This is the time when we here at Intrigued drive over to our corporate NAS farm, badge in, say hello to our office staff (that didn’t see us coming and go into hiding hehehe), navigate to our holiday section and pull out some appropriately themed photos to honor the holiday. So, in keeping with longstanding tradition, I bring you some Wild Turkeys for your after dinner wind down enjoyment.
Okay, so at least that was the plan. Truth is, the Turkey folder was empty. I quickly recalled my last sighting of Wild Turkeys came courtesy of a rainy day at Benson-Rio Grande Valley State Park. Linda was the one who actually found them as she was biking around the park. Needing the check, I walked up the road and without thinking about the holiday ramifications, snapped a few shots of wet Turkeys with my cell phone and crossed that species off the list. I thought about using those cell shots for this post before quickly realizing how that would crumble the devious facade that Bri actually knows what he’s doing behind the glass.
In my defense, based on a quick look back at previous year’s topics, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to break with tradition – which, I guess, kinda calls into contention the whole concept of tradition. Last year I brought you Quail (link here), and a few years back had a Vulture stand in (link here). Not sure what I was thinking there, at least the Quail is considered a game bird. Anyway, as you have already noticed, this year at least we went back to something that looks closer to the wild variety of the cuisine likely gracing many Stateside dinner tables.
Fear not, there is a reason for this particular series, simply hit the jump to read about my madness, err, thoughtful selection
Well, I have to say it has been quite the week and one of the few times I don’t mind the time accelerating past. Now we will start transitioning into the Christmas spirit here at Intrigued HQ keeping in mind there is still an important holiday to celebrate – in direct obstinacy to the corporate merchants who want us to start celebrating red and green long before orange and black has had its day. While I continue to tend to the weakened body part(s) and we get used to a sadly much quieter home, Brad is going to bring us a new feathered friend for he and Jan.
Take it away Brad…
I think I’ve found the secret for finding those small little spastic birds; let Jan take photos while I’m doing something else. Shhh! Don’t tell her. Oops, it’s probably too late since she edits my stories before they go out.
Earlier this spring Jan and I were visiting the wildlife areas near Las Vegas. Brian has posted on this particular bird from Henderson Birding Viewing Preserve (story here). I had just gotten off the phone when Jan found me wandering one of the trails of Clark County Wetlands (here), looking for her. She said she found a little yellow bird and then asked me, “What is it?” Hard to tell from the little LCD view screen on the back of Jan’s camera.
Hit the jump to read more about this desert resident.
With heavy hearts we had to say goodbye to our beloved Benji today. He was actually a gift from us to Linda’s Mother (Dorothy) for Christmas back in 2008. We thought it would be a nice way to keep her company since the passing of her husband. She was so excited, telling everyone we were getting her a puppy that year and already had his name picked out before got there!
Benjamin (Benji) Barton 12/4/2008 – 11/21/2024
Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this happy-go-lucky puppy.
Well hi there! Brad has a special treat for you today and comes courtesy of a trip he and Jan took to the upper northwest of the US – as in very north, very west and definitely very upper! I had been holding on to this out of jealousy…I mean as a safety net, yeah, that’s it (almost ended that with a reference to Morgan Fairchild, but that would have dated me big time ha). With the travels coming up I wanted to make sure I had at least one story ready in case there was a gap in connectivity. Great news as we just received Brad’s latest batch of adventures, so we are absolutely good to go. Now, I may not have been kidding on the jealousy front. I do have a list of nemesis birds that haunt me daily. For some reason I either failed to get them in the tin or worse, never managed to get eyes on one. These are all affectionately called “Effin” birds. I’ve had the distinct pleasure of going after this particular Effin family over 5 times now, which have all consisted of long hikes above 10,000 feet. Have not even seen one of them for my efforts! Whenever our staff goes out in the field I tell them to bring back one of the Effins off my list. Going to cut Brad and Jan some slack as they are still relatively new around here, but when I tell them to “bring one back” I literally mean to bring a live specimen back for me!
