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Posts Tagged ‘weeklyphotochallenge’

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique

Posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , on February 2, 2013| 8 Comments »

Chitters in 2010 -- Photo by Pat Bean

Chitters in 2010 — Photo by Pat Bean

“Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit for the unique viewpoints of others without being crippled by your own judgment.” — Ralph Marston

Chitters

Chitters is a great horned owl that I met back in the 1980s. And yes, he is unique. What other great horned owl twitters – as in chitters@ogdennaturecenter

He became the Ogden (Utah) Nature Center’s mascot when it was determined he couldn’t survive in the wild. But he did fly free for a short time, which is when I first learned about this magnificent bird.

A nature center worker called the newspaper where I was working after Chitters got loose. She was hoping for extra eyes to find him. The article I wrote in response to the plea noted that a female owl had been hanging around the nature center trying to attract Chitters’ attention. She succeeded, and at the first opportunity Chitters made his escape.

“Imagine that female’s surprise,” said the Nature Center’s spokesman, “when Chitters fails to bring her food, as courting males are supposed to do.”

Chitters turned up back at the Nature Center several days later, skinny and much the worse for wear. Perhaps he has progeny flying free over Ogden, or perhaps not.

The photo of Chitters above is one I took of him during a visit to Ogden a couple of years ago. Isn’t he beautiful?

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Purple

Posted in Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , on July 28, 2012| 11 Comments »

 “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me, And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves, And satin sandals, and say we’ve no monwy  for butter.” – Jenny Joseph

My favorite refrigerator magnet. — Photo by Pat Bean

“I never saw a purple cow; I never hope to see one: But I can tell you, Anyhow, I’d rather see than be one.” Frank Gellett Burgess

Passionate purple pansy garden at the St. Louis botanical Gardens. — Photo by Pat Bean

The Purple-People Eater

Well I saw the thing comin’ out of the sky
It had the one long horn, one big eye
I commenced to shakin’ and I said “ooh-eee”
It looks like a purple eater to me

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater
(One-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater)
A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater
Sure looks strange to me (One eye?)

Well he came down to earth and he lit in a tree
I said Mr. Purple People Eater, don’t eat me
I heard him say in a voice so gruff
I wouldn’t eat you cuz you’re so tough

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater
One-eyed, one-horned flyin’ purple people eater
One-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater
Sure looks strange to me (One horn?)

I said Mr. Purple People Eater, what’s your line
He said it’s eatin’ purple people and it sure is fine
But that’s not the reason that I came to land
I wanna get a job in a rock and roll band

Well bless my soul, rock and roll, flyin’ purple people eater
Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flyin’ purple people eater
(We wear short shorts)
Flyin’ purple people eater
Sure looks strange to me

And then he swung from the tree and he lit on the ground
He started to rock, really rockin’ around
It was a crazy ditty with a swingin’ tune
Sing a boop boop aboopa lopa lum bam boom

Well bless my soul, rock and roll, flyin’ purple people eater
Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flyin’ purple people eater
I like short shorts
Flyin’ little people eater
Sure looks strange to me (Purple People?)

And then he went on his way, and then what do ya know
I saw him last night on a TV show
He was blowing it out, a’really knockin’ em dead
Playin’ rock and roll music through the horn in his head

Lyrics by Sheb Wooley

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Movement

Posted in Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , on July 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.” — Fredrich Nietzsche

 Pendleton Roundup

Yeehaw! — Photo by Pat Bean

“Never confuse movement with action.” — Ernest Hemingway

I think you could call this movement. — Photo by Pat Bean

“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.” Blaise Pascal

 

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting

Posted in Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , on June 30, 2012| 11 Comments »

Butterflies

“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.” — Henri Carier-Bresson

One has only fleeting seconds to capture the image of a butterfly before it is off to the next flower. — Photo by Pat Bean

 “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don’t know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” — Unknown

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Create

Posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , on June 23, 2012| 4 Comments »

 “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams

Something from Something Else

A rock as a canvas for fish art. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Sometimes you’ve got to let everything go – purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything… whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.” – Tina Turner

An old bicycle as a flower planter. — Photo by Pat Bean

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Close

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , on June 16, 2012| 7 Comments »

 “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” Kurt Vonnegut

Close Enough To Get Drenched  

I joined the throngs on the Cave of the Winds’ deck because I didn’t just want to see Niagara Falls, I wanted to be close enough to touch it. And I did, close enough so that the flimsy yellow raincoat I was loaned was as worthless as a pen with no ink. — Photo by Pat Bean

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” Henry Miller

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on May 26, 2012| 7 Comments »

 “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.” – John Lubbock.

