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Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category

Weekly Photo Challenge: Far and Near

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , on September 8, 2012| 6 Comments »

“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.” — Winston Churchill

Favorite Places: The Tonto Basin

The first time I passed through Tonto Basin, I crossed the lake on the Roosevelt Dam. This bridge was opened to get traffic off the dam in 1990. I chose it as an example of near and far because of the yellow blossoms in the foreground, the bridge in the middle ground and the mountains in the far distance. — Photo by Pat Bean

During my cross-country journeys, even before I became a full-time RV-er, I often planned my trips so I would pass through Arizona’s Tonto Basin.

Located at the base of the Mongollon Rim, which runs across Arizona for 200 miles, with Tonto Creek flowing through it, the valley has always lifted my spirits. I love the tall arm-spreading saguaro cacti  that dot the landscape, the clear mountain air that fills my nostrils and the sight of curve-billed thrashers flitting the ground.

 

 

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City of Rocks

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Dogs, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“If you see a whole thing – it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives … But up close a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day-to-day, life’s a hard job.” – Ursula K.Le Guin

This photo doesn’t do City of Rocks justice but it was the best one I took because of being so pressed for time. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day One

            I took a longer detour than I had expected yesterday when I visited City of Rocks State Park in Southern Idaho on my way to Ogden, Utah, where I’ll be staying for the next few days before the real start of my journey begins.

But I was quite pleased with the shot I got up an osprey hig up in a tree over the Snake River. — Photo by Pat Bean

The reason that it was longer is that a bridge was out, and I had to double back to continue on my journey. It also made me pressed for time because I needed to get into Ogden in time for a party and a play my friend, Kim, had planned for our evening activities.

The City of Rocks is just that. It was a landmark for early pioneers traveling the California Trail. Just as impressive as the jumble of rocks that today are a haven for rock climbers — sadly I didn’t have time to do much exploring or picture-taking – was the City of Rocks Back Country Scenic Byway that encircled the Albion Mountains. And I got to see it twice.

My lack of time was also due to the fact that I had dawdled earlier in the morning, taking Maggie for one last long walk in Lake Walcott, and then spending a bit of time beside the Snake River to watch the parade of pelicans that lazed below the Minidoka Dam. And then there was the awesome osprey that was also hanging out beside the river that stopped me for a while, too.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie has grown to 43,888 words. I got up early and wrote this morning.

Bean’s Pat:  Since my internet connection is acting like a pouting brat who won’t come out of her room today, I haven’t been able to do much blog browsing. So the only Pat the Wondering Wanderer is giving out today is one to me for getting up early and writing, even though I partied until late last night.

Well, maybe also to the crew and actors of Avenue Q, the play I saw at the Rose Wagner Theater in Salt Lake City. I had never seen a raunchy puppet show before, and my friend was afraid I would be offended. I wasn’t. I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my seat. Despite its X rating, the play had a positive upbeat message. I mean how can you get offended at naked puppets, whose bodied ended at their midriffs, having sex.

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Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on September 5, 2012| 6 Comments »

“If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have to at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.” Douglas Adams

 

Heads or tails? Northern pintails both. — Photo by Pat Bean

 Favorite Bird-Watching Places

A roseate spoonbill turns the water pink with its reflection. — Photo by Pat Bean

            Squished between the Kennedy Space Center and the Canaveral National Seashore  is Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

On and around this Florida coastal area live over 1,000 plant species, 117 fish species, 68 amphibian and reptile species, 330 bird species and 31 different mammals.

I spent a couple of days roaming the refuge in search of the birds. These photos represent  just a few of the ones I saw.

Wood storks, snowy egrets, great egrets and white ibis feeding peacefully together, well until the snowy egrets got pushy. — Photo by Pat Bean

The world needs more such places.                

  Book Report:  Travels with Maggie is up to 43,203 words.. Not much else to say except I’m slowly plodding ahead. 

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Make Mine Mystery http://tinyurl.com/9mnc8b4 Visiting Archer City has been on my To-Do List for some time now. I think I need to give it a higher priority.

