Tag: Red-Winged Blackbird

Bird Walk +1s…by Brad Marks

Before I get too far, I just wanted to thank Linda for now 32 years of wedded bliss – well, except for the infinitesimally small fraction of time she scolds me because of a “perceived” bad choice on the trail – then she relents, puts me back together again and hops back on the “happy path” hehehe. I did admit she should get an extra year of service for what she has had to put up with these last few weeks. Restricted runners are a notoriously hard lot to deal with. The good news is the stitches are out of the elbow and everything looks really good. A ways to go before it is back to where I need it to be, but optimistic now that a lot of the swelling has dissipated and therapy has started loosening everything up. Unfortunately, photography is out of the question. Decided to take The Beast in and have it refurbished so it is ready when I’m able to lift it gain. In the meantime, we can live vicariously through another of Brad’s Huntington Beach State Park adventures. Take care everyone and thanks for all the well wishing and healing thoughts!

Take it away Brad…

This may have been obvious to many of you long-time readers of Intrigued, but Jan and I just started seeking out and photographing birds while we visit state and national parks on vacations.  While we don’t necessarily chase them down, we will certainly take some time to look for what’s available wherever we are.

This is a sort of “greatest hits” post about many of the species we were able to see and photograph on a bird walk at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina, not far from Myrtle Beach.  Now, having said that, please don’t all flock there (pun intended) all at once. 

We were visiting the boardwalk overlook for the seaside habitats, when we bumped into a couple that had been birding for decades.  He was wearing a Boston Marathon jacket, and since Jan had run the Boston marathon a few times in the past, I went up to him and said, “Hi.”  We started talking and I could tell he was a bit anxious to be moving along.  He introduced himself as Jack and his wife Janet, and explained they were about to be late for the bird walk that morning.  During the off-season, there is one bird walk per week at 10am on Wednesdays.  It was 9:58am.  Off they went with Jan and I in pursuit.  When we arrived, the bird walk had already started.  The guide was introducing himself and telling us about the walk for the newbies (us included). 

Most people at the walk had binoculars, spotting scopes, checklists or all three.  Jan and I had our cameras with intermediate and long-reach zoom lenses.  As the guide is talking, there are a dozen types of birds moving about.  Some are flying, some are floating, others are wading, and one keeps smacking into the surface of the water, at high speed, hoping for a snack.

Huntington Beach State Park by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to read more about Brad and Jan’s finds at Huntington Beach State Park

Continue reading Bird Walk +1s…by Brad Marks

Building Team Intrigued…by Brad Marks

Howdy everyone! Just got back from attending the Midwest Region Haunt Convention up in Chicago with Ron and “partner in haunt” Brad S. (yes, I have lots of friends that happened to be named Brad ha). This was our first time attending this Halloween themed gathering and it was a BLAST. Got to see some of my heroes in the industry, try out new props/gadgets/mechanisms, take in all the attendees in costumes (a shocking amount of them) and most of all, came back with a ton of new ideas to add to our own haunt this year! Pretty exhausted from hours of walking around the exhibits and the long car ride up and back. Was getting ready to write up a post and realized Brad had sent me on our latest corporate outing. Let’s go with that while I test a quick rest from the trip.

…take it away Brad.

In the middle of May, Brian suggested we have an Intrigued team building event.  The entire staff of photographers and writers was invited.  No, there weren’t any rope courses, trust-falls, tug-o-war events, or overpaid motivational speakers.  We did talk extensively about the Legal department and how much copier paper they had been using lately.  It was Brian’s day off from intensive training for an upcoming ultra-event.  I think the next event is “only” a 50k trail run.  I’m working up to 10-15 miles on my bike and mowing my 1-acre lawn, only using the self-propelled feature for mowing up the hills.  I did my best to keep up with Brian on the trails in the deep woods at Jubilee College State Park.  We are both, after all, retired.

We met early in the morning at Intrigued HQ and drove the corporate Jeep (the corporate motorhome was out for cleaning and it wasn’t far enough away to use the corporate jet) to the north entrance of Jubilee State Park.  This entrance is mostly used by people camping and riding their horses over miles of trails.  The sky was clear and blue, not a cloud to be seen.  The trees were sporting their full leafage (is that a word?) and blocking our view of most of the birds. 

Brian parked the Jeep (skipping the valet service) and we began assembling our cameras.  It was an honor to be in the presence of The Beast, Brian’s Nikon 200-400mm lens.  Normally, I use a monopod to hold up my nearly 9 lb. (8 lb. 12 oz.) camera/lens combination (D300 with battery grip and Nikon 200-500mm lens).  I believe that I end up with better results taking gravity out of the equation.  But for the team building event, I decided to hand-carry the camera by the lens foot.  Of course, I had the camera strap wrapped around my wrist as a failsafe.  Brian hand-carries the much heavier combo of The Beast and his camera (8 lb. 15 oz.) all the time.  In other words, we both carried a full gallon of milk (or your favorite almond/soy substitute) plus a glass or two, all day.  (By the way, employees of Wildlife Intrigued all use Nikon cameras and lenses.  If anyone from Nikon wants to talk sponsorship for the shameless plugs above, please contact our Legal Department.  You may have to leave a message because they are probably out buying more copy paper.)

Just as I was putting the lens cap in my pocket, Brian pointed and said “Look over there.”

Hit the jump to learn what caught Brian’s eye and to read more about our corporate outing!

Continue reading Building Team Intrigued…by Brad Marks

Project Chekov: Red-Winged Blackbird and Robin

Now you gotta give me props for my clever Blackbird and Robin title! Here we are with another entry in Project Chekov. I may have underestimated this little project but no good project comes easy. As you know by now, this post features two birds. Neither of these birds are technically new to the Blog and therefore sans check marks. However, it does give me a chance to significantly improve my offering of the following bird:

That there is the cleverly (okay, maybe not) Red-Winged Blackbird.  These shots definitely up the game from the distant branch cluttered shot from before (link here).  I bet that if you live anywhere in North America you have seen this particular bird and per Wikipedia one of the most abundant and studied birds in these parts.  With that stated, you would think there would be more interesting information readily available on them.   Pretty weak in that area across both Cornell’s bird site and Wikipedia.  There is one key behavioral aspect that they lightly touch upon, but in my opinion understate.

These birds are downright aggressive on intruders.  Get to close to their territory and they’ll start puffing themselves up, displaying their wings in an aggressive manner and get to squawking something horrible.  If that doesn’t get your attention they’ll commence dive bombings.

hit the jump to read a little more about this blackbird and the other featured bird of the post

Continue reading Project Chekov: Red-Winged Blackbird and Robin