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Posts Tagged ‘Birds’

A Small Arkansas Town

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2011| 8 Comments »

A Camden, Arkansas, sunrise -- Photo by Pat Bean

“To read the papers and to listen to the news … one would think the country is in terrible trouble. You do not get that impression when you travel the back roads and the small towns …” — Charles Kuralt

 Travels With Maggie

I flushed a northern cardinal and a brown thrasher and startled a flock of Brewer’s blackbirds this morning when I first opened my RV door. This trio, along with mockingbirds, sparrows and crows, are regular visitors to my youngest daughter’s five-acre home in Camden, Arkansas.

 This small friendly town, where strangers you meet act as if you had been a dear friend for years, has no traffic jams (which I love) but also no Starbucks (which I occasionally miss). It’s greatest claims to fame are Grapette and Camark.

Gypsy Lee snug in her Arkansas temporary winter home -- Photo by Pat Bean

The first is the dark purple soda introduced in Camden in 1940. Although not ranking up there on the popularity meter with Coke or Pepsi, one can still buy and drink Grapette today. Remembering how I used to love its sweet grape flavor, I drink half of one every few years or so before overdosing on the sugary taste. These days I don’t even put sugar in my coffee or tea.

Camark was the name of a pottery plant that opened its doors in Camden in 1926. It was a thriving industry in the town for many years, but sold its last piece of pottery here in 1982. The pottery is considered quite collectible today, at least according to those who supposedly know such things.

 What I know is that Camden is a nice place to recharge my batteries for a few weeks in winter in anticipation of getting back on the road in the spring. Bonus features include a perfect sunrise view out my RV window, a visiting armadillo, an occasional ride on one of my daughter’s horses, being lulled to sleep by coyotes howling in the adjacent woods, and sightings of a pileated woodpecker that likes to sit in a tall tree at the end the long driveway.

 Oh yes! Let’s not forget the bonus of visiting with my daughter and her husband, and three young grandsons.

 Life is good in Camden, Arkansas.

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Birds and Travel Go Together

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

 

A northern mockingbird was my first bird of the new year. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 “Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” — Henry Van Dyke

Travels With Maggie

I’m a passionate birdwatcher, who keeps a list of birds I’ve seen. My life list now totals 696 bird species. It’s a respectable number for this late-blooming birder, but far from spectacular.

If you want to know more about the birding numbers game you should read “The Big Year” by Mark Obmascik. It’s a great read even if you aren’t a birder. It’s about three guys who spend a year chasing birds all across North America. At the whisper of a rare bird alert, they would fly thousands of miles on a minute’s notice.

Although I did once drive 400 miles to see one particular bird, these days I usually just bird where my travels take me. I check out bird festivals going on while I’m in the vicinity, and hook up with local Audubon chapters for birding field trips. This past year these efforts, including one day when I hired a guide to help me find the golden-cheeked warbler that I had been trying to find for three years, earned me 12 new life birds. And yes, the warbler was one of them.

I spotted this yellow-crowned night heron at the Sea Center in Lake Jackson, Texas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

This year’s birding efforts, meanwhile, have begun slower than normal. I’ve been parked in my son’s driveway here in Harker Heights all this week and a cold front moving through the area seems to have kept the birds tucked away.

At least they’re not falling out of the sky dead, as red-winged blackbirds and starlings have been doing in Arkansas the past couple of days. That’s a scary thing because birds, like the canaries coal miners carried into the tunnels with them as their bad air detectors, are indicators of an environment’s health.

My first bird of this new year was a northern mockingbird, appropriate since it’s Texas’ state bird. It was a brilliant gray and white fellow with yellow eyes that landed on a fence about eight feet from my RV window. As I watched, it flashed its long tail in the air – then pooped.