Time for me to shed a few shades of green hue and get you to Brad’s adventure. Take it away Brad…
As Brian noted in previous posts, Jan and I survived our August photo assignment to the wilds of Alaska. This was one of those places we’ve always wanted to visit, but didn’t want to do half-way. I think our 17-day Alaska trip (land and sea) gave us a good intro to this truly wondrous and wild place. We both recommend a trip to Alaska. Go ahead and book it, I’ll let you catch up later.
Only about 2% of the state is accessible by roads. The rest must be visited by some other mode of transportation including: boat, plane, horse, dog sled, four-wheeler, SUV/Truck, tour bus, or on foot. Thankfully for Jan and I, most of the places we visited were by road, only a few were on foot. We did see and hold a very cute sled dog puppy (maybe a future post).
Thirty-five years ago, when Jan’s dad retired from a major manufacturer based in Illinois (BTW, he just celebrated the same thirty-five years of retirement and is still going strong), her parents took a 6-week driving trip to Alaska. Yes, that’s right. They chose to drive to Alaska from Illinois. As Jan’s dad is fond of telling us, “When you’ve driven from Illinois to Seattle, you are about halfway to Alaska.” (Now to be completely fair on the length of the driving trip, Jan’s dad did have to order and replace the hydraulic lifters in the car’s V-8 engine somewhere inside Alaska, but that only added 2-3 days to the whole adventure. Yes, he had tools in the trunk of the car.) We experienced similar travel times. No, not six weeks, but it did take us nearly 9 hours of flying, via fairly circuitous route, to reach Fairbanks from Illinois. Fairbanks is only about 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, or 64 degrees, 56 minutes north latitude. That means the sun sets for only a couple of hours each night during summer months, leaving us with a twilight-y sort of sky for sleeping. For those keeping score at home, I think this is a latitude record for Wildlife Intrigued.
As Jan’s parents discovered on their trip, there are many colorful people and stories along the way. One of those stories is about the town called Chicken in Alaska. The good people of the town wanted to name it after a local bird from the tundra, but no one could spell the bird’s name. They ended up calling the town “Chicken.” Stay tuned for the real bird’s name in just a bit.
If it looks like one, acts like one and easier to spell, then it must be one – hit the jump to read more about this Chicken!
Greetings all! Not much to give on the update front. My ankle has been a big disappointment and we are considering simply declaring Excommunicado from the family – no Thanksgiving gathering for you! Been working on it for over a month now and it is refusing to comply to a level I demand. Broke down and went to the Ortho to get some glamour shots to ensure there were no serious reasons for all the whining it was doing. After noting all the historical trauma he could see surrounding it, he noted no fractures. Diagnosis, severe high ankle sprain caused by the second incident during the race. At least 4 to 5 more weeks of recovery..for a normal patient. I was waiting for the doctor to ask the ankle if it felt safe at home. Doubled the rehab and started with 4 mile walks this week. Barring any legitimate complaints, should be on the run in a week – two tops.
Beyond that, it has been an interesting week here stateside as we carried out the keystone of our republic to elect our representatives. I’ll leave assessments on the actual outcomes for individual reflection, but there are a few ancillary things that were loud and clear from my perspective. Lamestream media is effectively dead. Clearly the propaganda machine has little to no influence over a majority of the population. Yours truly has been railing against their hyperbole for years. In that same vein, partisan pollsters and fact checkers deserve a headstone in our haunted cemetery to celebrate their occupation demise. Lastly, entertainers and our self-righteous elites have lost their flock. I am sure there will be further peripheral fallout as America comes to terms with the outcomes, some good, some bad, some red, some white, some blue and all the colors between…as in PINK!
Hit the jump to learn about a feathered friend that hasn’t compromised its celebrity status from the recent election.
