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Posts Tagged ‘pat bean’

What The Heck Is That Duck?

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on December 10, 2011| 2 Comments »

“Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and the wonder surrounding him. – Ansel Adams

 

Vermilion flycatcher: Unlike many flycatchers that look alike, there is no mistaking this species. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Bird Talk

I’ve always wanted to know the names of things, but I wasn’t exactly pathetic about the need until I took up birding back in 1999.

I came late to this addictive passion, suddenly being amazed at all the birds around me. Where once these flying creatures were invisible, as if existing in a parallel world with a curtain drawn between them and me, suddenly I was seeing them everywhere.

My fascination with birds can be annoying to non-birders. A shadow flicks across the landscape and I lose my place in a conversation as my eyes turn upward searching for the source.

I constantly scan the tops of utility poles looking for familiar profiles. The sight of a red-tailed hawk sitting atop one causes me to yell “stop” to the car driver. A rustle or movement of leaves and I am distracted from a task. No roadside pond goes unscanned. Well, you get the idea.

 

The unique profile of a hammerkop makes it a hard bird to misidentify. But you'll have to go to the African continent if you want to see one. -- Photo by Pat bean

But seeing a bird is not enough. I must know what bird it is.

Is that a crow or a raven was one of my first identification problems. The raven is larger but size, without a comparison, is not much help. So I learned that a crow’s tail is razor straight at the end, while a raven’s tail is wedge-shaped. Ravens also are the ones who suffer bad-hair days.

Many flycatchers, meanwhile, still puzzle me. Quite a few look almost exactly alike. A long look through a good scope, and knowing preferred ranges and habitats of each species, is necessary for identifying these birds.

 

You won't find this bird in any field guide. It's a mallard hybrid. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Knowing that you’re looking at a flycatcher is easy, however. One usually sees them sitting up straight on a branch. They fly out to catch an insect and then most return to the same branch to repeat the process. If I have long enough to watch, and a good field guide, sometimes I can even figure out whether it’s a dusky or a willow, or one of several other flycatchers showing off for me.

When I was first learning to bird, there was this one particular duck that completely stumped me. While I had a really good look at the creature, I couldn’t find it in my field guide. I finally gave up and asked one of my birding mentors, who immediately broke into laughter.

The duck in question was a mallard hybrid. Since then I’ve seen a lot of these unique, but sterile offspring. Mallards, it seems, are sluts.

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Mother Nature Tangos With Orange

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on December 9, 2011| 1 Comment »

 “Orange is the happiest color.” – Frank Sinatra

 

This gulf fritillary meets the 2012 suggested tangerine tango dress code -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Travels With Maggie

 

The last leaves of fall linger on the landscape's color palette -- Photo by Pat Bean

The color of 2012 is going to be orange, says Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute, which creates color standards for fashion and home industries.

The world doesn’t need more blues and gray. It needs a shot of energy and that’s what “tangerine tango” will give it, she predicts.

I think Mother Nature agrees with her.

While I only found the New York Times article in which Eiseman was quoted this morning while scanning the Internet for blogging inspiration, I took some photos that match her criteria for color boldness a couple of days earlier while out walking Maggie.

Thanks to an abundance of live oak trees that hold on to their green leaves through the winter, the Texas Gulf Coast escapes the blandness of many winter landscapes.

Even so, one has to look a little harder to discover the sparkling color jewels among the brown leaves, gray moss and bare flower gardens of winter here.

 

Grays and blues, however, will never go away. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Finding that shot of color, be it red berries on a yaupon holly tree or a few lingering leaves bearing fall hues always brings a smile to my face.

So I’ll be delighted if I find more orange products in 2012, especially if the colorists take their cues from Mother Nature.

“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” — Vincent Van Gogh

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White Ibis and a Disgruntled Maggie

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on December 9, 2011| 9 Comments »

‘An old dog, even more than an old spouse, always feels like doing what you feel like doing.” — Robert Brault

 

White ibis coming in for a landing at the Sea Center in Lake Jackson on a cold morning. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Travels With Maggie

I braved the cold yesterday morning to walk the boardwalk at the Sea Center in Lake Jackson. It’s a great place to watch birds, as well as being a fish hatchery, beach/seashore museum and an aquarium.

Check it out at: http://www.texasexplorer.com/SeaCenterTexas.htm

 

A new sign marks the Bobcat Woods Trail in San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge. That's my son, Lewis, in the background. -- Photo by Pat Bean

While I had a pair of warm gloves, I never kept them on long enough for my fingers to warm up. I was too busy checking out the Audubon Bird App on the new smart phone my son gave me as an early Christmas present and taking pictures. I can use my binoculars with my gloves on, but not the phone or camera.

My photo above of the white ibis was my reward for braving the cold. It did warm up later on in the day, and my son, Lewis, and I found about 40 species. After the Sea Center, we walked Bobcat Trail at San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge.

My dog, Maggie, wasn’t happy, however. I had left her home so she could stay warm and cozy in the RV. But the dirty looks she gave me for the rest of the afternoon indicated she had wanted to go birding, too. Or at least gone for the ride.