Ye Old Swimming Hole

Everyone should have a summer swimming hole in their past This one can be found near Carthage, Missouri. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.” Ada Louise Huxtable.

Bean’s Pat:: The Kindness Kronicles: http://tinyurl.com/bnjcqha Today I simply pass on Debbie’s Irish blessing to my readers. Her blog offers daily inspiration for a kinder world. 

*This recognition is merely this wandering/wondering old broad’s way of bringing attention to a blog I enjoyed – and thought perhaps my readers might, too. The Pat on the back is presented with no strings attached. May 26, patbean.wordpress.com

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Hands

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , on May 19, 2012| 2 Comments »

“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” Maya Angelou

These Had to Belong to a Show-Off Cowgirl

The gloves may be fancy, but the cowgirl hands that wore them were probably used to hard work. These were on exhibit at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas. — Photo by Pat Bean

What can you ever really know of other people’s souls – of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is places in your hands.” C.S. Lewis

Bean’s Pat: Stop it Now http://tinyurl.com/7ala2bu 30 things you really shouldn’t do to yourself. Very good advice.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , on May 6, 2012| 4 Comments »

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of ordinary.” – Cecil Beaton

Unfocused or  Focused: That is the Question

The sun reflecting through a colored glass canopy at the Albuquerque Zoo repeated itself on the sidewalk. I thought the reflections looked a bit unfocused. But then again perhaps not and I just chose to break the rules. What do you think? — Photo by Pat Bean

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Together

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2012| 5 Comments »

Thomas Young together with Snow, his gyrfalcon/peregrine hybrid bird. Both were 37 years old in 2006 when I took this photo.

 “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” – Mahatma Gandhi

One Man’s Love of Animals

Togetherness: Sheena may be a cougar but she acts as if she's right where she belongs. -- Photo by Pat Bean

During my 2006 wanderings, I came across Queen Wilhelmina State Park near Mena. Arkansas. One of its attractions at that time was a small zoo and wildlife sanctuary operated by Thomas Young, a wildlife rehabilitator.

The zoo animals included a bear, a timber wolf cub, orphaned fawns, bobcats, wild turkeys, hawks, owls, raccoons – and a cougar named Sheena. Almost all of them had been injured at some point in time.

The side of a small unpainted wooden building on the property told the real story of this place. Large white lettering boldly announced that 12 bears, 5,000 hawks, 2,000 owls, 22 bald eagles, 18 golden eagles and thousands of small mammals had been released back into the wild by Young. The $4 entry fee to the zoo helped cover his expenses.

It was while I was questioning Paul, a volunteer and apprentice falconer working with Young, that I saw Tom for the first time.

Paul pointed him out to me as the long-haired man who had just appeared with a turkey neck in his hand to feed a wild turkey vulture that had just landed in the park.

As I watched the scene from about 30 feet away, the volunteer told me the vulture was a bird Tom had rehabilitated. Later Tom told me it was actually the parent of the rescued bird. He said it was the first time this particularly vulture had fed from his hand.

I was more amazed that he could tell the difference between two vultures than that a large, society-designated-ugly, wild bird had fed from his hand. .

“For some reason it’s come to trust me,” Tom said of his vulture friend. “A while back it brought its young here for me to babysit while it flew off on some business for about three hours.”

The volunteer had already told me this story in more detail but I was still fascinated with Tom’s less wordy rerun along with a sparse sketch of his life.

This man was a doer not a talker.

Tom said the park’s lofty location in the Ouachita Mountains made it ideal for releasing rehabilitated birds back to the wild. I was privileged to see one such release the next day, an awesome red-shouldered hawk that Tom released from the overlook just beyond the park’s lodge.

The bird simply fall off the edge of the mountain and glided away, one of the most beautiful sights any birder could ever hope to see.

Bean’s Pat: A Traveler’s Tale http://tinyurl.com/brbfpsh Take an armchair tour of a Papua, New Guinea, village.

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