Tag: Texas 2024

Can’t Miss a Breeding Ibis in Watery Bliss

It’s been a busy week here at Intrigued which admittedly is becoming the norm – especially with haunt build season in full swing. As mentioned in a previous post, we started the week down at the Poodle Specialty Agility and FastCAT (100 yd dash) competitions being held down at Purina Farms in Gray Summit, MO. Imagine Poodles of every size, every color, every groom and EVERYWHERE you look. Linda calls it heaven on earth, I call it the danger zone as I fret we will come home with more Poodles than we took. The agility runs didn’t go as we had hoped, Ruger got a bit spooked by the photographer at the side of the ring and never really recovered. Raven was just one second over from qualifying in his run – heartbreak. Ruger redeemed himself in the dash clocking his second fastest run ever at 19.3mph earning this monster ribbon for his second FastCAT Championship title.

Ruger's 2nd FastCAT title at the Poodle Specialty Competition April 2026

Look at the size of that ribbon! What a ham hehehe.

On a personal front, three big accomplishments on my ongoing ankle recovery. Made it through my first 7+ mile continuous run without have to take a break to let the pain subside, completed my first 7 mile trail run (I’m back baby!) and today I made my official return to Farmdale Reservoir for the first time since the injury – 16 months ago. I was worried I would seize up at the spots where I broke my ankle and shattered my elbow but made it through – there was a shudder at each spot as the impact visuals popped in my head.

Linda is giving me “the look”, time to get to the real wild topic for today.

White Ibis found at Anahuc National Wildlife Refuge (Jocelyn Nungaray National Refuge) in April 2024

Now that is what I call making a statement on the water! Hit the jump to see more shots of the White Ibis in their amped up breeding colors.

Continue reading Can’t Miss a Breeding Ibis in Watery Bliss

A Handsome Devil and Friends

Not much to report in the non-birding realm. Managed to tweak my back this week giving me some unwanted rest days, but fingers crossed I was able to run the rest of that weak sauce out of me in today’s run. What’s the saying .. “The beatings will continue until the pain subsides!“. Beyond that, we pack up the RV this weekend and head for the Poodle Nationals at Purina Farms (Gray Summit, MO) next week where they boys will be matching agility skills with other Poodles across the nation (actually international as well). Ruger has double duty as he’ll be competing in FastCAT (100yd dash) and should get a major title for his efforts if we calculated all the potential points correctly. I also get to have a little fun with some birding at one of my favorite spots – Shaw Nature Preserve. Let’s hope the migration is kicking in down there as it is dismal up here.

I am going to pick up where I left off as we were celebrating the breeding season for Birds – thankfully not Rabbits or we’d be here practically the entire year ha. Going to give you an extra bonus this post, but for now, let’s start with this handsome “devil”.

Anhinga found at the Rookery in High Island, TX in March 2024

Hit the jump to read more about this flying cross, oh, and for the bonus content!

Continue reading A Handsome Devil and Friends

Two Firsts

Today I bring you two firsts, well, at least in my adult life starting with our recent trip down to Springfield, IL for a CPE Agility trail at the state fairgrounds. This is a homecoming for me as I was born and raised there and have spent countless hours hanging out at the fair while growing up. Some kids hang out at the malls or local car-hops, Springfieldians have acres and acres of dangerous as hell rides, rigged games, farm animals and temporary carney/fair girls (don’t ask) to keep us entertained. We do not get down there very often these days now that my parents are no longer with us, so a chance to walk the grounds and recall childhood memories is “usually” a fun time – until last weekend. In short I ended up getting “swarmed” by self-important sheriff deputies apparently so bad at their jobs they are reduced to protecting pavement and empty buildings. Glossing over most of the encounter to keep your eyes from rolling too much, but I decided to get a walk in between the boy’s runs heading out to the conservation area having familiar windy paths, a small pond and lots of trees for….yes, birds! Thought I heard a Fish Crow which is unusual there, so whipped out Merlin which confirmed it putting me on the hunt. Walked through the always open gates at the back scanning the trees and water for the rarity. No Crow, but noticed a black car following me around trying to be discrete – not good at it – game on. I’d take a path away from it and it would have to creep back and navigate back to another position to watch me. When the car got to the new place I’d change direction causing another move….this went on for a while – keep in mind I still had my phone out with Merlin hunting birds. Reinforcements were called in and I see an ATV pull up in a nearby parking lot, guy in black car pulls up to it, guy jumps out, has an excited discussion with the ATV occupants, all jump in the ATV and come after me – they got me now. I am practically laughing now as they pull up and demand to know what I am doing – “I’m looking for birds” and show him the list of birds Merlin has already found (and cleverly still recording so I had an audio track for whatever was coming down). He intently looks at the screen and proclaims an individual saw me and said I was acting “suspicious” and wanted to know how I got here. “Through that open gate over there” – mind you there is NO gate on the other end so the state of that gate is irrelevant. I get some okay we are just checking out the situation garble and they leave clearly disappointed they were denied the highlight of their year. This was all rich coming from a declared sanctuary state and apparently it is the victim’s fault if you are gunned down taking a walk in Chicago (link here). Not to mention the humorous fact my grandfather was a police chief of Spfld, uncle fire chief, cousin police dispatcher, youth baseball coaches were sergeants on the force. Saved the Merlin recording of the interaction and continued my walk more confident in my young decision to choose a career elsewhere.

