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Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Lake Walcott: Red-Winged Blackbirds

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on July 5, 2012| 6 Comments »

Fall sketch of red-winged blackbird at Antelope Island State Park in Utah

“Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt, and sometimes, discerned.” James Arthur Baldwin.

One Thing Is Not Like the Other

Female red-winged blackbird — Wikipedia photo

Back in my earlier days of bird watching, I came across a small flock of birds at Green River State Park in Utah that I spent an hour, field guide in hand, trying to identify. They just didn’t quite fit the description of any North American bird, or so I was coming to conclude.

And then a lone male red-winged blackbird flew past – and the light bulb came on. My flock of birds were female red-winged blackbirds. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen them before, I had just forgotten how unlike their mates they look.

You can find red-winged blackbirds anywhere you live here in North America.

Here at Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho, the males flash their scarlet epaulets boldly, saying look at me, look at me. The females, however, mostly stay hidden in the reeds growing on the lake bank, where they build their nests, in hopes they won’t be seen.

The show-off male — Wikipedia photo

It’s a rare day here at the park that I don’t see both birds, the females because I know where to look, and the males everywhere I look.  This morning one was even checking out the fresh supply of sunflower seeds I had put in my bird feeder.

Life doesn’t get much better.

Bean’s Pat: Lady Romp http://tinyurl.com/cekabj8 A message we all need to remember. Blog pick of the day from this wandering wonderer.

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First Sighting of Cedar Waxwing at Lake Walcott

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Art, Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on June 29, 2012| 9 Comments »

“Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue.” – David Brent.

A Poem for a Bird-Watching Artist

John James Audubon’s painting of a cedar waxwing.

She called herself an SOB – Spouse of Birder. It was a humid, hot mosquito day and she had tagged along with her passionate birder husband – and wasn’t enjoying herself at all.

I felt sorry for her. We avid birders really are a queer lot, as poet Stephen Vincent Benet noted in the 1800s. In our passionate pursuit of the next bird we’ll see, we forget that not everyone enjoys spending the day in a buggy swamp, or likes to get up at 3 a.m. to hike to a place so they can see a red-cockaded woodpecker at dawn, or stand patiently for hours in hopes a rare bird will appear.

The SOB finally went off and found a comfortable spot to read, while we birders continued down the trail this day at Brazos Bend State Park in Texas.

A second painting of cedar waxwings by John James Audubon

It wasn’t either hot or buggy yesterday morning, however, when I spotted my first cedar waxwing here at Lake Walcott. This bird with its rakish mask and lemon-yellow, rosy-brown and cool-gray feathers is always a treat to spot.

The waxwing, the first of many I’m sure I will see before I leave the park, was sitting on a limb in plain sight of the trail, which my canine traveling companion, Pepper, and I were taking for our first walk of the day.

I had my camera in my pocket, but my the time I got Pepper under control on the leash, and was ready to snap a photo, the bird had flown. Drats. I was left without a photo for my blog.

Back at my RV, I put my thinking cap on and came up with the idea of using John James Audubon’s painting of a cedar waxwing to illustrate my words. I typed in Audubon and waxwing and hit search. Up popped Benet’s poem titled, John James Audubon, which is what got me thinking about the SOB incident.

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Are These Huckleberries?

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Dogs, Favorite Places, Travel, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 28, 2012| 10 Comments »

 “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.” – Chinese proverb

Well What Are They?

I haven’t a clue as to what these berries are. Do you? — Photo by Pat Bean

I was sitting at my computer when Pepper jumped up from her cozy spot on my bare feet and started barking frantically.

Somebody, perhaps the tenth person this day, was approaching my RV. I glanced outside to see who it was, then hushed Pepper and told her it was OK.

I never scold her for barking because I like having her as my alarm system, even if her barks are sounded frequently, which they are. People, noting the campground host sign in front of my Lake Walcott RV site, stop by often.

But I do know that this is a milkweed. I learned its name last year in my searches to identify Lake Walcott plants. It’s a special favorite of butterflies. — Photo by Pat Bean.

I’m pretty good at answering most questions about the park, including its history and what facilities and activities are available. This, after all, is my third year as a volunteer here.

Sometimes the campers ask me to identify a bird they just saw. This is my favorite question because I can almost always answer it. With the exception of the sharp-tailed grouse, every bird species found here at the park is on my life birding list.

This guy, however, had a plant question.

“Are these huckleberries?” He was holding up a twig with berries from a bush that I had spotted earlier in the day – and photographed because I wanted to know what kind of berries they were myself.

Sadly I hadn’t been successful in identifying them, and had to tell him I didn’t know. I do so hate disappointing campers. Perhaps one of my readers is as avid a plant enthusiast as I am about birds and can tell me. See picture above.

Bean’s Pat: Serenity Spell http://tinyurl.com/87qcugr A young great blue heron’s meal. Great photos. Blog pick of the day by this wondering wanderer.

