Posted in Birds, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged roseate spoonbills on September 7, 2016| 2 Comments »
Weekly Photo Challenge
“There’s an unseen force which lets birds know when you’ve just washed your car.” — Denis Norden
Roseate spoonbill at Brazos Bend National Park — Photo by Pat Bean
And for good measure, since I do so enjoy watching these pink-winged birds with the funny bill, here is another photo I snapped of roseate spoonbills.
Roseate spoonbills nesting in the World Fair’s Aviary at the St. Louis Zoo. — Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Birds, Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, tagged bear river migratory bird refuge, Brazori National Wildlife Refuge, national parks on August 26, 2016| 4 Comments »
A snowy egret at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in Northern Utah. — Photo by Pat Bean
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” — Henry David Thoreau
Some of my Favorite Places
There are 59 national parks, and in my lifetime I’ve been to 44 of them, mostly missing the ones in Alaska. They are some of my favorite places in the world.
This pond captured images of the Wasatch Mountains and the clouds above them. I love it. — Photo by Pat Bean
On the other hand, there are over 550 national wildlife refuges. And they are also some of my favorite places – even though I haven’t kept track of the ones I’ve visited. During my nine years of traveling this awesome country, I stopped at any refuge in my vicinity, mostly to bird watch. .
Among the more memorable ones that would be on my list of the refuges I’ve explored, if I had such a list, would be Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, located 15 minutes from my son Lewis’ Texas Gulf Coast home, and where I turned him into a birding addict like me. This refuge has added 16 birds to my life list of 710 species.
But that pales with the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge that has given me 31 of my life birds. This refuge is very special to me because the first time I visited it was in the 1970s, when it was lush and green – and long before bird watching became one of my passions.
In the 1980s, I watched as the now 80,000-acre refuge was inundated by Great Salt Lake flood waters, whose salty content pretty much destroyed everything, including an almost new visitor’s center. I then regularly watched as the refuge, less than an hour’s drive from my Ogden, Utah, home for 25 years, made its comeback.
Pickleweed. I remember how thrilled I was when I saw the tiny beginning of this plant in a place desolate of greenery.
It started with pickleweed, one of the first plants to come back and one that helped eliminate the salt in the landscape. This was all explained to me during a tour of the damaged refuge for a newspaper story I was writing. Have I ever told you how much I loved my journalism career?
I was already retired, and traveling, but I made it to the grand opening of the refuge’s new visitor’s center in 2006. This time the center was located a good ways away from the flood zone, and next to Interstate 15 near Brigham City. The site offers visitors a convenient and quick view of a bit of what the refuge has to offer without the 10-mile drive on a rutted, unpaved road to the main refuge area.
I used to hate that rough ride – but I loved it, too. It kept the crowds away. Sometimes it seemed as if I had the whole refuge to myself, and if not, the other visitors were most likely to be nature lovers who, like me, thought the birds, animals and scenery were worth the bumpy drive.
If you’re one of us, along with visiting a national park during this year celebrating the system’s 100th birthday, you might want to also check out a national wildlife refuge. Most likely there is one not too far from where you live. https://www.fws.gov/refuges/
And if you’re interested in a good book, check out Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams. It’s much about the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.
Bean Pat: Living Life Almost Gracefully http://tinyurl.com/h97kl2v Chasing the Sun
Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, tagged Lucifer hummingbird on August 11, 2016| 4 Comments »
“At one time in my life, I sought logic in everything – now I know better.” – Pat Bean
A section of a page from the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, which I used to identify the Lucifer hummingbird. My bird looked exactly like the lower right photo, including the purple specks on the neck. Since I’m a writer and not a photographer, I didn’t get a good photo.
A Lucifer Hummingbird
I’ve birded all over North America and a few other places as well. I’m not quick on identifying species, like many of my birding mentors, mostly I think because I didn’t become passionate about the addictive activity until I was 60. As birding goes, I’m a late bloomer.
