Greetings everyone! Brad and Jan are out visiting one of our favorite editors at our satellite facility in Colorado. Always good to see our employees when we can…and I hear the view from that facility is magnificent! While they enjoy their trip, going to jump our typical alternating schedule and bring you another series of shots from our Texas Gulf Coast trip back in 2023.
Hit the jump to read more about our brightly colored and slightly devilish feathered friend.
Today’s topic originated courtesy of our current trip to Chain O’ Lakes State Park (link here). I’ve mentioned this park in a number of previous posts as it happens to be one of our favorite SPs in Illinois. The Chain is located about 4 hours north of us in a small town named Spring Grove. I joke that the route between Spring Grove and nearby Richmond is the weekend evacuation path for all of Chicago – if you do not arrive early enough you’ll get gridlocked in these small towns as the intersections struggle to keep up with the traffic.
Chain pretty much offers all the summertime activities we enjoy – camping, hiking, biking, birding, trail running, picnicking and plenty of water for fun in the sun. The park is actually named after the network of large lakes that are connected by the Fox River. Chain is directly adjacent to three of the lakes, Grass, Marie and the Nippersink (my favorite name of all the lakes). The Fox River provides access to an additional 7 lakes (Bluff, Catherine, Channel, Fox, Pistakee and Redhead). To be completely honest, we have only seen Grass and parts of Nippersink – those lakes are spread out over a large area (link here).
This park happens to be our “sure thing” to get the Sandhill Crane checked off for the year. It should not take you long to spot one (more likely several) once in the park. Even if you are struggling to get eyes on one, just let your ears do the walking. Those guttural calls of the cranes will carry from one end of the park to the other. Now, as you probably already know, you are NOT going to find any Roseate Spoonbills taking a bath in those waterways.
Nope, you will need to head to the coasts for these red-eyed paddle-bills. In actuality, the idea to go with this series of shots came out of today’s kayak outing – well, more from the enjoyment I was having using the paddle to splash Linda. Sometimes you just have to live in the moment and hmmm, how does the saying going “…worth it” hehehe. Linda gave me a two-person inflatable kayak as my 2022 Christmas gift. We managed to use it once before I broke my elbow last year forcing me to put it up on the shelf and stare at it until now. This was the first test to see if I’ve recovered enough to row. I was shocked to learn the reconstructed joint was now strong enough to withstand the strain and the resulting pain was bearable. What was even more surprising is at random times the elbow would “twitch” uncontrollably causing the paddle to send a large amount of water right on Linda sitting behind me…oddest thing I’ve ever witnessed hehehe.
I have to wonder if this Spoon has a similar infliction. All of a sudden it would lower itself in the water and start spraying the other Spoons in the area. Surely uncontrollable, non-intentional, involuntary and devoid of intention. I can truly feel for Pinky as twitch afflictions can often be misunderstood as deliberate, antagonistic acts designed to produce laughter at their expense. I can only imagine other Spoons maliciously retaliating and whacking the back of its head with their paddle …bills.
Hmmmm, I get the feeling this Spoon just smirked and said “worth it”….INDEED hehehe.
Well, should leave it there while I go add more ice to the bag on my head. Take care and if you happen to be in the area, take a run through Chain O’ Lakes State Park. I think you’ll enjoy it as much as we do. Warning, one downside, as a general rule, IL state park bathroom facilities are not the best and glad we no longer have to rely on those with the new RV.
Wildlife Intrigued 
💛
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Glad you enjoyed and appreciate the visit. Take care.
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Thanks for these cool summertime shots.
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You are welcome Luisella, glad you enjoyed the “splash” of pink. Appreciate you coming by and have a wonderful rest of your week.
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Lots of lakes to play in. Beautiful photos. That “pretty in pink” spoonbill put on quite a splishy splashy show for you. I think it was in love with you by the looks it was giving you.
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We have plenty of waterways still to explore along the Fox River – takes us a little longer as we have to use our arm-motors which were being put to the test with the high winds up there last weekend. I think the PiP was merely working it for the camera, I hear these Spoons are ego-maniacs and full of themselves ha. Appreciate you dropping in Tim, not sure what your temps are out there, but we in the mid 90’s at the moment and I’m finally getting in some badly needed heat conditioning for the upcoming run.
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We’ve been in the mid-90s up to 100. High 80s today. There are some serious fires burning 200 miles south of us.
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I heard it was fire season out there (well, at least in California). We actually had to run through a grass fire in the middle of the highway on our way home (stupid people throwing their burning cigs out the window). Those are easy to take care of, versus the raging ones you get out west. Hopefully the winds will keep that from getting close to you.