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Too Bad the Queen Missed the Park

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on December 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The sign stopped me, the park enchanted me -- Photo by Pat Bean

 “Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process. The work of many decisions.” — Oscar Hammerstein

Travels With Maggie

Located on the Arkansas side of the Talimena Scenic Drive before it crosses into Oklahoma, Queen Wilhemina State Park was created in the late 1800s and named after Queen Wilhelmina in hopes the young ruler of the Netherlands would visit.

While the park was only 15 miles from where I had spent the previous night, it looked too inviting to pass by – or stay for just one night. That’s the beauty of having no deadlines to meet. The rain storm that blanked the area for the next few days, and which I wouldn’t have wanted to drive through, confirmed my instincts

Turtles, along with birds, deer and squirrels called Arkansas' Queen Wilhemina park home. -- Photo by Pat Bean

During one break in the storm, I walked up to the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge, where I devoured one of the tastiest cheeseburgers of my life while watching dark storm clouds build up for another burst. There’s something in me that loves a storm, and the sound of rain drumming on my RV roof is as enjoyable as a well-played concert. I was glad, however, that I made it back to the coziness of my RV, with my last bite of cheeseburger wrapped in a napkin for Maggie, before the downpour began anew.

Flowers grew all over the park -- Photo by Pat Bean

Finally the storm ended and I spent the next two days hiking the park’s trails, and watching birds and other wildlife. It was with reluctance that I finally left this special place. It’s too bad Queen Wilhelmina never visited. I’m sure she would have enjoyed her stay.

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The Beauty of a Dark Chasm

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 

Painted Wall of the Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison with the Gunnison River flowing below. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Travels With Maggie 

  “As we become curators of our own contentment on the Simple Abundance path… we learn to savor the small with a grateful heart.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach –

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

While visitors to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park may be awed by the deep narrow chasm carved by the Gunnison River below them – I certainly was – I didn’t forget to look right in front of my nose. I’m always amazed at Mother Nature’s more delicate landscape paintings, be it a single purple flower or a massive canvas of lichen, twigs, grasses, rocks soil and leaves.

I stayed in the park’s South Rim Campground, which has electrical hookups and is adjacent to a mile-long rim trail with excellent views of the canyon. Maggie and I encountered deer, squirrels and a marmot on our walks, while red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures flew above us.

 
 

I found the landscape of rocks and foilage painted by Mother Nature as awesome as the mighty canyon. -- Photo by Pat Bean

We even got a brief glimpse of a peregrine falcon flying in the canyon beneath us. Once nearly extinct, this speediest of birds has made a magnificent comeback.

Another hike took me along the canyon floor for a rendezvous with a boat, and a ride through the canyon, past a waterfall, on a ranger-led tour. Writing now about this visit to the park two years ago makes me want to go back.

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The Fat Lady Hasn’t Sung so the Journey’s Not Over

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on November 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 

A sulphur cloud butterfly was still flitting when I reached Arkansas -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment because it will never come again.” Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

And the Gardenia's were still blooming. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Travels With Maggie

Come take a jaunt with me, I asked, as I headed to Idaho’s Panhandle some seven months ago. Along the way I gathered new friends and five new life birds and enjoyed the company of old friends and all the other birds along the way.

I saw the gaping hole in Mount St. Helens that was created when the volcanic mountain blew its top. I fed wild turkeys from my hand and almost got blown to Kansas during a West Texas wind storm. I gazed at waterfalls and glaciers on Mount Ranier, took a boat ride on a deep lake where the Navy conducts submarine experiments, and survived a blowout in my RV.

Since leaving Texas in April, I’ve also put an extra 6,000 miles on Gypsy Lee, bringing her total now up to 112,000 miles that we’ve shared on the road together. Thankfully, she still acts like she’s got many more miles in her. I know I do.

Meanwhile, after seven months away it was good to see family again. My two daughters were first. I stopped overnight in Dallas after leaving Vernon to spend an evening with my oldest daughter. Then it was on to Camden, Arkansas, where my youngest daughter lives. I spent a week there babysitting three grandsons while their parents took off for business and pleasure to San Diego.

