An Owl Was Waiting for Me

I worked one night this week until around 11:30 PM. Coming home tired and disheartened I found this mysterious creature waiting patiently for me by our front door. Seeing him, and having my camera on me, made me consider my day in a completely different light. I had to be almost grateful for working late, because if I hadn't I never would have spent 20 minutes staring down an owl.

Egret

An egret I spotted outside of Houston. The bird next to it was making sounds like a monkey!

Anemone

This was from a recent trip to Venice Beach, California!

Mercury Hall

I ran across this little fellow while surveying the grounds at the Mercury Hall. He was contemplating the beauty of a late-summer blossom.

Your Annual Cicada Post

The song of the majestic Cicada is one of the ever present features of summer, and nowhere does it feel more appropriate than in the thick of record breaking heat.
This summer looks like it will be the hottest one ever in Austin, TX. And during one of our 100+ degree days I came across this little fellow singing his song closer to the ground than usual.

I've documented my love for cicadas in other posts filed from all over the country, most notably here and also here. Next year I hope to take my obsession one step further, by asking you, my loyal readers, to donate dead cicadas they find to my ever expanding taxidermied insect collection. But this summer's cicada season has passed, and all we have left are this beautiful memories.

A Cardinal Feeding Its Baby

On my trip to Ink's Lake earlier this summer, I witnessed this touching scene between a Cardinal and its offspring. I took tons of shots, but these two give the general idea.

The Eastern Dobsonfly

This is another gem from my last visit to Massachusetts. The female Eastern Dobsonfly has mandibles that can draw blood from a human. [The males' mandibles, much bigger for reproductive purposes, don't have proper leverage to cut human flesh.] These insects can grow to be over five inches long and, just to make them more endearing, they can emit a foul smelling spray from their anus as a defense tactic. My sister saw this one on the wall of our local post office. That's Jeany's hand in the picture, and our town library between her thumb and pointer finger.

Public Enemy

This woodchuck is my mother's arch nemesis. During my recent visit to Massachusetts it decimated her crop of peas and, from the looks of it, started on our apple tree as well. Last year my mom caught three or four of these in a humane "have a heart" trap and moved them to the woods. This year one woodchuck remains, and we may have to up the ante.

You see, getting rid of a Woodchuck takes a ruthlessness and resolve that does not come easily to human beings. The animals' burrows have two holes for entering and exiting. The trick is to find the "escape hole," plug that up, throw smoke bomb in the main entrance, and then plug that up. One person I know who had extinguished their pest problem in this way, said it had been a hard thing to do, but noted that if they had not taken such drastic measures they would have lost their entire garden.

Did you know that a Woodchuck is the same thing as a Ground Hog? According to Wikipedia, "the etymology of the name woodchuck is unrelated to wood or chucking. It stems from an Algonquian name for the animal (possibly Narragansett), wuchak"

When Slow and Steady Does Not Win the Race

I was camping with Thomas and Starla at Ink's Lake in Central Texas. The days were topping off at 104 degrees so we spent most of our time in the water. That's where I found this little dude. We were in the middle of a conversation, but when I saw my opportunity to grab this turtle I struck like lightening. After showing him to our camp neighbors (a group of little kids) we let him return to his watery home.

As a bizarre post-script: a human skeleton was found in the Lake a week after we left. I'll always wonder whether this young turtle had anything to do wtih that.

My Secret Shame

Months ago (around the last time I posted to my blog) I encountered this little fellow. He had fallen from his nest some 20 feet up in a tree and was hopping around a school yard looking miserable. As I approached him his mother (a European Starling, from what I could tell) flew at me a started chirping. As you can see from the center photo he was obviously hungry. I was petrified with indecision. Should I take him home and try to raise him on a diet of crushed worms, or should I leave him, allowing nature to take its course in whatever way it deemed fit? I ultimately decided on the latter. Years ago we had taken in a stray baby bird and it had quickly perished under our care.

I returned to the school two days later and, to my surprise, the little fellow was still there, still hungry and still chirping. Again I wondered, should I not open my home to the ragamuffin? No, I left him again in the care of the elements.

A third visit and he was nowhere to be found. To this day I wonder, if I made the right choice. Was his mother feeding him? Did he survive, or would he have under my supervision? And, 'finally, if it was a European Starling, should we not discourage the spread of this invasive species?

Time has scarcely dulled the pain of my guilty conscience, but am finding myself capable of writing again which is, I suppose, something of a start.