Welcome to our favorite day of the year! It is no secret we here at Intrigued enjoy the Halloween season. Although this holiday is continually under attack by the corporate Christmas greed, we will continue to push back and treat this day in all its haunting glory. Our Halloween related heavy lifting actually comes several months earlier as we prep and build out the annual Haunted Trail. We have found the weather is more cooperative at the end of September and allow us to bypass all the conflicts that seem to collide later in October (HS/College football, World Series, band competitions and, of course, other Halloween gatherings). The bonus is we get to extend the season’s festivities. Probably best of all, we get to sit back, stress free and enjoy ourselves on the actual day. As we do not get any trick-or-treater this far in the country, we head out for a nice dinner and then spend the rest of the night searching for (and rating) Halloween displays – an excellent way to get great ideas for next year’s trail.
Have a hauntingly good day, don’t eat too much candy, scare your neighbors and maybe catch a good horror show to cap off the evening. More importantly, continue to celebrate the day or it won’t be long before we’ll be seeing artificial Christmas trees in the stores at the start of the month – oh wait, we already do @#%@#%$@@!
Just to help set the mood, I grabbed a few shots from our trail to share. Apologies as I have not had time to properly process them yet. Hit the jump to enjoy!
Got a few things to update you on before we get to today’s post, which happens to be a continuation of a recent feature. For starters, if you have spent any time at all here at Intrigued, you know about our annual Haunted Trail event. The all consuming, year round prep and exhausting build for the two night event held in late September. Our partner in haunt, Paul, has finished making this year’s video recap. I wanted to share that link in case you would like a sampling of how the trail turned out this year. Note, if the embedded link below does not work for you, try going directly to it using this link – https://youtu.be/wnZ5veDpNcA?si=1TM4lSygwhsnYMl_
Amazing how well the finished trail looks knowing the complete chaos leading up to the opening. A huge thank you again to everyone that helps us put this event on.
The other update is on the running front. The recent 50 mile ultra race hit me and hit me hard. I finally got the race recap up on the mothership if anyone is interested in reading about all the mishaps that when on during that torturefest (link here). I recommend not reading that if you are thinking about taking up long distance trail running ha. I’ve spent a solid two weeks trying to get back on my feet. The bad ankle I started the race with doesn’t seem to want to heal and the body is one big ache. Got fed up with the snail’s healing pace and went for a 7 mile run today. Lungs felt great, but the legs were a mess. Worst of all, now the ankle doesn’t even want to hold my weight – damn you weak-assed body parts – you shall suck it up and get in line or I’m gonna keep beating you until you change your attitude.
With those updates out of the way, I can finally get to today’s featured feathered friend (about time Bri!).
Look familiar? Hit the jump for the second part of our encounter with the Snail Kites during our 2023 April visit to Florida.
I feel like our haven of trail witches have put a curse on me. First I tweak my ankle during the build up to the haunted trail, then the race beats me down something good only to make it through to put the cherry on top the misery sundae by breaking a toe (on the good foot) in a manner so unmanly I am not about to reveal it. I’ve learned a couple of surprising things since then. One is the revelation that trimming trees for four days is probably not the brightest choice all hobbled up – something tells me some of our readers probably already knew or could foresee that bit of knowledge. The other surprise comes courtesy of Brad who is bringing us one of his adventures from his recent New England trip. In fact, my new birding tidbit comes courtesy of that little space between the third and fourth word in his title. I was about to insert the expected “-” when I decided to dig into this a bit more. Brad is absolutely correct, as of July 2024, the American Birding Association has removed the second dash between Night and Heron. You can read more about that change and several other updates in their 2024 supplement (link here). Note, once again, they FAILED to rename the Ring-Necked Duck arrrgghhh! Enough of my whining, it’s time for Brad to introduce us to one of his newest lifers.
Take it away Brad…
During a recent photo assignment to New England, Jan and I were enjoying the low tide near Boothbay Harbor in Maine. We traveled to Maine with our friends from the Boston area. We also had the bonus of having Allyson join us for an abbreviated weekend.
This also happened to be our first photo outing with our brand “new” D500 camera bodies, well, at least new to us. The old trusty D300’s had served us well, but had begun showing age-related faults (over 200,000 clicks on both of them) during our Alaska assignment. We had a mere six days after Alaska to get “new” cameras before the New England trip. I used all of my trusted camera sites ordering bodies, batteries, and chargers. I’m still working on the Wildlife Intrigued expense report. Everything arrived in time, some only just, for the trip to Boston and Maine.
