he head back down there at the beginning of the year, but I will do my best. Then I can move on to the 600 gigs from Arizona in March/April followed by the latest Florida trip – once again I will be putting “An Intern” at the top of my wish list for Santa. Based on how successful that is, I might be able to remove “Take less pictures” from my 2026 goal list. Surely typical of all wildlife photographers out there..well, let’s generalize to just all photographers, taking the shot(s) is relatively quick in the process – reviewing, culling, processing, uploading to storage and then picking the few out of those worthy of your time…now that is the ten-fold time drag. My note on the HQ bulletin board looking for staff with free time still has all the tabs at the bottom. Word from our HR head says the employees think it is a ruse to get them to self-reveal the slackers. We would do no such thing hehehe.

So I soldier on. Feel sorry for me!?! Don’t, I kid, this is my thing and I truly enjoy our time in the field and ecstatic there are those, like yourselves, that like seeing the results. With that, time to get to the next installment of Baby Month!

Nesting Great Egrets found at High Island Rookery, Texas in April 2024

Hmmm, I might be a little premature on this entry. Hit the jump to see why this Great Egret is giving me a cautious look.

Continue reading Great Baby Blue

Why So Pink?

I have to say, this has been quite an odd year on the birding front. First half of the year was absolutely incredible thanks to a very productive January spent in our adopted state of Texas and then later in March/April out to new locations in southeast Arizona. If you are looking for recommendations to get into or looking to expand your birding horizons, those two states would be my go to recommendations – not to discourage or disparage other locations, but if you want to fill your counts and have a good chance of seeing rarities, then to the southern border you shall go. That first half netted me around 391 checks for the year, then the legs were kicked out – literally. You are not going to get a lot of birds staring out your den window month after month. Although already at a record for me with the 391 mark, the incredible 400 threshold has been so close…for so long. Well, we are going to try and correct that over the Thanksgiving holiday and head back out into the field. To increase our options, we are heading to the southeast where there are currently 27 potential checks. All I need is a third of those- wish us luck! Before I forget, we did release our latest Halloween prop tutorial – I’ll put that at the end in case you are interested.

Okay, we know why you are here, let’s get to it. Today I thought I would feature a feathered friend that has traditionally been a difficult find – not show much on the rarity front, rather the identification front.

Franklin's Gull found at Texas City Dike in April 2024

Now you know why the issue is in the “identification” phase. The Gull family is an absolute nightmare thanks to their nearly impossible plumage variations during the early years and then the mature feathering that can look very similar from species to species. Hit the jump if you want to try your hand at this particular specimen.

Continue reading Why So Pink?