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News flash! Steel Panther has signed 8-track Tapes for $9.99 each. They say they are genuine 8-tracks, but they don’t know what music is on them. It’s bad enough that cassette tapes are coming back.
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Good lord, NOBODY needs the 8-track to come back..NOBODY. I can still hear the kaaachuuuunk from the track changes in my nightmares. We listen to a radio show on Sirius by Eddie Trunk who covers the hard rock world – he used to have a show called That Metal Show on VH1 we watched religiously. He was recently absolutely going off on the cassette craze just blasting how ridiculous it was to have to listen to the tape hiss, cleaning the tape heads, splicing broken tapes etc. It was better than 8 tracks and didn’t require you to deal with needles on vinyl, but in his (and my) opinion, there is no reason to have any other format beyond CDs and MP3.
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Absolutely. I think people are getting fed up with subscriptions and want to have physical, analog media. We who grew up with vinyl and tapes have much different perspectives than all digital folks. Film photography is holding on, also. One of my young staff members is getting into film. I gave her one of my old Canon film cameras and lenses and developing tanks and reels. I told her she was welcome to try out any of the cameras from the museum in my office. That ranges from a Nikon F2AS, a Canon EOS 1 RS that can run through 36 exposures in 3.6 seconds, a Bronica 6X7, a 4X5 press camera, and a Sinar 4X5 view camera. She can totally analog out if she wants to.
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Chain O’ Lakes sounds like a great place to explore. Looking forward to hearing about future kayak trips. Pro tip: Wear a helmet to protect against completely accidental and random whacks of a paddle to the back of your head.
Here in central Florida, we are blessed with a plethora of pink as Spoonies abound. Always a fun bird to watch.
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We really like it up there, although a bit close to Chicago for my comfort, but still a lot to do there and based on my current exhaustion level… we partook in a lot of it ha. We are just getting into the kayak arena – breaking the elbow ended the season early last year (our first year with it). The best news is the elbow withstood the strain, although clearly I need to up my gym time as my wings were feeling it towards the end of the sessions (you know, when Linda stopped paddling hehehe). Good advice on the helmet recommendation as my suggestion we switch places wasn’t well received (if she was in front I could see when she wasn’t doing her share of paddling!). Yep, you definitely have an abundance of Spoons down there and a rather famous other “Pinky: that I hope to feature sometime from our trip down there last year. As always, appreciate you dropping in Wally. I need Brad to get back from his trip so I can get caught up on all the blogs I follow.
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I’m Baaaack. Must get ready for the next trip in a couple of weeks. Then the really big assignments start again.
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Bright colors, that bill could splash lots of water. We used to live on the Fox River west of Chicago. You might want to place an ad for an editor that lives somewhere with a nice view. Not an intern, I know HQ wouldn’t go for that.
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I did not know you lived on the Fox. I am shocked at how long that waterway is. Yeah, head CFO is STILL resisting my intern attempts – I’m about ready to offer an increase in chores if she would budge on that…ABOUT to hehehehe.
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We lived on the Fox River in two different cities. A friend still has the Fox in his front yard. Canoed the Fox many times. Both of our parents still live within a few hundred yards of the Fox. Our HS mascot was a Fox. Need I go on?
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Oh and biking, hundreds of miles on the trails along the Fox.
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Nice pics. I like seeing these birds at a zoo in Omaha. Although in the wild would be even better.
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There is always a chance they will erupt like the Limpkins did last year and hopefully a wild one would drop in near you. They are a fun bird to observe, especially when they are dancing in the water. At least you have a chance to experience them in a very nice zoo – I hear Omaha’s is one of the best and Linda has it on her list to visit sometime. Take care Jerry and appreciate the drop in.
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Great shots, such a strange looking bird. I will see one some day. 🙂
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Thank you Sandra. I am shocked you have not had the chance to see one in the wild let Sandra, especially with all the traveling you do. Fingers crossed you will encounter once the next time you are visiting one of the coastal regions. Hope all is well and assume you are doing some traveling these days.
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Well, we have not gone farther than Alabama the last 2 years. We are hoping to get to Texas again and I am not sure about southern Florida. So expensive over there. 🙂 We are home for the summer, so we are enjoying family time and relaxing at home now. 🙂
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One can never get enough of the Spoonies 👍
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Ha, you are absolutely right Ted. I kept seeing all your shots of the Spoonies in your area and kept telling myself I have to get this post out sometime (finally a year late ha). Better late than never I guess. I actually have more from this series I would like to post sometime, we’ll see when their turn comes up in the queue again. As always, appreciate you dropping in!
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