Our first morning in Maine, low tide was at 9am. After breakfast, we all rushed down to the waterline to see what we would see at low tide. The rented house where we stayed, was about 100 feet from the water. The tide was nearly at the lowest point of the morning, down over 8 feet from high tide the night before. Drying seaweed was all over the newly exposed rocks and made walking slippery. Jan was photographing a Great Blue Heron in the shadows next to our dock. Allyson was wading in the cold Atlantic water looking for crabs, lobsters, and snails. I was watching the sunlit part of the terrain opposite our rocky point, when something caught my eye.
Did you spot today’s featured feathered friend? Hit the jump to read more about this well camouflaged discovery.
I am finally back on my feet. Still a bit tender in the legs and feet, but the toll for a shiny new finisher belt buckle is almost paid. I must say, I feel a bit like Biden after the first debate with everyone recommending I stop doing the ultras ha. The concern is definitely appreciated, but Linda will confirm I believe one should always know their limits (and ever reach beyond). Luckily I learn from my mistakes and will be taking steps to remedy whatever gremlins snuck into my race plan starting with my “barnacle-bitten swab” of an ankle. That weak bastard is still unusually “round” (and crunchy) which brings us to our similarly shaped featured feathered friend(s) of the day.
Hit the jump to see more of what was “rolling” around the flats of Bolivar Peninsula back in April. As enticement, this is a rare multi-species post!!
It’s official, I can now coast until the new year as the last of the 2024 stressors completed last Saturday night. I was slightly worried going into this last ultra-race of the season. Torqued up my ankle pretty bad during the haunt work that didn’t seem to be responding to my customary barrage of rude insults and brash comments regarding its lily-livered condition. Even broke down and had it forcibly unjammed by my Chiro, plus cut my taper short to give the weak-ass, dirty bilge rat of a joint several days of rest (link here). With all the extra attention. it was STILL tender race morning. I’ll do my regular race recap later, but in summary, about the only two things that went right the entire day was I got up on time and I willed myself across the finish line. Everything in between pretty much the proverbial shit show. Dispensed with the nag and went full blown crush on the bad ankle at mile TWO (slid off a rock under the leaves in the dark), stomach issues prevented me mid-race food, stung by ground PO’d Hornets on 3 of my 5 loops, unexpected heat and switched to just plain water for loops 4 and 5 because the stomach refused any fluids with flavor – exception was the lifesaving ginger ale at the aid stations preventing me from hurling. Oh, and with the ankle destroyed, didn’t dare take the shoe off. No dry sock changes led to massive blisters on feet for last two loops. Not the best outing and certainly not the worst, but all things considered, one of the hardest finisher buckles I’ve ever earned – and I’m damn proud! Wife and friends have chosen the less glorious word “crazy”..which, ironically, brings me to today’s post. While I do my best to even stand, Brad is going to take you out to one of my favorite places to bird in Henderson, NV.
Take it away Brad… (note, responses will likely be delayed as he and Jan are still out on assignment in faraway lands).
During a return trip to Las Vegas to catch Death Valley, Jan and I had a list of birding assignments from Intrigued HQ. Originally, we had planned a full day at each, but we lost most of a day to a flat tire on our rental car trying to pick up an unplanned birding location. (See A New Low link here.) Suffice it to say that we now had one less day and had to consolidate destinations within the remaining days of our vacation.
One day we had to split between two destinations. In the morning, we went to Clark County Wetlands Park. After literally running through Clark County Wetlands, we headed to the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve (HBVP) just before noon. Based on our experience, try to get there early because they close at 2:00 pm. You will want to reverse these two destinations if you must see them the same day like we did. We were also informed that they lock the parking lot gates promptly at 2:00 pm when they leave, capturing you and your car inside. We did get the local number to call in case we lost track of time and found ourselves captives.
With the over 40 different species of birds we saw on this trip, I thought I would give you a slow pitch today. This should be an easy guess on today’s subject.
Hit the jump to knock this easy pitch out of the park.
Wildlife Intrigued 