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Favorite Things: A Bit of Whimsy

Posted in Art, Birds, Favorite Places, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 4, 2012| 5 Comments »

I Often Fine It in Zoos

This artist captured a scene I can remember from when I had a young son and we had a cat. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Zoo — Photo by Pat Bean

“In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” – Ralph Waldo Anderson

Frolicking young elephants at the Dallas, Texas, Zoo. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Grinning hippo, Henson Robinson Zoo, Springfield, Illinois. — Photo by Pat Bean

When I travel, I often stop to visit zoos along the way. Besides my job at watching animals, especially if the zoos have given them adequate habitats to meet their needs and keep them happy, the grounds are usually full of botanical wonders. These green spaces also attract wild birds, which is why I always carry by binoculars with me when I visit. An extra bonus are the artistic efforts that have take place to enhance the zoo experience. Most zoos I have visited offer animal artists to show off their talents, often in a whimsical way that makes me smile.  Book Report: Travels with Maggie now at 42,248 words. Not a lot accomplished over the Labor Day weekend. I worked in the entrance kiosk here at Lake Walcott on Saturday and Sunday, and then hosted friends for a Labor Day picnic and day of playing Skip-Bo. I’m hoping to get in a good stretch of writing this afternoon.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Serenity Spell http://tinyurl.com/cjyxyg8 I love this little squirrel and the blog’s message to look for the magical things in the universe.

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Favorite Places: Lake Walcott

Posted in Art, Birds, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2012| 5 Comments »

            “To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.” George Santayana

            The above quote fit my blog, but the one below made me laugh.  I couldn’t decide which one to post with my column, so I’m sharing both.

            “A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing and the lawn mower is broken.”—James Dent.

The sage brush in an area adjacent to the Lake Walcott campground is beginning to think it’s already autumn. — Photo by .Pat Bean

Summer Comes, Summer Goes

The brown-headed cowbirds that earlier thronged my bird feeders have already migrated elsewhere — Sketch by Pat Bean

            I can’t believe my summer at Lake Walcott State Park in Southern Idaho is coming to an end. But then they do say time flies when you’re having fun.This green, manicured park that sits beside the lake and the Snake River is an oasis in a dry high desert region that this year has been plagued by wildfires. While it was a hotter summer here than last, it was still heaven compared to central and south Texas weather, where I usually spend the winters. There, they not only have the heat but high humidity as well.

I have three children in those regions who frequently remind me how lucky I am not to be there.

But the house sparrows, as noted from the ones feeding beneath my bird feeder just this morning, are still sticking around. — Photo by Pat Bean

Last year when I arrived at the park, it was still winter and the trees were bare. This year, on the exact same day, May 15th, it was 90 degrees when I arrived and the trees were already full of leaves. It cooled off, however, and it was almost July before I had to start using my RV’s air conditioner daily.

Now, I’m seeing signs of fall creep into the park. Many of the park’s birds, like the colorful Bullock’s orioles and the American goldfinch are already migrating south. Most robins, as well. Instead of seeing dozens of these birds on my walks through the park, I’m now lucky to see one.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie, 41,820 re-edited words. Not much progress but I’m hoping to spend all afternoon working on the book. I decided to blog earlier today and clear my decks. A young blogger asked today what was the best writing advice his readers had ever received. I told him, it’s “Write! Write! Write!”  

The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

          Bean’s Pat: Lifescapes: The Texas Hill Country http://dld.bz/bJNbr The sounds of summer. This is a blog for nature lovers written by Susan Wittig Albert, author of the China Bayles mystery series written for herb and plant lovers. .

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Favorite Places: Niagara Falls

Posted in Art, Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , on August 24, 2012| 3 Comments »

“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” – Frederick Douglass

The Hurricane Deck

On the way up to the Hurricane Deck and the full fury of Niagara Falls. I loved it. — Photo by Pat Bean

During my 2006 visit to Niagara Falls, I braved a claustrophobic elevator ride down through rock so I could view the falls up close and personal from the vantage point of what is known as the Hurricane Deck.

This bright orange wooden platform, reached by a looping series of walkways and steps leading to and from it, sits only 20 feet from the full force of the mighty falls.

The Fisherman by Joseph Mallard William Turner

As I stood on the deck in the useless yellow rain poncho handed out to tourists, being pummeled by the force of the water and deafened by its roar, I thought about J. M. William Turner. This artist, best known for the fantastic light he brought to his paintings, once had himself tied to a mast so he could both experience and observe a storm’s fury.

I once wrote an essay about Turner for a college art class. I wondered how much better the paper might have been if I had experienced the Hurricane Deck before doing so.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now up to 38,744 words. My blog today is a short blurb from the chapter that talks about my virgin visit to Niagara Falls. It was a good writing morning, especially since I only worked on the book for half an hour.  I have a busy day ahead. I’m doing the 100-mile round trip to Twin Falls from Lake Walcott to visit friends and stock up.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Green Herons http://tinyurl.com/8fehyzw If only we were all as smart as green herons. This one’s for all my fellow bird watchers. It includes a short You Tube video of one smart fishing bird.