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Why Did I Think I Was So Awful?

Posted in Art, Birds, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on June 27, 2012| 22 Comments »

 “Every person is the creation of himself, the image of his own thinking and believing. As individuals think and believe, so they are.” –Claude M Bristol

A Little Bird Said Otherwise

After cropping, sharpening and enhancing the photo of a yellow-headed blackbird I took at Lake Walcott State, this turned out not to be too bad a shot. Most of my bird photos don’t come out half as good. — Photo by Pat Bean

When I was young, slender, wrinkle and sag free, I thought I was ugly. Today, I look at pictures from my past and realize, while perhaps not beautiful, I was pretty damn good-looking. And I have a few minutes of regret that I didn’t appreciate it way back when.

Today, I’m overweight, with a flabby soft belly and crow lines – I prefer to call them laugh lines – all over my face. And I’ve come to love my body because it has given me years of good service and is still going.

Lately, I’ve been thinking I’m a horrible artist. Nothing turns out like I imagine it in my head. What got me thinking about this was my inability to take decent bird photos. Of course that’s my choice. I’m a writer, not a photographer.

No. 1, don’t want to invest in the equipment necessary to capture birds in their rare moments from a distance. And No. 2, I don’t want to spend a lot of time looking at the world from behind a lens, which is what photographers have to do, and hopefully love to do as much as I love to write.

While not heavily detailed, I decided I also liked my artistic interpretaion of the yellow-headed blackbird. Perhaps I will use more of my bird art to go with my blog in the future. — Illustration by Pat Bean.

So why not, I’ve been asking myself for a couple of years, illustrate my bird blogs with some of my art work. Because you’re not good enough, my brain tells me. Art is one of my hobbies, and I’ve never wanted it to be more.

But this morning, when I was actually looking for a sketch I knew I had done of a killdeer imitating a broken wing to lead danger away from their nests (which I couldn’t find), because that’s what the killdeer here at Lake Walcott have been doing ever since I arrived here, I re-evaluated my bird art.

While I’m certainly never going to give professional artists cause for concern, my quick sketches and watercolors weren’t all that bad. It was like taking a second look at photos of myself from the advantage of being an old broad. And I liked what I saw.

Bean’s Pat: http://www.geezersisters.com/ About West Texas, where evidently there are no possums. Great web site. Blog pick of the day from this wandering wonderer.

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Lake Walcott Birds

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on June 26, 2012| 2 Comments »

 “I made a circle with a smile for a mouth on yellow paper, because it was sunny and bright.” Harvey Ball

Bullock’s Oriole and American Goldfinch

Bullock’s oriole. This one was all puffed up on a cold morning. — Photo by Pat Bean

There are two birds I have seen almost every day since I arrived in Southern Idaho, a Bullock’s oriole and an American goldfinch.

The oriole hangs out in an untrimmed area of the manicured park located to the rear of my RV site. Its landscape is dotted with Russian olive trees, sagebrush, a few small cottonwood trees and tall grasses.

In the cool of the evening, when I sit outside with my binoculars in hand, I almost always see an oriole, or two or three, flit about in the foliage, lighting up whichever branch or twig they land on like a Christmas ornament. I often point it out to campers who stop by. Oohs and ahs are the usual reactions.

American goldfinch: Hanging out on a willow tree next to the lake. — Photo by Pat Ban

Competing with the oriole for the golden-yellow award is the American goldfinch. Last year they hung out at the finch feeder bag I put out near my RV, but since I haven’t put that out this year, I usually see them flitting among the shoreline trees near the park’s Upper Lakeview campground.

It’s common, however, for me to spot these two birds just about anywhere in the park. I never tire of seeing them.

Bean’s Pat:: Daily Diversion http://onetrackmuse.com/ One big, odd pig. What’s up in your neighborhood. Blog pick of the day from this wondering wanderer.

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Lake Walcott: Birds

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Dogs, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on June 25, 2012| 4 Comments »

 “For me, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive.” – David Herbert Lawrence

This stalking black-crowned night heron is patiently waiting for its mouse dinner to pop up out of its hole. — Photo by Pat Bean

Black-Crowned Night Heron

A pair of black-crowned night heron have taken up residence in a landscape of reeds, Russian olives and cattails that line the bank of Lake Walcott between the park’s campground and boat dock.

The path between the two is one of those I take on my daily walks with my canine traveling companion, Pepper. Most days, mid-to-late-afternoons, I come up on one of the herons patiently waiting in the lawn area near a rock wall for dinner to appear.

This black-crowned night heron’s dinner is more common. — Wikipedia photo

The gourmet item on this heron’s menu is one of the small mice that make their home among holes in the rocks. The stalking heron is usually so still that Pepper seldom notices it, and so intent on dinner that I get a chance to marvel at its glowing red eye, which stands out vividly from its white and black feathers. .

