Frankly, the birding has been spotty this year. Likely due to the warm winter, some birds just didn't migrate this far south and seem to have left early. For some reason we haven't seen as many north straying tropicals. For a combination of political, weather and agricultural reasons the refuges and parks have a lot of water available. The people making the decisions are not necessarily bird focused. After some years of being starved for water, the park and refuge managers finally have enough water this year. They have water, and by God, they are going to spend it. They have filled all the ponds and small artificial lakes to the brim. I do understand it, but that environment is not necessary bird friendly - there are no shorelines, sandbars or mudflats and the water is too deep for most ducks and shorebirds to feed.
It was tough day to dress for today. It started out at cool and was 54F and warming fast when we left for Santa Ana NWR. We bumped into a couple people we knew and some new ones - all kind of grasping at straws.
Midmorning we left, headed east to Estero Llano State Park where friends were guiding a bird outing. We joined them and when they had wrapped it up we all headed to the Blue Onion for a two hour beer and lunch - hell, it was 96F, too hot to go outside by then anyway.
96F is too hot for any sane man to be outside by choice. So back home at the Wesmore I was out in the garden taking photographs of butterflies (not many out) and flowers. These two shots are for Prappas.
That Carpenter Bee is airborne - frozen in space and time.
Mad Dogs and - Gunnar
1 comment:
Thanks for the Carpenter Bee photos! Yeah, what's with over-filling those ponds? Brains are in short supply on this planet... I suppose they still have those bozos over at Anzalduaz Park polluting and making a ridiculous amount of noise driving around on the dirt with their grass powered mowers.
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