 

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Lake Walcott Birds

Posted in Birds, Lakes, Nature, tagged , , , , , , , on August 14, 2012| 4 Comments »

            “Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.” –Victor Hugo

Minus One Sharp-Tailed Grouse

 

Only occasionally do I see western tanagers at Lake Walcott State Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

           I keep bird lists. These include a life list for all the bird species I’ve seen, a yearly bird list and a list of Lake Walcott birds. My life list stands at 702 bird species, the one for the year currently at 203 and the one for Lake Walcott, minus 1.

That one bird is the sharp-tailed grouse. Of all the birds that have been seen in the Lake Walcott area, it’s the only species not on my world list. Admittedly, it’s a rare bird for here, normally preferring more northern habitat, but I keep hoping.

Lake Walcott has, however, given me two lifers. A rare migrating Sabine’s gull that winters at sea, primarily off the West Coast, and a gray partridge, that calls Lake Walcott home year-round and which I’ve seen, among other places here, out the rear window of my RV.

Yesterday evening, the lake hosted a flock of Franklin gulls, a bird I’ve frequently seen but this was my first sighting of it here at the park. I think the flock was  just passing through because there were none of these gulls still around when Maggie and I took our walk this morning.

But white pelicans are on the daily bird-watching menu here. — Photo by Pat Bean

The visiting gulls, which both look and sound a lot like laughing gulls, were far enough out on the lake when I saw them that I had to use my binoculars to make an identification.

Birds I see here at the lake almost daily include white pelicans that make their nests on the opposite shore from me and which gather in great numbers below the dam where the Snake River froths up white as it flows down and over some rock ledges.

House sparrows, American goldfinches, black-headed grosbeaks, house finches, house sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, brown-headed cowbirds, Brewer’s blackbirds, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves, robins, killeer, and broad-tailed and black-chinned hummingbirds visit my camp site almost daily.

And black-headed grosbeaks make daily visits to the bird feeders I put out. — Photo by Pat Bean

Common nighthawks and a variety of swallows fly overhead each evening. A red-tailed hawk frequents a huge nearby cottonwood tree; I wake to the hooting of a great-horned owl and the cooing of doves.  I watch western grebes, Canada geese, quacking mallards and an occasional pied-billed grebe and northern pintail swim about in the water.

Life is good for this wondering/wandering birder here at Lake Walcott. If I were to send a postcard, I’d say: “Wish you were here.”

Book Report: “Travels with Maggie” now stands at 31,331 words. While that’s just about 600 more words than yesterday’s final count, I did a lot of slashing and rewriting to make things read smoother. Rewriting can be both easier and more difficult than the first time around, which I already knew. The good news is that I’m having fun with it.

Bean’s Pat:  10,000 Birds http://tinyurl.com/8t62xry Check out these bee-eaters.

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Favorite Places: The Ozarks

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , on August 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

“The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”  — Teddy Roosevelt

Roaring River State Park           

Missouri’s Roaring River wasn’t roaring when Maggie and I visited. — Photo by Pat Bean

Finding Oklahoma state parks to be my kind of place, I wondered if Missouri parks would be, too. I decided to find out on my way to St. Louis, even if it meant doubling the distance I had to travel to get there.

I considered the extra miles well worth it when I pulled into Roaring River State Park, where I had a fantastic site that backed up to a tiny creek.  Maggie and I also had our choice of several trails to hike. I chose the Pibern Trail, a narrow path that meandered in a loop through trees and thick vegetation for about a mile and a half. About halfway along our hike, I spotted my first Louisiana waterthrush, a small bird with a streaky breast and a prominent white eyebrow.

A patch of yellow flowers brightened the view near my RV site at Missouri’s Roaring River State Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

But early the next morning, when Maggie and I went looking for the “roaring river,” what we found instead was a purring stream whose banks were dotted with fly fishermen hoping to snag a trout.

We strolled beside it for a while, then made a visit to the park’s nature center, where two young boys were oohing and aahing over the bugs and snakes on exhibit there. I didn’t stay long. I was still recovering from my too-close encounter with an Ozark critter that found me during the Pibern Trail hike.

Both Maggie and I had each returned to the RV with a tick. Hers was dead already, I assumed from her monthly flea and tick killer application. Mine, however, was alive and sucking blood from my lower leg. It was the last time I went hiking in the Ozarks without a liberal dose of insect repellant on my body.

Book Report: Two days lost because the new keyboard for my #@%$** computer, which was only a little over a year old but which had given me problems almost from the day I bought it, didn’t fix the problem. The tech said it was probably the mother board. I’d had it!!!! I wasn’t going to put a single penny into that piece of  manure, an HP DV7 just in case anyone is interested, that I had come to hate. I bit the bullet and bought a new laptop, my first non HP one. It’s a Toshiba Satellite.  I spent the past two days playing with it. But it was back to business this morning, and I added another 2,000 rewritten words to my travel book. That seems to be my daily output when I don’t goof off.