Gypsy Lee has been parked for a week and Maggie is already getting antsy.

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Excuses, Xmas Shopping and an Important Announcement

Posted in Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on December 7, 2011| 10 Comments »

Remember
This December,
That love weighs more than gold!
~Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

Travels With Maggie

 

Rocky considers himself a family member, too, and wonders what's beneath the tree for him. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I didn’t post a blog yesterday. And I didn’t add a 1,000 words to the travel book that I’m rewriting.

So what, you may be asking, did I do?

I walked Maggie, of course, and cleaned her ears, a daily chore because of her proneness to chronic cocker spaniel ear infection – and I went Christmas shopping.

It is that time of year you know. And because of that I’m not beating myself up too badly for what I didn’t do. You see, I’m a traitor to my gender. I HATE SHOPPING!

But on the opposite end of the spectrum, I LOVE CHRISTMAS, and giving gifts to my loved ones. The challenge for me is finding something I think each person in my growing family will like within my limited budget of $20 or less per person.

We break into this blog for an Important Announcement: Believe it or not just as I was mentioning my large family, I got a text message saying one more has been added. My granddaughter in Orlando, Florida, just delivered a beautiful (I know he is even though I haven’t seen him yet), healthy 6-pound-9-ounce boy to it.

 

Maggie and I passed this tree on our morning walk in the park across from son's home. I thought it as festive as any Christmas tree. -- Photo by Pat Bean

We now take you back to our regular program:

Anyway, I try to pick up things in my travels that I think will appeal to one loved one or another, but this year I didn’t do much of that. It left me with a hard day of shopping, but with only two presents yet to buy.

That’s actually way ahead of schedule for me. I’ve been known to frantically be shopping the stores at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go shout the news of my new great-grandchild to the world.

And then hopefully tackle my travel book.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Waiting

Posted in Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , on December 4, 2011| 3 Comments »

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” — Carl Sagan
 

Waiting for someone to sit down and watch the boats go past in the Erie River Harbor in Canada. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

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A Woodpecker, Not a Raven, Came a Rapping

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on December 4, 2011| 4 Comments »

 “If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.” – J.M. Power

 

A pair of pileated woodpeckers -- Wikipedia photo

 

Travels With Maggie

I awoke this morning to a rapid knocking coming from outside my RV, which is now parked in the driveway at the home of my son, Lewis, who lives near the Texas Gulf Coast.

One side of Gypsy Lee faces my son’s house and the other a thick row of hedges and tall trees that daily host a vast variety of birds, squirrels, an occasional cat – and on the foliage-lined walkway every morning at 7 o’clock an elderly man walking his very vocal golden-red bloodhound.

Several small dogs on the far side of the woodsy public right of way, always bark when they hear the hound’s deep rumbling voice. Maggie, 14 and quite deaf, usually sleeps through the ruckus. Thankfully I’m almost always up at this time of morning.

 

Ivory-billed woodpeckers -- Painting by John James Audubon

I was still abed, however, although awake reading while waiting for daylight, when the knocking begin. It was deeper and more persistence than that of a downy woodpecker, which is the most frequent morning visitor that lets me know it’s hovering nearby by knocking on a tree. The sound always triggers my brain to the tapping and rapping at Poe’s door by a raven.

I suspected my bird this morning, however, might be a pileated woodpecker. A look through my binoculars, which are always handy, confirmed my suspicions. Even in the morning’s dim light, this large woodpecker’s size and shape can’t be missed.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen and heard this close look-alike of the more famous ivory-billed woodpecker, which was thought to be extinct until recently. Several respected ornithologists now say they have seen this bird, whose last documented sighting happened in the 1940s. Other, also respected ornithologists, are skeptical.

I just hope that we humans don’t do to the pileated woodpeckers what we did to the ivory-billed, which is to destroy its last remaining habitat.

The pileated survived because it adapted to change. It’s a good lesson for us all in this fast-changing world.

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Bastrop State Park Called. I Didn’t Pick Up

Posted in Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 3, 2011| 2 Comments »

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” – Sarah Caldwell

 

Bastrop State Park is home to the endangered Houston Toad. -- Wikipedia photo

Travels With Maggie

As I suspected, yesterday’s 200-mile drive from Austin to Lake Jackson was mostly done in rain. And because I knew that. Gypsy Lee, my RV, takes her time stopping on slippery roads I drove a bit slower than normal.

I also let the rain and the slower speed that put me behind scheduled alter my plans for the day, which was to take an hour off from driving and explore Bastrop State Park. The park, located off Highway 21/71 southeast of Austin, is known as the home of the “Lost Pines” because it’s separated by about a 100 miles from the Piney Woods of East Texas.

My travel agenda almost always includes planned stops like this because they usually provide good photographic fodder for my blog and satisfy my cat’s curiosity. I have a button, saved from a journalism conference I attended when I was a city editor, that states: “I Want It All.” That’s actually true, and “I Want to See It All,” too.