The boys – 9, 10 and 11 – and I had a great time. We rode bikes, skinned knees, played games and watched Disney videos together. It seemed as if their parents returned home much too quickly.

 

Grandsons Patrick, JJ and Tony look pleased with themselves after scrubing down Gypsy Lee for their Nana. -- Photo by Pat bean

But soon Maggie and my itchy feet were ready to return to the road. As Jack Kerouac said; “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and its good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

 My travels will continue and you’re still welcome to come along.

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River Music Serenades an Unconnected World

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on October 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

 

And the Fish

The owl

“He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.” — Horace

Travel’s With Maggie

Today’s drive took me from Southern Utah’s red-rock high desert to Colorado’s San Juan National Forest. I spent the night at an RV park just outside of Pagosa Springs parked next to the Blanco River. It doesn’t get much better than this, I thought.

The Blanco River as seen from my RV window. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Our early September afternoon arrival left plenty of time for Maggie and I to take a hike along the river bank and among the wildflowers. Maggie kept her nose to the ground in search of exotic smells to follow, while I looked to the sky. A circling red-tailed hawk overhead drew my attention, as did a couple of chattering magpies in a nearby cottonwood tree.

I pity the poor person whose heart doesn’t skip a beat at the sight of this hawk’s red tail spread wide and flashing in the sunlight. On the other hand, I think some people pity my love for the playful but loud, long-tailed magpies they consider nuisance birds. Being a Texan not known for her quiet ways, I always feel these birds and I share a connection.

This would be the fourth time I had stayed at this Blanco River RV Park off Highway 84. It’s a welcome and convenient spot for campers traveling between Utah and Texas, a trip I’ve made annually since becoming a full-time RV-er. Each visit here has left me enchanted with both the setting and the little touches the campground owners have made to make the place special.

Modern day rock art -- Photo by Pat Bean

 I consider the rocks someone has painted and scattered about the park as fascinating as I find the pictographs and petroglyphs of earlier cultures.

 As I watched the sun disappear at the end of the day, a feeling of contentment oozed from my  pores. I realized I didn’t miss at all the fact that I had no phone, internet or television connections. Tomorrow would be soon enough to hook back up to the world.

Soon after, Maggie and I crawled into bed and went to sleep to the music of the river rippling over rocks.

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Bugs, Mice, Nighthawks, Owls and a Visiting Raccoon

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 “In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.” — Charles A. Lindbergh.

My morning visitor -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Midges and flies, but thankfully not blood-sucking mosquitoes, were an almost a constant human nuisance during my stay at Lake Walcott. A few even found their way into my RV, which was sad. While I’m very respectful of wildlife, even bugs and snakes, once a wild critter intrudes into my home, it usually ends up being a dead critter. A cute little field mouse discovered this when it nibbled on the tasty peanut butter I had spread on a mouse trap after I had spotted it scooting across my narrow floor.

 But bugs and mice are part of the circle of life. And if you’re a birder you have to appreciate them. These fast-breeding creatures make it possible for the existence of the slower breeding feathered flyers that amaze me. I saw this almost daily at Lake Walcott as the midges provided a tasty meal for a dawn and dusk parade of circling nighthawks flying overhead.

And while they didn’t make a personal appearance, I’m sure the great horned owls that hoo-hoo-hooed me awake each morning dined elegantly on some of the field mice I occasionally saw scampering through the sagebrush. During my

Common nighthawk -- Photo by Mark B. Bartosik

 earlier spring visit to the park, I had been honored to spot a great horned owl nest that had a couple of tiny heads poking above its jumbled wall of sticks. The park is full of huge, magnificent cottonwood trees that I knew from past sightings were favorite nesting spots of these silent flying night hunters.