I did get a fairly decent photo of a house finch that was on the bird feeder hung on my balcony. — Photo by Pat Bean
Before 1999, I could identify cardinals and mockingbirds, the first because it was so red and distinctive, and the latter because it was the State Bird of Texas, and I saw it everywhere as a child. I also thought I could identify house sparrows because they are so common. But once I began studying bird field guides, I realized there were over 35 different sparrows in North America alone – and only some of the ones I had been seeing were house sparrows.
One of the reasons I enjoy birding is because I enjoy reading mysteries, and identifying the murderer before the last page. Identifying a bird by its field marks is pretty similar. Another reason I enjoy birding is because I’m an avid list keeper – and listing the birds I’ve seen is fun for me.
This morning I identified my 709th bird,
It was a Lucifer hummingbird, flitting about in a tree near my living room balcony. It was hard at first for me to believe it, but the curved-down bill couldn’t be mistaken. It would have been a cinch to identify if it had been an adult male, which has a brilliant purple throat, but this one was a young juvenile – but with all the right field marks, including cinnamon-colored sides and a few purple flecks on its throat.
As far as hummingbirds go, Tucson has six common species: Anna’s, broad-billed, broad-tailed, Costa, black-shinned and rufous. I’ve seen all six at my hummingbird feeder just within the past two weeks.
A Lucifer hummingbird in Tucson, however, is rare – but possible. It’s a Mexican species that occasionally flies across the border into Southeastern Arizona and Texas’ Big Bend Region. While it never came to my nectar feeder, I watched it off and on for over half an hour as it flitted about the tree next to my apartment. Each sighting more definitely confirmed my good luck.
I’m a happy birder. The Lucifer was a lifer for me.
Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.
Bean Pat: More about birds http://tinyurl.com/hgb22z9 The butcher bird, also known as the loggerhead strike. Great photos.
Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged Anna's, black-chinned, broad-billed, hummingbirds on July 27, 2016| 6 Comments »
. “Time passes too fast. Like a hummingbird flying by, it’s just a blur to my eyes.” – Amanda Leigh
A male Anna’s hummingbird. But the one I saw this morning was a less colorful female. Wikimedia photo, Brocken Inaglory
Life is Good
Female Anna’s hummingbird. — Wikimedia photo
Last night, at around 9 o’clock, I sat on my bedroom’s third-floor balcony and watched lightning flash across the sky like fireworks. Sometimes a deep rumbling followed, but mostly it was a silent event, until I moved to the living room balcony where the rumbling was more consistent. The air smelled musty with the rain that never fell, and I was awed by the deep magenta hue of the sky, wondering how that was possible.
The show was long, and so I fixed myself a Jack and Coke and settled into a patio chair to watch in leisure, afterwards falling into a relaxed sleep that held me until a sliver of light seeped through my bedroom shutters.
Broad-billed Hummingbird at the San Diego Zoo. — Wikimedia photo
The morning was muggy, but still cool enough here in Tucson for me to sit again on my balcony and sky watch, this time with my morning ritual of cream-laced coffee and my journal. As I watched, through my usually handy binoculars, a broad-billed hummingbird landed on a nearby tree and then zoomed straight to my nectar feeder that sat above my head. Seeing me, it zoomed away, but soon returned, and after deciding I was harmless, fed.
Then there were two hummingbirds flitting about in competition for the feeder. The second one was a black-chinned hummingbird, the species I see most often. After they had left, a third hummingbird appeared and drank. It was an Anna’s, although because it was a female, it took me a while to identify. The males, with their spectacular pinkish-purplish heads are an identification no-brainer.
Black-chinned hummingbird — Wikimedia photo
Seeing these three hummingbird species took me back to the morning I awoke to find three hummingbirds flitting in my ten. It happened in 1991, during a rafting trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon – before I became addicted to bird watching. I had no idea what species of hummingbirds they were at that time. I’m not sure I even knew then that hummingbirds came in different races.
While seeing those three hummingbirds flitting above my head in the tent 25 years ago thrilled me, seeing the trio this morning, and being able to identify each of them, was just as thrilling.
