I was excited to see my first ever painted bunting this spring, and several others since then; all on different visits to Commons Ford Ranch Metropolitan Park. I haven’t captured a NatGeo-esque photo of one yet, but I was happy to get this one today, showing its beautiful colors on display. If you would like to see your first one, too, check out the park.
We packed a picnic basket and visited Becker Vineyard’s annual lavender festival. The lavender fields bloomed early this year so there wasn’t much purple to photograph today. But a good time was had by all.
Seen at the bird bath this week – a baby blue jay. We have found two dead jay fledglings on the back patio this month – lots of predators out and about. I’m happy to see some have made it. This guy is adorable with his short tail, fuzzy white belly feathers and pinkish baby-beak corners.
Newsflash: this week we have seen another blue jay pair building a new nest in the red oak in the front yard. Their nest is visible from our kitchen window. I’m looking forward to more stealthy shots. Stay tuned.
We went sailing today with Kurt. It was breezy and sunny and cool. Like a spring sail should be.
We pulled into the recently reopened Gnarly Gar restaurant to check out their slips. We found one that fit our boat, and went in for a cocktail. We ran into this mallard mom and her 13 baby ducklings.
Black-chinned hummingbird stopping for a taste of Texas thistle…
…and then moving along…
You know it’s a good party when someone whips off their flip flop to open up a beer with an opener that’s built-in to the sole of their sandal.
I spent Friday night and Saturday with friends that are participating in this weekend’s MS-150 bicycle ride from Houston to Austin. After taking their luggage to the drop-off point at Tully Stadium at dawn, I spent the rest of Saturday exploring and birding in several parks outside of Houston with Doray.
While our friends were pedalling their hearts out on the 100-mile Day 1 of the two-day MS-150, we had a very fun day. We visited Cullinan Park, Fiorenza Park and Bear Creek Pioneers Park. I’m still going through my photos to figure out exactly what we spotted.
While walking on one of the trails at Cullinan Park, I nearly stepped on this snake. I didn’t see him because I was looking up into the tree tops as I was walking, trying to spot birds. I’m very thankful for good luck, my guardian angel, and cat-like reflexes 🙂 , because I have since learned that this is a venomous juvenile cottonmouth snake. 😮
My day could have turned out very differently if I hadn’t been lucky.
Be careful out there, folks.
A new visitor out back – black and white warbler. A very invisible birdie, he just blends in to the trees.
Today I saw the most bird species in my back yard since I have started paying attention. I was treated to a few surprise visitors, due to the migration that is in-progress right now, and all the good old locals.
An adorable pair of black-crested titmice have decided to make a hollowed out mimosa tree in the way back their home. I got a few pictures of them: venturing out of the nest, bringing material to build the nest, and chowing down on bark butter conveniently hanging nearby.
Seeing if the coast is clear:
Mid-exit:
Bringing back a MOUTHFUL of nest material:
And taking a break for some bark butter:
I am still working on improving my manual focus skill with my Olympus camera. In this picture, I was trying to focus on the butterfly, but turns out I got an absolutely crisp image of the opening zinnia that is just above and to the right of where I was trying to focus. I’ll keep trying…
Austin dubs itself the “Live Music Capital of the World.” A well-deserved title. An equally well-deserved moniker would be “Rubbernecking Capital of the World.”
Seriously. Austin traffic is dismal. Bad. Horrible. We suffer through long and much-delayed construction projects, restricted lanes, new tolls on well traveled routes, terrible rush hours, and endless debates on funding affordable, responsible mass transit.
In my humble opinion, we can help ourselves out for free by just NOT RUBBERNECKING. Come on, Austin! I’ve lived in and traveled through many different cities, but nowhere have I seen this level of self-induced misery.
Case in point: today we attended a beautiful Bat Mitzvah of the daughter of our friends. On the way home (1:30PM on a Saturday ), we popped onto Mopac North. Traffic was moving very slowly.
So, I looked at google maps to see what was going on. Yuck. Mopac was red for miles in both directions. Luckily for us, we were almost through the worst of it.
Hmm, was it a terrible accident up ahead? Overturned car? Lane closure? Jack-knifed trailer tractor? Police pulled someone over on the shoulder? A backup on the exit? Ambulance blocking lanes?
Ummmm. No. It was simply an open house and Muster Day at Camp Mabry – lots of brightly colored tents, military equipment and helicopters on display on the parade grounds of Camp Mabry, WAAAY off to the west of Mopac. But, sadly, it *is* visible from Mopac, if you just turn your head and hit the breaks to take it all in. And that’s what people were doing, in both directions. No amount of infrastructure funding is going to help that. Sigh.
I saw this guy up in one of our oaks out back – 20 minutes later, he was still there. Those squirrel-resistant bird feeders must be tiring him out.
Yesterday, our resident mom & dad Bewick’s wrens started building a second nest! In a different house than this season’s first brood. I’m pretty sure this is the same mom & dad, since I’ve been watching them tending to and feeding their babies at the same time that they are building the new nest. I’m just amazed at how hard this pair of birds have been working over the last 6 weeks or so. I was surprised to see this behavior, but found this website whose explanation of their nesting behavior helped me learn a bit more about this lovely bird.
I can’t wait to watch the next round of babies make their way into our backyard.
Lots of things to be thankful for this Easter season.
Sheila365 