 One morning I woke to find a four-legged critter poking around my campsite, one that has included human handouts as part of its menu plan. It was a raccoon, whose photo I took from my dining room table while drinking my morning coffee. While he didn’t get any tasty tidbits from me, I saw evidence of his dining habits in the wake of trashed tin garbage cans most mornings.

 When Maggie finally noticed our visitor, she barked excitedly. The raccoon appeared familiar with such nonsense. It merely stared for a moment at our RV, then slowly sauntered back into the brush behind the campground. I hoped he found something tasty out of the trash can I later picked up on my morning walk through of the campground.

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Ladies Night Out: Drinks, Dinner, a Boat Ride, Geese, Goats and Laughter

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on July 17, 2010| 3 Comments »

Travels With Maggie

“Laughter not only makes the journey endurable and even enjoyable, it also helps keep us healthy.” — Joyce Meyer

 Seventeen female volunteers and staff workers from Farragut State Park met this week for dinner and drinks at the Floating Patio. The small bar and restaurant sits atop Lake Pend Oreille in the tiny tourist town of Bayview. Idaho.

A Canada goose takes off in front of our pontoon boat ... Photo by Pat Bean

The deep blue, 65-mile long lake’s name is a sure give away of who’s a local and who’s a tourist just passing through. It’s pronounced Pon-da-ray, which is sort of French for ear, or so I’ve been told, not Pend-o-rye-ly, as I called it before I was corrected.

I’ve learned that when a group of females get together – be they giggling teenagers to wrinkled and post menopausal old broads – irreverent laughter often rules.

Heading into the Floating Patio for Drinks and Dinner ... Photo by Pat Bean

 So it was this night as we drank our wine and Diet Cokes, snacked on pre-dinner popcorn and then ate our hamburgers, chicken Caesar salads or barbecue specials. Without boyfriends or husbands to please, compete with, impress or cater to, women often lose their inhibitions of proper-ness. Men, I think, do the same when women are not present. It has nothing to do with liking or loving the opposite sex, it just feels good once in awhile to be in a group that best understands you.

The laughter and camaraderie we shared getting to know one another better during the meal continued as we boarded two pontoon boats for a cruise of the lake. Ours was captained by Scott Bjergo, owner with his wife of Floating Patio Boat Rentals and Bayview Merc. You can reach him at bayviewboatrentals.com.

Shoreline reflections paint the lake's canvas ... Photo by Pat Bean

 I asked because I was impressed by Scott, who put up with our female kidding of him being the boy toy on the boat, and because I thought of how great it would be to spend a day on the water with friends and loved ones. You might think the same if you’re ever in Idaho’s panhandle just 100 miles away from the Canadian border.

I was truly looking forward to the boat ride. Being on the water makes me giddy. It’s a comfortable feeling of both awe and belonging. I sometimes wonder if its my ancestral cells calling to me.

The avid bird-watcher in me also got a treat when a gaggle of geese led our pontoon boat away from the Floating Patio. They floated ahead of us so close I was afraid our boat was going to run over them. One in particular was slow to get out of the way, but finally took a running, flapping scramble into the sky. Droplets of water from its spray hit me as I leaned out to snap a photo of the awkward aerial takeoff and then its graceful flight as its wings caught the air.

Women on the second boat excitedly point out the mountain goats high on the escarpment. ... Photo by Pat Bean

 Long evening shadows of color from sailboats, trees, cliffs and houses painted the dark water. Pend Oreille, is over 1,000 feet deep in places, which makes it an excellent spot for the Navy’s testing of submarines, albeit miniature unmanned ones that could have even now been passing beneath us. We passed by the Navy’s lake facilities, both onshore and lake anchored, where the testing is done.

 The highlight of the evening aboard the boat would have to have been the sighting of the mountain goats on the steep

 glacial carved escarpment surrounding the lake. After a few white rocks fooled us, we finally got a glimpse of four of the goats near the top heading upward. We had missed a closer view of them coming down to the water to drink. The goats were too far away for my camera to capture them, but I did get a photo of the passengers in the other boat as the women excitedly pointed at the animals.