Life is good. And I am blessed.
Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, tagged crows, ravens on July 8, 2016| 7 Comments »
“I believed then – in a deep, easy way that is impossible for me as an adult – that there was more to this world than meets the eye. Trees had spirits; the wind spoke. If you followed a toad or raven deep into the heart of the forest, they were sure to lead you to something magical.” – Jennifer McMahon
“I’m so sorry Jennifer. I’ve long been an adult – and I still believe.” – Pat Bean
Life outside my window. — Watercolor by Pat Bean
Or is it a Crow?
Ravens didn’t live in Dallas, where I grew up. It was only after I moved West that I began seeing them. They looked just like crows to me. But being the curious person that I am, I soon wanted to know how to tell a raven from a crow.
Note the wedge-shaped tail on this raven Also, except for once during breeding season, I’ve never seen more than one or two ravens together. Crows, on the other hand, most often flock together. — Wikimedia photo
While ravens are larger, unless you see them side by side you can’t really identify them by that clue. But it’s easy to tell them apart if you see them flying. The raven’s tail is wedge-shaped, while the end of the crow’s tail is straight.
I see a pair of ravens almost daily here in Tucson, They land in the trees outside my windows and hop about on the roof opposite my back balcony – and they inspired my latest watercolor.
Bean Pat: Daily Echo http://tinyurl.com/hjeleff This blog so reminds me of the way I traveled and dawdled when I lived in my RV and was exploring North America. U think my wanderlust is getting to me. I need to take a road trip soon.
Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, tagged trees on June 28, 2016| 15 Comments »
“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.” – John Muir
This tree with the split personality was my favorite tree when I was a campground host at Lake Walcott State Park in Southern Idaho. — Photo by Pat Bean
Life Happens to us All
My Tree Fell Down. The huge one in which, over the past three and a half years, I’ve watched great-horned owls and Cooper’s hawks try to claim a nesting site — each succeeding once. They laid their eggs in the very same nest..
But on Monday evening, when a kind of mini-tornado blew through the complex, the tree toppled. The giant took out the balcony next to mine as it crashed against my 30-residences apartment building. Thankfully no person was injured.
Me being silly and hugging a tree in Custer State Park in South Dakota.
The mess is still being cleaned up by workmen with shovels, saws and ladders. I figure it will take at least a couple of trucks to haul off all the wood that was once the awesome tree. I would show you pictures, but Windows 10 ate the driver that I need to import pictures from my camera to my computer.*
The loss of my tree, as I felt it was, makes me sad. My eyes dampened this morning as I sat on my front balcony looking at the empty air where the tree once towered above the three-story apartment building across the way.
I’ve listened as gila woodpeckers rapped on the tree’s trunk, and watched as hawks, owls, ravens and, doves frequently visited its branches — while I leaned back in my chair, as I drank my morning coffee, and observed them with my binoculars.
I feel as if a good friend has died. Actually, that is exactly what happened.
Bean Pat: Deidra Alexandra’s Blog http://tinyurl.com/zr9oh4g A funny story that made me smile – and I needed to smile. Don’t you?
*By the way, does anybody have any good, inexpensive suggestions on how to fix the import driver on my four-year-old computer, or, as I suspect, am I going to have to get a new computer?
Posted in Birds, Books, Journeys, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged connections, Elizard Bard, Fools, Mary Louise Wilson, Neil Simon on June 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »
“Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” — Charles Eames
“People find meaning and redemption in the most unusual human connections.” Khaled Hosseini
This photo was taken over 30 years ago, when I played Mrs. Zubritsky, as did actress and author Mary Louise Wilson. That’s a very young looking me sitting on the left. What a wonderful memory
Books Bring Me Joy
I just started reading Picnic in Provence by Elizabeth Bard when a small sentence let me know how much I was going to enjoy this book. “But then some people bird watch,” said the book’s protagonist, which let me know, in a whispered writer’s voice, that the author knew all about crazy bird watchers – like me.
