Archives

Dec132018

Lost in the Dust

Brace yourself, this is going to be an ugly ride.  There are times when I wished I had studied up a bit more before going to a particular birding spot.  Typically I’ll jump on the web and try to find a bird list for a destination, but the focus is usually on the entries with the capital ‘C’ next to them.  Those represent the species that are common to the area and therefore the list I am more than likely to see depending on what season our trip falls in.  A quick check of those against my birding list results in a series of circled birds that are considered my target birds and therefore the ones that require Linda to find creative ways to entertain herself until they are officially in the tin

Common Ground Dove found at Estero Llano Grande State Park, Texas, January 2018‘

Hit the jump to read a bit more about how this Dove made it into the tin.

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Nov292018

Totem Spirit

Greetings everyone.  We recently made our way back from a week in Las Vegas which means the sleep counter for the month of November took a serious decrement.  Not complaining, of course, seeing as how that was pretty much self-inflicted.  From a birder’s perspective, Vegas is up there in the top 10 birding places we’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting.  Actually, should clarify that a bit, the birding is primarily a combination of the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve and the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area inside the Mojave Desert. We opted to rent some glass out there this time rather than hauling out the Beast. I wanted the prime Nikon 600 f/4 but the VR ended up being broken on that option, so settled for the 150-600 f5-6.3 Tamaron.  I am here to say, Tamaron glass is NOT Nikon glass.  Still need to go through the images, but it was a fight the entire time.  That glass is way to light to hand hold in the wind and extremely slow to focus compared to my rig making it impossible to nail any in-flight shots. Did manage to get at least one +1 and possibly a couple more.  More to come on that front.  For now, was totally shocked when I came upon this set of pictures in the queue.

Greater Roadrunner found outside Laguna Atascos National Wildlife Refuge in January 2017

This is not the first time the Greater Roadrunner has appeared here at Intrigued, first appearing way back in May of 2013 (link here).  That first encounter was at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve and took some effort to find.  It also didn’t allow us to get too close it.  Now this specimen was the Walmart greeter for Laguna Atascosa.National Wildlife Refuge.  We were navigating the absolutely awful road (if you can call it that) that leads into that refuge when our little feathered friend popped out of the brushline.

Greater Roadrunner found outside Laguna Atascos National Wildlife Refuge in January 2017

Hit the jump to read more about my favorite runner.

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Nov172018

White-Eyed Vireo

Greeting from the Winter Wonderland everyone.  Was able to get a good 7 mile run in this morning as the sleet was turning to snow.  As soon as I made it back to the house, it was pretty much a light snow that has managed to hang on for the last 9 hours… and by hanging on I mean stay light because now is it’s coming down hard for what they are expecting to be another 9 hours.  I can’t remember the last time we had two good snows with a little less than a week before Thanksgiving.  Also do not remember having to bundle up as much on my runs this early in November (couple of runs ago it was windchill of 13 – F for my international friends).   In an attempt to bring a bit of warmth to my office, let’s head back to Texas and check out my latest addition to the ol’ bird list.

White-Eyed Vireo found at Sabal Palm Sanctuary, December 2017

Hit the jump to find out what bird this is … apologies for the remaining shots.

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