Most days, unless Pepper sees it and barks and strains on the leash to go chase it, we don’t even disturb it as we pass by,

Although I’ve never seen but one on the manicured lawn, I know there are two because one day I spooked the second one as I passed by the cattails, and watched  as it flew deeper into the reed cover.

A fish dinner, or even a snake one, is a more normal diet for these herons. But their flexibility in food choices is probably one of the reasons these tree-nesting birds can be found on five continents, and why there is no current concern about their numbers.

Bean’s Pat: Dodging Commas http://tinyurl.com/7hfuamp Words for writers. This wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

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Sunday Morning Sunrise

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on June 24, 2012| 14 Comments »

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dew and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” – John Muir

The view from my RV, with no photographic enhancement. — Photo by Pat Bean

Lake Walcott Welcomes the Day

Reflections: A calm lake provides a second canvas for Mother Nature. — Photo by Pat Bean

I took 25 days to drive from my daughter’s home on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, to Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho, where I’ll be spending the summer.

It’s my third year here as a volunteer campground host. I return because it’s an awesome place, where Mother Nature changes the scenery daily. I arrive in time to see the first buds of spring paint the landscape, and stay until the crisp colors of autumn paint over the green of summer.

Nowhere, however, have I ever seen more spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

Thankfully, my canine companion, Pepper, wakes me in time to see that magic hour of grayness, when all the world seems to hold its breath for a moment, in anticipation of dawn’s first light.

This morning’s explosion was especially spectacular.

Bean’s Pat: http://photonatureblog.com/ This blog helps me get a daily dose of nature’s wonders. Today it’s a butterfly that stirs my soul. Blog pick of the day by a wondering wanderer.  

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An Easy Trail With a View

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on June 22, 2012| 10 Comments »

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

The start of the trail from the Grotto shuttle bus stop. Come hike me the trail called to me. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Walk the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail With Me

Rocks form a mysterious tunnel shortly before the trail descends to the Emerald Pools. — Photo by Pat Bean

A two-mile trail between the Grotto and Zion Lodge, the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail in Zion National Park is ideal for wandering/wondering old broads like me. It has only a mild, 150-foot-elevation gain but there is something to see around every bend in the road.

The May day I walked it, I had a playful squirrel, hoping for a handout which it didn’t get, follow me for a while, saw a magnificent blue-bellied lizard, and had excellent views of the Virgin River Valley 150 feet below me.

Of course there were flowers: Indian paintbrush, columbine, shooting stars, wall flowers and daisies, just to name a few.

These were expected. What wasn’t was the short tunnel formed by rocks that one had to pass through and the opportunity to walk behind a waterfall.

The waterfall was only a trickle this day, but it was still cool to walk behind it. — Photo by Pat Bean

I wish you had been with me.

Bean’s Pat: Darla Writes http://tinyurl.com/7bl7zo6 The best writing advice ever. I promise. Tell me if you agree.  This wandering/wondering old broad’s blog pick of the day.

 

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Favorite Places: Zion National Park

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on June 20, 2012| 12 Comments »

 “Rivers know this. There is no hurry. We’ll get there someday.” Winnie the Pooh.

 

A walk along the Virgin River in Zion National Park. I love this shot with light and shadows playing together. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Calm Waters

And how about the colors on the rocks surrounding this calm pool? Don’t they just calm your soul. — Photo by Pat Bean

Busy day today for me here at Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho, where I’m campground host for the summer.

I’ve been here for a month now, although my blog has still been dawdling along on my trip from Texas to get here, and will for another couple of days at least.

Today I head into town, 25 miles away, for one of my twice monthly visits. I need to do grocery shopping, laundry, get a haircut, and of course, buy my canine traveling companion, Pepper, a treat.

But before I go, I thought I would share a couple of my favorite water pictures from Zion National Park. Enjoy.

Bean’s Pat: Soul Writings http://tinyurl.com/7hzo543 This happy-ending story about Freedom made me cry.

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Southern Utah National Parks

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 18, 2012| 7 Comments »

“Earth Laughs in Flowers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Just one of the many spectacular skylines at Zion National Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Take Time to Stop and Smell the Flowers

Indian paintbrush growing out of a rock wall. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Indian paintbrush growing out of a rock wall. — Photo by Pat Bean

Having spent many hours in each, although Zion hogged the majority of those hours, I dare to say you won’t find anywhere else in the world that has such a concentrated landscape of awesomeness.

It’s mostly redrock country, with rugged mountain peaks, natural bridges, hoodoos, rivers that roar in early spring and hum softly in late summer and sights that simply take your breath away.

While I’ve found beauty in every state, this is truly a landscape you should not miss. And don’t forget to smell the flowers while you’re at it.

Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/cfbvevs 30 Ways to Improve Yourself. I’m a sucker for these kind of tips, and these are all practical and doable.  

 

 

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