Monthly Archives: April 2019

Apr282019

Data Guarded

Synology Health

Apparently there is a timing issue with the first  post of this month.  On the Wildlife version of this blog, the publish date went as intended on the first of day of the month, where here at the mothership, the post data ended up being late the day before the first.  This wouldn’t be a big issue, but I have a self-imposed monthly quota which is now good on one blog and bad on the other – sigh.  No worries, it has been a long time since I published a product review – especially one that is positive!  Product reviews also require limited image processing besides working up an original header image (speaking of which, kind of spiffy looking for about 6 minutes’ worth of work if I do say so myself).  How about we get to the review.

Hit the jump to read about my experiences with the Synology NAS units.

Continue Reading…

spacer
Apr272019

Little Armored Ones

Greetings everyone!  I am officially on the road again  as the weekend has brought with it the second race of the season.  Technically I should refer to as the 3rd and 4th race of the season as this is again another double event like the one two weeks ago on the trails at Allerton State Park.  This time I’ve left the trail shoes at home and will be lacing on the road shoes.  It all kicks off at 7:30 tonight with an easy 5K followed by a half marathon in the morning.  Being that it is on campus of my Alma Mater (University of Illinois) it comes with a bit of nostalgia, however it RAINS EVERY STINKING YEAR for this race.  Then to throw on insult it is usually windy – keeping with tradition, the forecast has revealed that it will be ummm raining with wait for it … wait for it … 20-30 mph winds.  This race is cursed.  I told Linda this may be my last year for this and find a trail run somewhere instead.  At least the trees would cut the wind down (running in mud can be a lot of fun if you oink from time to time).  Being as it takes 2 hrs to get to the venue, figured I’d get some blogging in.

Armadillo found on Georgia Birding Trip May 2015

The anti-birding lobby that has been getting a bit irate lately should be pleased as I can most assuredly tell you the creature before you is NOT a bird.  Nope, no siree.  Although, I would contend that if were to jump and get those ears moving fast enough it might be able to hover there for a bit.  Wait, this just in – the army of lawyers employed by Intrigued has informed me that I must refer to their ability to hover as “speculation only” and should be treated by skepticism by anyone stupid enough to use this site for any type of official reference – can’t wait to see what happens when I start talking about their shells being bulletproof.

Armadillo found on Georgia Birding Trip May 2015

Hit the jump to learn a bit more about these intriguing looking beasts.

Continue Reading…

spacer
Apr202019

The Easter Egg of the Birding World

For those that celebrate the holiday – Happy Easter everyone!  When Linda wasn’t looking I stole her “Honey Do” bell and cut the clapper out of it.  She was starting to abuse it (ha) and now that she is on the mend, my nurturing duties are officially over.  I did cap it off with a well received pancake dinner in the shape of a bunny before the time officially ran out, so don’t feel bad for her.  She’s still badly bruised at the insertion points, but good enough to move around and she even drove to a local store tonight for some badly needed supplies – good to go although I’ll be pressed into service again and this time for at least 3 months once the valve surgery is done.  That one is going to hurt (me, not her hehehe).  With the Easter holiday upon us, thought I would feature Mother Nature’s version of the Easter Egg.

Painted Bunting found at Skidaway Island State Park, Savannah GA, May 2015

Now how is that for a colorful bird?  Linda is very particular about what birds she is willing to take pictures of. If it isn’t pretty and colorful she doesn’t even bother bringing her camera out.  Blackbirds, Robins, dull garbed Warblers etc. do not merit the infinitesimal pressure required to push that shutter button down and clearly not wasting precious digital bits reserved primarily for waterfalls and landscape pictures.  I call it elitism, which generally catches her ire.  In this particular case she had no issue with snapping away and that’s clearly understandable.  This Bunting is top two in my book across the entire birding world.

Painted Bunting found at Skidaway Island State Park, Savannah GA, May 2015

Continue Reading…

spacer
Apr172019

That Rock has Eyes

Good day everyone!  Get to spend the day at the hospital while Linda gets some medical tests done on her heart.  She has a birth defect that she has had to deal with that is now getting to a point that something probably needs to be done to correct it.  While I wait for that procedure to complete, thought I would get to the follow up from my previous post.  If you recall, I left you hanging regarding a field encounter that left me a bit rattled.  That unexpected jolt to the system was a result of the creature you can somewhat see below.