 

The lake at Bastrop State Park -- Wikipedia photo

But I let time and rain wimp me out this day, giving my wimpy excuses encouragement because my Texas State Park Pass had expired and I would have to pay to enter the park. As I drove past the park entrance, Maggie snored softly in her co-pilot seat. She reminds me of my kids when they were young. They either slept or stuck their noses in comic books when we traveled long distances. Some of my grandkids, sad to say, do the same, except instead of reading comic books they play games on their cell phones. .

This morning, while scratching my head over a blog subject, I decided to explore online what I missed seeing personally.

What I discovered was that Bastrop State Park was closed after this past summer’s Texas wildfire damage. Only yesterday, according to the online news story I found on the park’s web page, were parts of it actually opened again to the public. For more information about what I would have missed I checked out a video of the park on You Tube, You can, too. http://tinyurl.com/3mxnywq

In addition to pine trees, peaceful lake, golf course, hiking trails and camping opportunities, Bastrop State Park is also home to the endangered Houston Toad.

Darn it! A rainy day might have been the perfect toad-watching day.

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A Rainy Morning in Austin

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on December 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

 Travels With Maggie

 

Rain drops keep falling outside my RV -- Photo by Pat Bean

“May you live all the days of your life.” Jonathan Swift

I awoke in Austin this morning, where my RV is parked outside the home of my granddaughter, Lindsey. It rained most of the night, and is still dripping. It’s an intermittent lazy kind of rain in which the sky stops to breath every few minutes.

There’s no loud pinging on my RV roof as in a storm, just a gentle tittering, like Mother Nature is quietly giggling, trying to suppress her delight in watering her Texas gardens. It reminds me of the quiet tittering I did yesterday evening as I sat beside my 2 ½ year-old great-grandson at a local restaurant where I had taken him and my granddaughter out for dinner.

 

Maggie asleep on the couch as rain falls outside in early dawn. -- Photo by Pat Bean

His mother, of course, was worried about his enthusiastic behavior, but I delighted in it.

“Shush,” I told her. “Remember how I used to get you in a headlock when you got a bit rambunctious as a kid. Nana can handle it.” And I did.

As I lay in my RV over-the-cab bed this morning, listening to the rain , I once again realized how blessed I am. It simply feels good to be alive. Maggie, of course, was still sleeping.

I’ll leave Austin for Lake Jackson soon, and. Mother Nature seems intent on letting the rain accompany me. I hope she keeps the rain to a gentle titter instead of letting it become as rambunctious as a 2-year-old.

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Final NaNoWriMo Update … 50,046 Words

Posted in Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , on November 30, 2011| 15 Comments »

 “Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating.” – Denis Waitley

 

Yes, I am.

When I submitted my 50,026 words that the word count tool on my Open Office program said I had written, NaNo’s word counter disagreed. It said I only had 49,528 words.

So it was back to the computer for another hour and a half yesterday to insert an extra scene into the first horrible draft of my murder mystery.

But the next time I submitted the novel for verification, the NaNo word counter told me I was a “winner.” And Indeed I felt like one.

While the book, if I choose to go forward with it, needs a lot of work, it is complete and it does have things in it I like. It is the first fiction book I’ve ever written in first person.

While the main character, who is 28 years old, is not me, I realized as I lay in bed last night that I had her wondering where she was going to settle down and find herself. It’s a question that at 72, I’m coming to grips with myself. It felt funny realizing that connection only last night.

The main character’s name is Carnegie Hall, Carny of course for short. Her musician parents played around in a practice room at Carnegie Hall and she was their little souvenir. Nothing of me there. But she inherits a dog that has a lot of similar traits to my canine traveling companion, Maggie. I even named the dog Maggie.

As I wrote I used bits and pieces of people I knew and both their and my own experiences in many instances. I also let my environmental awareness play a role. It’s a book with a Texas Gulf Coast beach setting where a Ridley sea turtle comes to nest and where Carny, an artist, paints shore birds.

I learned many things from this intensive writing experience. And while it would be great if I had learned these things at a younger age, it’s always better late than never.

Of all the many resolutions. I’ve made in my life, most were broken within the first week. This time I stayed true to myself. There’s a lot to be said for finishing a project once started. Besides daily writing, as writers should do, I also learned to say the word “No” to things that interfered with my morning ritual. I already knew from long experience that If I don’t write first thing in the morning, I don’t write.

Thank you NaNo for challenging me. And congratulations to all you other NaNo winners out there. I’d love to hear how you made the journey.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Family

Posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , on November 30, 2011| 5 Comments »

When it comes to family, I have a pretty big one. They’re a mixed bag of personalities with a lot of craziness thrown in. It’s a mixture of Repuplican and Democrats and none of the above, good memories and bad memories, togetherness and apartness, hurt feelings and favoritism. It’s about as far from the Cleaver family as you can get, which means it’s closer to average than Beaver’s tribe ever was.

 I love being with each and every one dearly, but also love my time apart from all the craziness. I have favorite photos of and with them all. But this picture below says it all.

It’s of me, the Nana, and the youngest family member, my very first great-grandchild. You can use your own imagination to picture the new generations of family members between the youngest and the oldest.

Junior and Nana -- Photo by Baron Marsh

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