Bean’s Pat: Every Day Wisdom http://tinyurl.com/96rkgw3 Advice I truly try to follow.

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Blue Water Highway: From Surfside to Galveston

Posted in Birds, Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on July 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

Travels With Maggie: Voice

As you travel the Blue Water Highway from Surfside to Galveston, you can enjoy two different landscapes, the beach and restless waves of the Gulf of Mexico to the east of the road, and a lush marshland where birds, such as this tri-colored heron can be seen in abundance. — Photo by Pat Bean

This past November, I blogged about my NANO (National Novel Writing Month) experience in which I wrote a 50,000 lousy first draft of a mystery. It was a way for me to keep up my six-day-a-week blog and still have time for the serious business of writing that NANO demanded.

So as to keep my blog’s travel theme, I also posted pictures of some of the many places I’ve visited since I became a full-time RV-er eight years ago.

About midway during those eight years, I wrote a travel book: “Travels With Maggie: The Journeys of a Wondering Wanderer and Her Canine Companion.”

It’s a six-month travelogue that begins in May and will take readers 7,000 miles, through 23 states and Canada.. It begins in a small town in Arkansas, wiggles north to Acadia National Park in Maine, and climaxes in Texas in time for Thanksgiving with family.

After it was finished, it was accepted as a book worthy of critique for the Mayborn Nonfiction Writer’s Workshop, and received high praise in all but one area. The nine writers who critiqued it, to a person, all said it lacked voice.

A restless Gulf provides a background for these laughing gulls. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’ve played around with rewriting the book for the past two years, but finally got serious, and re-excited, about doing it just two weeks ago. That’s mostly because I finally found my voice.

While writing the first draft, I had this image in my head that readers would get turned off if they knew how old the author was. That, along with my journalist background of keeping my own voice out of stories, was a serious flaw which I am now correcting.

I love that I’m an old broad with perspective, and I’m now trusting that readers will appreciate it, too.

This old broad stops for butterflies wherever she sees them. — Photo by Pat Bean

So so as to simplify my blogging so I can spend more time on my travel book, I’ve decided to repeat what I did during NANO, which is to post pictures of some of this country’s many beautiful places, while at the same time keeping you updated on the progress of my travel book. Perhaps you’ll even have your own perspective to add to my thoughts.

In the meantime, I’m also trying to convince an agent that my book will fit perfectly on a bookshelf between Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road,” Tim Cahill’s “Road Fever,” and John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley” – but with a birdwatchers’ old-broad slant.

Bean’s Pat: Durango to Silverton http://tinyurl.com/bm73owe A train ride you shouldn’t miss. Brian and Shannon are two of my favorite bloggers, perhaps because they and I travels frequently cross paths. Blog pick of the day from the wondering wanderer.

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The Snake River

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them but that they seize us.” – Ashley Montagu

Special Moments  

If there is anything of value that the years have taught this wondering wanderer, it’s how fleeting time is, and how important it is to be ready to catch the special moments that may never come our way again.

Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but the number of moments that take our breath away. Someone else said that first, but I don’t know who, just that it’s so very true.

The Snake River just below the Minidoka Dam in Southern Idaho. — Photo by Pat Bean

The Snake River has been responsible for taking my breath away hundreds of times, from it literally doing that when I rafted its white-water rapid sections – I’ve been in a raft that this river’s flipped and it’s flipped me out of a raft more than once – to the beauty it’s provided me every time I stand by its banks.

I saw my first magpies – we don’t have them in Texas where I grew up – playfully swooping above its waters that flowed through a farm in Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho.

Just a few of the hundreds of white pelicans that cluster on the river below the dam. — Photo by Pat Bean

And I’ve watched osprey dive into its depths in Wyoming and come up with a fish, and bald eagles flying over it in Washington, and hundreds of white pelicans fishing its waters just this summer.

It’s thankful I am to be spending the summer right next to the Snake River, the mother of Lake Walcott State Park where I’m a volunteer campground host. While I can only see the lake out my RV windows, a 10-minute walk puts me above or on the banks of this great river, which began its twisting journey through Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington at a hot spot in Yellowstone National Park.

From its junction here at Lake Walcott, the Snake will makes its way down to Twin Falls Gorge (where Evil Knievel attempted a motorcycle jump), then continue on through Hell’s Canyon and eventually join the Columbia River.

It takes my appreciation for all the joy its brought into my life with it.

Bean’s Pat: Sun Fire: http://tinyurl.com/bu29s98 One of those special moments that might never come your way again. Blog pick of the day from the wondering wanderer.

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