Observation – Page 16 – Wildlife Intrigued

Wagons Ho Junco…by Brad Marks

A big howdy from Vegas my friends! It has been an exhausting month of birding (so far) full of new lifers that are sure to make their way to you once .. or should I say if we ever make it home. We were supposed to be on our way back already, but unfortunately, we are stuck in Las Vegas.. who am I kidding, there are worse places to be held up than the Sin City. For the record, the Sphere is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I’ll give more details on our unexpected situation in a later post when we get everything straightened out – we might have to find a Conestoga wagon to get back home. Meanwhile, Brad is going to jump in and entertain you with another one of his Cali adventures.

Take it away Brad…

When wandering through a forest of Giant Sequoia trees it’s best to keep looking . . . down. Yes, that’s right. Down. Oh, I get it. These trees are magnificent. And very, very, very tall. However, they don’t move, except for a tiny bit near the tops. Have you ever heard the stories about penguins tipping over looking up at airplanes as they flew over? Probably pure bunk, but that’s what I felt like trying to see the tops of the Giant Sequoia from near their base. Even though the trees are unquestionably tall, the real action is down below, on the forest floor. This is a birding blog after all.

Having said that, photographing birds on the ground isn’t always exciting. Unless you come across a new species, or variant, you have not seen before. That’s exactly what happened to Jan and I at Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. As I mentioned earlier, we did go to see the trees, all 250+ feet of them. But when something small and greyish/brownish catches your eye, birders are obligated to take photos, normally a lot of photos.

Near every path Jan and I hiked through the Giant Sequoia forests, this little bird was hopping in the undergrowth.

Hit the jump to learn more about this hooded feathered find.

Birthday Bird

By the time you read this post I will officially be another year older, another year’s worth of wear on the body (actually more like 3 years based on the long injury tab) and hopefully another year wiser. All in all, I can’t complain. No longer in the corporate grinder, get to spend each day with someone who deserves better and my days are filled with activities that make me want to get up the next morning and do them all again. Life is good. This is also the first year I have been able to celebrate my special day in Vegas! Going to get a head start on that wear and tear for the year ha. Being in the city of lights, thought I would go with a fitting neon colored specimen from the birding world for today’s featured feathered friend.

Altamira Oriole found at National Butterfly Center, Mission TX in January 2023

How is that for an orange Lite-Brite peg (if anyone remembers what that toy was).

Hit the jump to see a few more shots and learn a bit more about our Halloween inspired bird.

Tall Trees and a Bright Flash…by Brad Marks

I need a word with the individual who turned off the heat in Arizona – we are NOT amused. We expect to get snow at home (and they ARE), but Ron and I have already birded in a snow shower down here and now 12 days into our migration, yet to wear a T-shirt much less a pair of shorts. The bright spot is we are getting looks at some good birds. Ron is at 106, I am at 100 species in the young year, which includes 6 lifers for me and 12 for my brother. That is plenty of great fodder for future posts. Meanwhile, Brad is going to take over while we get ready to move to our next basecamp (please be warmer, please be warmer!!). Take care everyone and for those stuck back at Intrigued HQ…throw and extra log on the fire (high is looking like 2 degrees (F) BELOW zero next week).

Take it away Brad…

It is Day One of our Southwest National Park Tour. Jan and I flew into Las Vegas and rented a car to drive to SoCal to experience a few National Parks. After all, we have the National Parks Annual Pass and want to wring every cent out of it. Truthfully, there isn’t much to see between Las Vegas and where we stayed in Fresno, CA. Unless you like desert scenes, Joshua trees, and gigantic citrus orchards as far as the eye can see. Anyone ever enjoyed Cuties or Halos? They are called mandarin oranges, or clementines, depending on where you live. The orchards where they are grown, and the “factory” that packages them, went on for miles. While those are enjoyable, for a few miles, we travelled to see mountains and trees and wildlife.

After a restful night, Jan and I drove to see Kings Canyon National Park at nearly first light. I was prepared for some very twisty-turny roads on the way to the park, and I wasn’t disappointed. However, the entrance was near the beginning of the curvy roads so I didn’t have to endure very many switchbacks. We arrived at Kings Canyon very early. How early was it? (remember the show Match Game from the 1970’s?) It was so early, the ranger stations at the entrance weren’t staffed yet. I still flashed our National Parks Annual Pass just in case there was a camera inside checking out cars and license plates on the way in. Kings Canyon is known for, well, a canyon. A very nice canyon to be sure. It is also known for some of the largest trees (by volume) in the world, the Giant Sequoia. Coastal Redwoods are certainly taller, by almost 100 feet, but are spindly in comparison to the Giant Sequoia trees.