Fortunately, my other first is far more exciting, a breeding Reddish Egret.

Reddish Egret found at Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, Port Aransas, TX in March 2024

Hit the jump to read more about this second installment of Breeding Plumage in honor of April.

Continue reading Two Firsts

Blue Means it’s Frisky Time

Well, we are in April now and it is time for me to start earning my keep around here – break time is over boys and girls – at least as it pertains to my absence. Big thanks to Brad and Jan for keeping the ball rolling here. The finger issue is still a concern, I just haven’t decided what course of action to take as the three possible options pretty much suck. On the positive side, the ankle continues to improve and now pushing 8 to 9 miles at a run and nearly every day. On the off days rucking the hardest bluff trails in the area for another 7 to 8 miles. Still a long way to go to hit my October goal, but the knee scooter sitting in the corner of the weight room is a constant reminder of the struggle. That isn’t the only progress this month. I’ve been working day and night to get through the spoils of the Texas trip (sheepishly looks down) from last year – I am trying, I am really, really, trying to get caught up. Along with that effort I did get another Halloween tutorial put together – will give a link to that at the end in case you are interested.

Linda: “All I hear is blah blah blah, how about finally getting to the real reason your audience is here!?!” “But my peeps like to know what I’m up to…“See that blue billed thingy right there, get to it, pronto!“

Tricolored Heron found at High Island Rookery, Texas in April 2024

That sound you just heard is the Intrigued CEO putting her foot down ha! How about we get to Little “Bird” Blue right after the jump.

Continue reading Blue Means it’s Frisky Time

The Least of Them

So, last night Linda and I gathered up a few critical items and took them to the basement in light of the tornado armageddon that was supposedly heading our way. Things you don’t want to be looking for in your neighbor’s lots should the winds rip your roof off. We then went about our normal business as that is life in the Midwest. As per usual, predictions here were completely off (well wishes to those much further north that took a twister to the gut). The real oddity was I ran Friday – 72F, ran on Sunday – 61F, rucked on Monday – 68F, ran yesterday – 80F, the front comes through last night and today I headed out – it’s 33F and snowing. My body does not take too kindly to shorts one day and then a heavy coat the next.

In order to accelerate the hand warming, decided to do some tapping on the keyboard and bring you another featured feathered friend.

Least Tern found at Port Aransas South Jetty, TX in March 2024

One that also dislikes the cold winters and heads down to the Caribbean Islands and the northern shores of South America to keep its talons warm.

Hit the jump to read more about this diminutive Laridae family member.

Continue reading The Least of Them

Fancy Tail

Taking a break from fixing all our Haunted Trail decor that failed for one reason or another during our last event. Most of these are pretty easy having been at this for a while now, but there are those spirits in the machine that require a deeper dive into the finicky world of electronics – especially ones that were exposed to a nonstop deluge of rain like on our last night – damn thee weather gods ha. Needed to step away a bit to clear the head and figured it was a good time to relax and get a post out. In honor of the colors of Halloween, let’s go with a black(ish) and orange(ish) specimen for our featured feathered friend of the day.

Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher found on Laguna Madre Trail by South Padre Island Convention Center, TX in March 2024

Absolutely gorgeous from my perspective, but completing the theme, a nightmare for any insects that try to cross its killing field. Hit the jump to see more shots of this fancy-tailed Flycatcher.

Continue reading Fancy Tail

Days in White Satin

Apologies to those patiently waiting for the far more entertaining stories from Brad and Jan, but I missed a small window I had between their trips into the field. Went with the two-parter on the RomEos (did everyone catch the RE or Reddish Egret secret coding there ha) and that ended up pushing us through February and now they are filling up their tins with new adventures. Have no worries, Brad has filled up his post queue so we’ll be getting to those upon their return – we like to keep our operatives focused in the field and not having to find creative ways to get access for replies etc. Long story short, you are stuck with me for at least the next couple of posts.