A bit later on she said of her husband: “It takes more than 10 years in bed with an American to cure a European of his natural reserve.” I connected with this sentence because I understand how different people are, and that you never truly get to know them – even if you sleep with them for years.
It’s these kinds of personal connections that give me so much pleasure in reading these days. And since I have a lot of living behind me, I’m able to make more and more connections with each passing year.
I thought about this as I was reading My first Hundred Years in Show Business by Mary Louise Wilson this
Mary Louise Wilson
morning. I’m not sure anyone but someone involved in theater would truly understand and appreciate the book. But, since I was very involved with amateur Little Theater during the 22 years I lived in Ogden, I’m loving it.
Even so, I didn’t have any real connection with the author until she began writing about her role in Neil Simon’s little known play “Fools.” It’s a fantastic play about this village that has been cursed with stupidness, and Mary Louise and I both played the role of the intellectually-challenged wife, Mrs. Zubritsky.
When she described how in the play, when she was supposed to open a door but couldn’t, that she decided to pull on the handle instead of push, I connected. It was exactly how I had dealt with the same door scene. And we also reacted the same way in the play when the husband asks his wife to lower her voice. To comply, we both decided to bend our knees.
Reading My First Hundred Years in Show Business is bringing back wonderful memories – what fun!
There is no question but that books are wonderful. But when you can make a connection with them, they become magical.
Bean Pat: Wanderlust http://tinyurl.com/j4rbmb5 I easily connected with this blog and blogger because we share a passion for travel.
P.S. If you’re interested you can type in Fools, Neil Simon and find videos of scenes from Fools.
Posted in Birds, Journeys, tagged technology woes on May 25, 2016| 12 Comments »
I would rather watch birds, like this Gambel quail, than television — which is a good thing. — Pat Bean
Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. – Carrie Snow That’s Me
I’m house-sitting my daughter’s house, horse, two dogs and two cats. It’s an opportunity for me to binge on television watching, since I don’t own one. And it means I don’t have to walk up and down three flights of stairs several times a day to take my own canine companion Pepper, who fits in quite well with my daughter’s menagerie, outside to do her business.
A gila woodpecker on a saguaro. — Photo by Pat Bean
I simply open the door and all three dogs go outside. They do their business while I simply sit on the porch and watch the desert outside my daughter’s back door. There’s almost always a gila woodpecker in one of the nearby saguaros and several Gambel quail scurrying about. And on this stay, the backyard has also been full of curved-bill thrashers.
While the yard is unfenced, all three of the dogs stay close by – as do I since the day I discovered Pepper in the horse coral, not more than 100 feet away, surrounded my three coyotes. You can bet your wad on knowing that this mama immediately turned into a screaming maniac and chased the varmint trio back into the desert. I really liked coyotes until that day.
But back to my tale of woe: Somehow or other I messed with the remote control – or perhaps it messed with itself – so I can’t watch TV. I have absolutely no idea how to get it back to the setting my daughter put it on for me before she left.
I also can’t figure out how to change the thermostat, which I asked my grandson, JJ, to turn down when I was fixing him dinner last night. And now he’s at his summer job all day while I have to wear a sweater in the desert because the house is too cold.
All this technology stuff I can’t do reminds me of when I bought my first computer – and discovered a six-year-old granddaughter knew how to operate it better than I did.
You would think I was born in a different era. Oh yes. That’s right. I was.
Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.
Bean Pat: Diane Henders http://tinyurl.com/zq7a4x2 Reading this blog made me feel better about my technology black hole.
P.S. JJ fixed the remote and showed me how to work the thermostat. So I’m now comfortable and can watch television – well except there’s nothing worth watching on it.
Posted in Birds, Journeys, tagged animal totems, back to the godddess, Twin Falls Idaho on May 5, 2016| 6 Comments »
“To be a person is to have a story to tell.” —Isak Dinesen
The Snake River Canyon, Idaho. Wikimedia photo
A Story for a Granddaughter
When my children were growing up, I didn’t tell them stories about my childhood because I thought I didn’t have any happy ones, mostly because I thought no one loved me. Once I started looking at things through adult eyes, I realized how wrong I had been. But by then, my children were grown, living in far-away-places, and leading busy lives.