 The evening ended all too soon, with everyone heading back to the park, most to loved ones of the opposite human sex. Maggie, my faithful cocker spaniel travel companion was waiting for me to tell her about my ladies’ night out. And I did. She’s been my soul mate for the six years I’ve been traveling the country in my RV.

It’s always ladies night out for the two of us.

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Travels With Maggie: The babies have hatched

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on July 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Hungry mouths

Growing a little

Photos by Pat Bean  

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” C. S. Lewis

From helpless and naked to spouting feathers for flying in only two weeks at Farragut State Park

"Mama we're hungry"

The good-mother robin I’ve been watching the past few weeks is now raising three chicks. The first time I visited her after they had hatched, she dive-bombed me. After quickly snapping a photo I left the scene. The second time I came, she sat on a tiny tree four feet from the nest and gave me a concerned, dirty look. The third time, she sat on the same tree, but seemed more peaceful.

Her growing chicks mouths were about all I could see at first. The birds are born naked and helpless, depending completely on their parents for warmth and nourishment. They now have feathers and look almost ready to leave the nest, a process that takes only about 13 days. It’s been an awesome joy daily watching this transformation.

I suspect this is my mother robin’s second brood of the year. When I first discovered her nest a fallen portion of an earlier nest beneath it contained remains of an empty egg shell that appeared to have hatched. Robins can raise three broods in a good year, and can live up to 14 years – if Mother Nature is kind to them.

It's getting a bit crowded in the nest

Most, however, don’t survive beyond about 7 years, and only about 40 percent of chicks reach adulthood. Magpies find baby robins quite tasty, as do snakes, cats and many other predators.

Considering this mother robin’s attentive care, I suspect her babies may have a higher percentage rate. And whether that’s true or not, the optimist in me will continue to believe it to be so.

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Travels With Maggie: Animals Outside My Window

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

A rabbit quietly sits near my RV ... Photo by Pat Bean

 “Forever is composed of nows.” Emily Dickinson 

White-tailed deer ... Photo by Pat Bean

Animal life here at Farragut State Park goes about its daily passage of time in view of My RV window. I watch a constant stream of rabbits hopping among the shadows of the trees, noisy squirrels chattering as they scamper on the branches above, mourning doves and dark-eyed juncos picking at the bird seed I scattered, colorful butterflies flitting by, a black-chinned hummingbird drinking from my small nectar feeder, and an occasional deer sauntering through the woods. 

My heart welcomes such sights and I ask myself why these simple animals give me so much pleasure. I pondered this for a long time before deciding there was no simple answer. 

Their lives speak of freedom to me, yet I know these animals have things to fear: Raptors and coyotes ever looking for a meal, hunters with guns, and even Mother Nature herself when she decides to stage a stormy tantrum. 

The alarm call of chickadees when a sharp-shinned hawk is nearby, the fake injury performance of a killdeer to lead predators away from its chicks, the quick scampering away of rabbits at the slightest noise and the cautious look around before a deer abandons the safety of the forest tells me these animals are not unaware of the dangers. 

Is this so different from the anxiety and stress humans have for finding a job, feeding their families, securing a roof over their heads, and for me these days, worrying about a loved one soon to be deployed to Afghanistan. Mother Nature even taunts us with hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. 

I guess life wasn’t meant to be easy. We probably wouldn’t appreciate it if it was. 

A butterfly briefly settles ... Photo by at Bean

Watching animals live their life outside my window puts me in the moment. And perhaps this is the best reason of all of why I enjoy doing it so much. We can’t change what happened yesterday, and worrying about tomorrow is useless – unless we’re actually doing something to make tomorrow better, and the only way we can do that is to live in the moment. 

 The animals going about their daily business in sight of my RV window remind me of this. And for that I’m thankful.

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