On our way to see the General Grant Tree (268 feet tall), something caught our eye. As Jan and I wandered down the trail to see the General, there was a brilliant flash of yellow in the undergrowth. Keep in mind, we are just outside the parking lot where Giant Sequoia “seedlings” were towering over us (see Notes below). I had a hard time wrapping my mind around something so large when I’m used to oak or maple trees topping out at 50-75 feet tall after a hundred years or more; a Giant Sequoia is just getting started at that age. I also realized that by days end my neck would be stuck in the “looking straight up” position. Or normally what happens to me when we fly discounted seats and the headrest only hits the middle of my neck.

There was the flash again, hiding in a bunch of brambles near the base of a Sequoia, the tree not an SUV of the same name. Jan had the medium length zoom on her camera while I only had the short range zoom in hopes of being able to capture an entire tree in one photo. My camera setup was useless for something so small. Jan started snapping away and was able to capture the bright yellow flash.

Hit the jump to reveal the source of the bright yellow flash!

Electric Blue

UPDATE: Thanks to the keen eye and birding expertise of Ted Jennings (link here), I’ve learned something new as a result of this post. My original identification of this post’s featured feathered friend was an immature Little Blue Heron. This was based on the overall white coloring, dark legs and the two toned bill…and not seeing the markers for the other options pointed out in the original post. Ted brought up the possibility of something I had not considered, the much rarer white morph of the Reddish Egret. They have very similar markings to the immature Little Blue, but are a bit larger and more distinctly have, a “shaggy” feathering on their head and neck. That fits my specimen perfectly! Updated my post accordingly – THANK YOU TED!! It is a good day whenever I can grow my birding knowledge.

Greetings everyone! I have been a bit out of pocket since we started or migration south just before the start of the New Year. Always a hassle to get from overnight camp to the next stop and then the connectivity can be sketchy, although, admittedly I must admit, Internet access via phone or local Wi-Fi is much better than just a few years ago. Guessing a surprise benefit of the Covid years. From the trip perspective, we have been lucky enough to meet up with some friends of ours who moved out to Benson, AZ. Always good to catch up on the latest activities in person – novel idea eh? (for the record, I am NOT a Facebook user). Birding has also been good, now up 67 birds for our Average Year ’24 which includes 5 lifers so far – that means 5 more posts coming out say sometime in late 2027 hehehe. Some of us at Intrigued have an embarrassing large backlog. There has been one glaring negative to this point (and likely to carry well into next week)…IT’S COLD! I know, shocking to hear someone from the Midwest say that in January, but remember we travel south to get away from the heartland tundra. We are not ruling out that we were voodoo cursed while in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl back in 2002. Ever since then, we have brought unseasonably cold weather to whatever destination we vacation – just ask Texas about the ice storm they had a few years back. So far we have just missed snow in New Mexico and bracing for freezing temps the next couple of nights here in Arizona ugh. It is what it is, but the birds have still been active and my brother Ron is flying down here today to add to his checklist – writing this post as we wait for his flight to arrive.

To warm up a bit, thought I would feature an encounter from last year’s human migration.

Little Blue Heron found at South Padre Bird Viewing Center in January 2023

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this “Electric Blue”.

So Long Bunny, Happy New Year!

Best Wishes for a very happy New Year Everyone! This morning I was thinking to myself how overjoyed I was to finally close the door on this current year. According to a site I was reading regarding Chinese astrology, the year 2023 was supposed to be the “worst luck” for anyone born in the year of the Rooster, Horse, Rat or Rabbit. Immediate assumption – I was a Rabbit. Looking back on it, this past year lived up to that prediction. Up to this point in my running career, I had made it to every single starting line. Banged up at times, feeling under the weather, sure, but my ass was on that line to let the chips fall as they may. That streak was ended thanks to the “root of all evil” (as Tim over at Off Center & Not Even has accurately coined it) and a devilspawn tree. The 50K ultra trail race lost and still doing nightly therapy to try and get the broken elbow back to something closer to pre-break mobility. Then managed to blow my back out the day before the 50 mile ultra race. More recently, for the second year in the row we planned to head out to Arizona only to have Linda come down sick the day before. Canceled it last December and had to delay our departure this year. As I began to mentally list all the shortfalls for the year I started visualizing giant ears, button nose and those monster feet of the Nevada Jackrabbit.