Through this blog, however, my children and grandchildren have learned many things about me they didn’t know, especially when a bit of memoir is thrown into the writing mix. Writing these stories down has also helped me understand myself better. It’s been one of the unexpected benefits of blogging.
So the other day, when I was with my oldest granddaughter, Shanna, and the subject of animal totems came up, I told her how the magpie became my totem. Afterwards, she asked me to write the story down for her. I said I would, and so here it.
My animal totem, the black-billed magpie. — Wikimedia photo
It happened when I was living in Twin Falls, Idaho, and working as regional editor for the Times-News. It was a time in the early 1980s, after my divorce when all my children had left home, and I had moved to this small city where I didn’t know a soul.
I made friends easily, but many of the women I liked best turned out to be New Agers, which is how this non-believing, stick-to-the-facts journalist got invited to attend a “Back to the Goddess” workshop.
The get-together was held beside the Snake River Canyon Gorge, near where Evil Knievel attempted his infamous motorcycle jump. The scenery was fantastic, as were the day’s activities. First, we walked down the canyon, getting rid of all the excess baggage we were carrying in our souls as we descended. On our hike back up the gorge, we picked up all the positive things we wanted in our lives.
I don’t recall what I threw away, or what I picked up, only that the experience was enriching. What I remember vividly, however, is what happened that starry Van Gogh night, as we sat beside the canyon around a campfire.
The workshop leader held a talking stick, and said when it came into our hands, we were to name our animal totem. I had never heard of such a thing, and decided all I could do was say I didn’t have one and pass the stick to the next person.
As the stick came around the circle, the women named many impressive totems: lion, wolf, beaver, elephant, golden eagle among them as I recall. When the stick, which I had planned to pass on, touched my hand, the word magpie came out of my mouth without missing a beat. I then went on to explain why this nuisance bird, a member of the crow family, was my totem.
It’s loud and raucous, like this native Texan. It’s also intelligent and playful, and its white and iridescently black feathers, represent a broad mindset of thinking, all traits that I believe I possess. I was still in a state of shock when I quickly passed the talking stick to the next person.
And that my dear granddaughter is how I got my animal totem, a bird that came into my life 15 years before I became a passionate birdwatcher.
Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.
Bean Pat: Wayward Spirit http://tinyurl.com/zoa23t7 Writing on the Beach. I know how this feels.
Posted in Birds, Journeys, Travel, tagged rainy days, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher on April 19, 2016| 5 Comments »
“The reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day.”― Anne Lamott
This was the rainy day view through the windshield of my car when I left Tucson a week ago. — Photo by Pat Bean
It Falls on All of Us
The above photo was taken through the windshield of my car, at the corner of Swan and Sunrise in Tucson, a week ago. Although the photo doesn’t pick them up, I could faintly see the silhouette of the Catalina Mountains directly ahead through my swishing wiper blades.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t see scissor-tailed flycatchers in the rain — and you don’t want to miss that. — Photo by Pat Bean
After a marvelous, fantastic, awesome four days in Austin mingling with 100 writing sisters, I left Sunday afternoon to drive to my oldest daughter’s home in Dallas. I didn’t take a picture of my leave taking this time, but the top photo – minus the unseen Catalina Mountains – will work perfectly.
Some days we have rain, and some days we have sun. I don’t know about you, but I try to get on with my life whatever the weather.
Bean Pat: Hasty Words http://tinyurl.com/htdt9za For Real? This blog should give you lots to mull over.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
Pat Bean is a writer, avid birder, hiker and passionate nature observer with wanderlust in her soul. She spent nine years living and traveling in a small RV. She now lives in Tucson with Scamp, a rescue who was supposed to be a Schnauzer mix but turned out to be a Siberian Husky-Shih Tzu mix who is as stubborn as his owner, her granddaughter says. She was also a journalist for 37 years, and can be reached at patbean@msn.com
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