Alligator found at Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge outside Savannah Georgia, May 2015

Now, I’ve come in contact with Alligators several times in my past.  As probably every kid in the US that is fortunate enough to take vacations as a kid, I had the pleasure of ending up at one of the Florida Gator parks and getting to handle one of their babies.  To be honest, they are pretty darn cute when they are a foot or less long.  Your own prehistoric plaything.  At some point in their development they no longer become cute and transform into something nightmares are made out of.  Still fun to photograph at a distance and numerous encounters have already been documented here at Intrigued (link here, here and well here).  The first two were definitely a safe distance away, the last one was closer, but I still didn’t feel overly threatened – Linda, on the other hand ended up running for her life to the safety of the RV.  That abandonment has come up several times on our outings as a point of contention and failure to perform UB duties – promptly dismissed by Linda of course.

Alligator found at Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge outside Savannah Georgia, May 2015

Hit the jump to learn more about my unexpected encounter.

Continue Reading…

spacer
Apr152019

Them Cattle Egrets be Devious

My apologies for the long delay in getting another post out.   This month I’m out on the road for a bit as the race season officially kicked off this weekend and I am currently sitting in a large conference arena surrounded by more poodles than I can even begin to count.  I go into detail on my race events on my other blog, but as a summary, Friday I had a 5K trail run at night followed by a half marathon trail run the following morning at Allerton Park in Monticello, IL.  Not sure if it was all the mud or not, but that half took everything I had and ended up 2 minutes shy of placing in my age group – was just plain beat at this race, no excuses – must train harder.  As far as the poodles go, we went straight from the race down to St, Louis for the Poodles National Specialty Agility Show at Purina Farms.  Raven is doing his best to hang with some of the best in the nation and so far the need more training theme is resonating there as well.  He has a few more runs today and hopefully he can overcome his new found fear of teeter-totters.  My legs are drained and I’m faced with some serious downtime between Raven’s agility runs – can’t think of a better time to get the cobwebs cleared off Intrigued.

Since the Georgia trip shots are already processed, let’s stick with the finds at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge.  As noted in previous posts, we were down there back in May 2015 to get two birds – one being the Wood Stork (link here). and one hasn’t been announced yet.  That doesn’t mean there isn’t room in the tin for plenty of other birds.

Cattle Egret found at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge outside Savannah Georgia May 2015

Take for example the Cattle Egret.  This bird isn’t new to the checklist having been featured back in June of last year (link here).  That post was thanks to a trip down the Texas Gulf Coast over the Christmas holidays at the end of 2017 – I also make no excuses for always being behind on my photo queue ha.  Technically that was not the first time I had encountered and tinned this particular bird, it was, however, the first set I was able to get processed.  When I posted that set on Intrigued, I was fully aware I had found specimens a couple of years back at Harris.  Unfortunately, I was in a bit of denial this particular encounter ever happened … more on that later.

Hit the jump for a few more shots of the Cattle Egret and take in my Public Service Announcement for big glass photographers.

Continue Reading…

spacer
Apr072019

Saucy Tongued Glossies

Finally back in front of the keyboard.  Once again, the hectic levels have been peaking around here with deliverables due at the day job, Raven’s running agility this weekend and we are one tiny little week away from the start of race season.  Due to the latter, I decided to come back home early from the agility show (show is being held about 1.5 or so away) and get some miles in on the trails before the rain comes back and mucks them up tomorrow.  Was hoping to get one final easy long outing in before tapering – well, that was the plan until my GPS decided to try and kill me.  Took a new trail in the park which turned out to be a complete nightmare.  At some point it decided that figuring out the constant elevation rise and drops was just way toooo much work and simply assumed the trail was flat.  Next thing I know it is telling my I’m running 12+ minute miles which is absurd.  Thinking I was slacking, started driving harder only to be thoroughly exhausted at what the GPS thought was mile 8.5 AND STILL AT a 12 minute mile pace.  The good news in all of this the upcoming half marathon race course can’t be anywhere as difficult as my training runs so I should be good to go (fingers crossed).  Meanwhile, I need to give the legs some rest – speaking of legs…

Glossy Ibis found at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge outside Savannah Georgia May 2015

Tonight’s featured bird definitely has some long ones.  Add to that an extremely long down-curved bill.  Pretty much the iconic shape for an Ibis although Ron might get a kick out of the fact that the Roseate Spoonbill is in the same family – one of his nemesis birds like the Snowy Owl, but word has it he was able to get that checked off earlier in the month (link here).  One could also argue that the Whimbrel and the Long-Billed Curlew (link here) would fall into the similar species set, but those are much smaller than the specimens here.

Glossy Ibis found at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge outside Savannah Georgia May 2015

Hit the jump to see “a lot” more pictures of this new bird on my list.

Continue Reading…

spacer