Jackrabbit found at Henderson, LV in March 2023

Then I stopped and smiled – because that is EXACTLY what you do when you encounter one of those absolutely adorable creatures. My outlook changed immediately and a flood of counter offers came flooding in.

Hit the jump if you need a shot of cuteness to right any frowns.

Western Meadowlark…by Brad Marks

We are nearly to Christmas, the stores are bustling, the roads are jamming and the last minute shoppers are starting to panic. It also means we’ll soon be shutting down Intrigued headquarters so our staff can spend time with their family and friends. Brad is going take us along on another one of his birding adventures today, our traditional Christmas Day post and then we will probably call it a year to enjoy the festivities and play with all our new toys. Maybe another one while Linda and I are migrating south, but we’ll play that by ear. Before Brad takes it away, wanted to extend congratulations to my brother Ron who reached the 300 unique species annual goal today towards our Average Year (link here). He scored a +1 lifer to put the proverbial cherry on top – if you recall last year, we both fell short of the goal (link here). Quite fitting as today’s post features a +1 for Brad as well!

Now you can take it away Brad…

When we left Hill City, SD it was relatively early morning for the kids, but mid-morning for Jan and I. By mid-afternoon, we had already been to two National Parks (Black Hills and Devils Tower) in the same day mind you. Why not try for a third? By the time we arrived at The Badlands, we had already travelled 300 miles that Saturday morning. After we flashed our National Parks Annual Pass at the gate, we followed the winding path to the depths of the park. Gotta love the Annual Park Pass! What, you don’t have one? Go get one right now . . . go ahead . . . you can catch up on the story in a minute. (No, Wildlife Intrigued doesn’t receive any commission from Annual Park Pass referrals. But hey, maybe that’s something productive our Legal department can work on.)

Just outside the car on the right-hand side was a small group of Bighorn Sheep, lounging and munching on the sparse early season grass. I slowed down to take a look since we rarely see them in the parks. But after rolling down the windows, the soundtrack I was hearing didn’t fit the scene. There was this solitary sweet song coming from across the road. At first, all I could see was dried prairie grass and reddish-brown dirt. But then something bright yellow moved in the grass. This little fellow was singing its heart out. As far as I could tell, no one else was around to appreciate the song: birds or humans. It was singing for the joy of singing.

Western Meadowlark found at the Badlands by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to read more about this little yellow fellow!

Rare and Paranoid

Christmas (or other seasonal holiday event you happen to celebrate) cheers to everyone. Hopefully you are getting everything wrapped up for the year and guessing those that are not already retired will likely be getting a temporary break from the corporate grind. We have one more family event left and our own Christmas celebration before calling it a year and heading to warmer places. Admittedly, it hasn’t been that bad this winter. Today is the coldest it has been in a while (15F) which is nothing for us here in the Midwest. I’ve been working hard in getting the January Texas pictures processed adding a lot of new content for the blog queue. With the recent drop of new adventures from Brad, we are looking good for entertaining content well into next year. My last post on the Mangrove (Yellow) Warbler (link here) had some pretty soft images thanks to the dense habitat. Cannot use that excuse today as we had a clean shot at today’s Featured Feathered Friends.

Aplomado Falcon found at Aplomado Falcon Viewing area in Camron County, TX in January 2023

Problem was the “distance”! It isn’t often that The Beast falls short on the reach, but this is one of those times I could have used bigger glass. For some reason I didn’t think of putting the 1.4 tele on – doubt that would have help much with the combination of horizontal distance along with the vertical elevation of the massive cell phone tower.

Hit the jump and I’ll bring you in a bit closer so you can see these rather rare Falcons.

