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Jan282018

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!

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Jan242018

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!

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Jan182018

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.

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