Being that we just featured a rather large, white (morphed) shorebird in our last two posts, decided to keep the theme going to start March off.

Great Egrets at High Island Rookery, Texas, March 2024

Granted, today’s featured feathered friend is larger than the Reddish Egret and naturally white versus a genetic variation, but you get the picture (literally ha). Hit the jump to learn more about these breeding plumaged Great Egrets – I promise to limit my use of song lyrics this time hehehe.

Continue reading Days in White Satin

2025 Comes to an End

I sit here alone at the Intrigued HQ. The staff is home enjoying the holidays with their families, there is a warm glow from the single light above my desk, a completed stack of performance reviews sit in the outbox, a nice cup of peppermint white hot chocolate steams by my open laptop and the pad of paper with the end of year to-do list only has one item left unchecked – a final post for the year. Looking back, this has been quite a year. So many bright spots along with some struggles I would just soon forget. On the positive side, I am once again very proud of our posting efforts this year. A quick count shows 77 total posts for 2025 (including this one) with Brad bringing you 23 of those from his (and Jan’s) work in the field. Each of those take a significant amount of time from the captures in the field, image processing, storyline, editor review, legal review and the general administration to get them out to you – a heartfelt thank you to everyone that gets this Intrigued gear to rotate.

Then there are the tougher aspects of this year. Although the ankle break technically happened in 2024, the surgery and recovery (ongoing) took up a bulk of this year. Duration wise, this is the worst injury I’ve had to deal with in my lifetime – which is saying a lot as I have had my share of mishaps. As an update to this saga, my surgeon gave me the green light to start running on flat surfaces. He tapped the brakes on the trail running and wants me to hold off 6 weeks before that level of stress. Bittersweet on that as I already had my trail shoes sitting by the door for when I came home. Swapped those out for the pavement shoes and now have a few sloooow runs under my belt. Pain..some…endurance base..atrophied…a huge smile on my face – DEFINITELY. Still a long way to go, but it is a hard to put into words the feeling of freedom that was felt.

And that feeling of freedom is exactly what led me to pick this particular series for the last post of the year.

Red-Crowned Parrots found flying over Estero Llano Grande State Park, Weslaco, TX in March 2024

Hit the jump to learn more about these tropical sounding residents of south Texas.

Continue reading 2025 Comes to an End

Rip It, Roll It and Punch it

Good news everybody…and much to my surprise… we had a fairly non-eventful staff party for a change, well at least by Intrigued standards. No police, no ambulances, no fire trucks and the always present neighborhood complaints in the inbox were minimal – clearly we are starting to show our age around here. I am sure Brad’s idea to warn our legal department that they were on double secret probation for previous year’s stunts was a tremendous help in keeping things somewhat under control. Note, the clever individual who managed to pick the lock on our copier room will be found, forced to write bad checks and required to disinfect the copier glass.

Needless to say, things are quickly coming to close around here. There are only a few in the office these days mainly working on year end expense reports and finishing up their proposals for next year’s field assignments. I should be working on performance reviews, but I find that is NOT advantageous to the staff this soon after the party sooooo……let’s feature another find at the Port Aransas Jetty.

Sea Turtle found on Port Aransas South Jetty, TX in March 2024

“Let go…and see where the current, ” I mean jump “takes you“.

Continue reading Rip It, Roll It and Punch it

Fish Guzzling

We are winding down here at Intrigued as the last of the 2025 events are slowly coming to a close. Yesterday I finished up the last of the crown work which ended up being far more painful than expected thanks to the temporary cap somehow welding to my tooth – have I mentioned before how much I absolutely abhor dental work – just point to a dental drill bit and I’ll give up my mother in an interrogation. Fingers crossed later today I get released by the ankle surgeon, so I can fully enjoy tonight’s Intrigued staff gathering – trust me, you want to be fully healthy before attending one of those parties – the weak are culled ha. That just leaves Linda’s family Christmas gathering and then ours before the trek to warmer weather. Hopefully we will be able to make a few more posts before we stop the presses and turn the lights out on this injury riddled year.

Before I get into the real reason you are here, thought I would pat ourselves on the back and note that last post from Brad marked our 1,000th post here on our wildlife sister site (the Intrigued mothership is currently at 1,533 – even a few of those were lost as we transitioned to the WP service from our own servers). A big thanks to all the staff that got us to this point!

Okay, since we are winding “down”, decided it would be appropriate to go with another “down” of sorts…this one being down the hatch.

Double-Crested Cormorant swallowing fish found at Port Aransas South Jetty, TX in March 2024

I think you already know where this is going, but hit the jump to confirm!

Continue reading Fish Guzzling