Panorama Point…by Brad Marks

Shockingly December is ticking off faster than the previous month. In this case, it is a good thing since it puts us closer to warmer weather – Linda and I head south soon after jolly St. Nick squeezes down our chimney. It is getting a bit stressful as another Average Year effort (link here) is also coming to a close. Currently sitting at 337 and Ron has added two since I updated the stats putting him at 299 – just one under our pre-kickoff 300 species goal. You may recall, we both missed it by a feather last year (link here). Carrying on the sub-species theme from my last post, Brad is going to bring us another adventure from his Colorado trip. Unfortunately Brad, no extra partial count credit for sub-species ha.

Take it away Brad…

I’m one that always like to take a new road to see where it goes. However, I’m not always successful and sometimes have to do a fair bit of backtracking. Jan and I had just returned from a whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here). The kids had to work that Monday morning. Jan and I had the entire day to explore the Front Range of the Rockies near Denver. I know, I know, a very big task for only a day.

This is really part two of a trip to Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) in Colorado. We had succeeded in getting to the park before many other visitors. In fact, thus far we had seen ZERO other visitors. After leaving the Mountain Bluebirds behind (link here), I found a wandering, spaghetti-like curved road.

Red-Backed Dark-Eyed Junco by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to learn about what was “eyed” at the end of this Colorado adventure.

Mr. Rusthead in the Tin

I had hoped to be full time on the new computer by now, but what has probably been the case since KENBAK-1, upgrading/migrating is a total pain in the ass. I lived IT day in and day out for over 31 years – you’d think this would be a walk in the park, especially now in the digital age of 2023. Nope! Now have purged most of the ghosts in the machine (“if it’s something we can’t buy, there must be another way”). Fingers crossed the final bits will fall into place in the coming week – too many January Texas pictures left to process before we head south! In the meantime, thought I would go with a featured feathered friend I was working on before the new computer showed up.

Mangrove Subspecies of the Yellow Warbler found At SPI Birding Viewing and Nature Center in January 2023

Here at Intrigued our motto has always been “Story First, Images Support”. This post is a perfect example of that philosophy as I’ll admit right up front, these shots are not technically sharp. Don’t get me wrong, we strive to bring you the best images we possibly can. In the case of this colorful specimen – this constitutes the best I could deliver given the circumstances (over the last three years!).

Hit the jump to learn about our brightly colored Warbler.

Blue Flash…by Brad Marks

Welcome to December everyone! A little less than a month and we’ll be tearing up checks accidentally written out with a ‘2023’ date. Note, as I do not handle the day to day billing, I have to admit I do not even know if the concept of writing a “physical” check still exists. The sand is definitely a blur as it moves through the hourglass and I still have a lot to get done before heading to warmer temps in the south. One of those pressing to-dos is to get converted over to a new computer. My current workhouse was growing long in the tooth. New versions of Lightroom and Photoshop were strangling every last CPU cycle, the Halloween prop related software was starting to complain about old drivers and maybe not related, but the WordPress issues over the last couple of months has been infuriating. The new behemoth has arrived and is a wonder to behold – the lights dim in the house and the local power company has to switch to auxiliary power on ignition (i9 24 core with a graphics card that cost more than my first car). Now the “mountain” of work to migrate all the system configurations, apps, preferences and data. While I’m out of commission bit fiddling, Brad is going to bring you another one of his adventures – this time from the state of “Nil sine Numine”.

Take it away Brad…

One day in late April, Jan and I were in Colorado with a bit of free time on our hands. We had just returned from the whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here). The kids were at work and we had an entire day to explore the mountains outside Denver. I know, I can hear it through the screen, “There are too many mountains to see in just one day.” We weren’t trying to see all of them. Our selection was sort of a virtual dart throw at “stuff” that was close to Denver.

After finishing breakfast at the hotel, Jan and I started driving early. We wanted to enjoy Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) without many visitors. The road from Golden, CO to the park was paved, but it was by no means straight. To call it “curvy” might be an understatement. This first road sign might be an indication of what to expect on the way to the park.

I mean, it’s not even in a straight line — it goes sideways! You’d think drivers would exercise caution on a road like that. But NO! We were passed by more than a few vehicles on the way up the mountain, even a “school bus” passed us at one point. By the time we reached the Visitor Center, I really needed to get out of the car to stop the constant motion for a few minutes. I can still get motion sick, even when I’m driving, on these very curvy roads. Think Spirograph on steroids. (Kids go ask your parents what a Spirograph is.)

Hit the jump to find out what lies ahead on Spirograph road.

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