Not exactly lighting up the stage when it comes to posting this month. Seems like one thing after another as of late. This weekend was mainly focused on the Illinois’ Toughest 15K race in Peoria. I’ll leave the details for the race recap post, but I can safely say that race owned me this year. Made it through, but the body let me down in the wicked humidity. Need to retool the body a bit and hopefully get a lot more heat conditioning training runs in before the next July (expect it to be even hotter for that race ugh). Regardless, there’s a quota to tend to and no time to waste. Luckily I have most of the pictures processed for the rest of this month’s post so the hard part is behind me. With that, let’s bring out the Blues.
To be more specific, that would be an Eastern Bluebird couple. This elegant pair was captured not far from my house in Jubilee College State Park near Brimfield IL back in May 2015 That park is pretty much my stomping ground for birding and running (better bring your hill climbing muscles if you want to explore or run a lot of that park). On that particular day I had parked at the end of the main campground road and spent most of the morning following a Kickapoo Creek feeder that runs through the heart of the park. For the most part not a lot of birds made it into the tin that AM so decided to call it an early day and head back to the truck.
As I neared the parking lot I spotted the female (the more drab of the two if you are not familiar with this particular bird) staring intently at the ground from atop a nearby fence post. Curious, I kept my distance and took in the scene wondering what was so interesting to Ms. Blue. It didn’t take long to figure it out – after about 30 seconds she launched from her perch, took a low trajectory path just above the grass and scored a tasty morsel for herself. For some reason I didn’t think to have the camera ready and missed it completely – sometimes you just have to live in the moment and simply enjoy life in motion. As if that wasn’t cool enough, not long after that, a bright blue flash came gliding through the same area of the field and demonstrated its predator ability as well. Those two were going to eat well that day!
… but wait…
Turns out this Bluebird couple was taking care of a new brood! The male was the first to deliver the special package while the mother looked on – between you and I, I think she was just showing off that her catch was bigger than her husband’s! It is about this time that the male discovered The Beast pointed at it… and more importantly pointed in a threatening manner at his family. Guessing I looked like a giant bug that would definitely one up his wife’s recent score. Not wanting to disturb his family or cause any undue stress, the glass was lowered and officially called it a successful day.
It wasn’t lost on me that there was a bit of irony as I left the parking lot – hehehehe.
Time to hit the hay – no worries, I’ll be back soon.
