Ft. Morgan Raptors

Once again, weather is not actually changing history, but it does affect our vacations. A dry cold front arrived in the Gulf area overnight, dropping the temperature and whipping the wind in gusts that felt like 40 mph (although the Weather Channel says they were only 18 mph.) Cold, even with a sweatshirt. Brrrr! Tomorrow doesn't look any better. At Bon Secour NWR, we saw a Heron fighting to land in a tree and "treading" air to reach for the branch. With a squawk of frustration, he eventually dropped down to the water as the easier alternative.

Fort Morgan on Mobile Bay is our next stop on the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail, and just right down the road from our condo. The sign notes that this site is Internationally important. Its wooded areas give shelter and food to migrating birds going both north and south every year. With the wind pushing us around, I felt a great sympathy for the poor little birds trying to fight their way through the air. Near the Fort itself, we struggled and finally gave up, eating lunch in the car, instead of exploring more. Yet in the "Middle Ground" and the "Stables" area, I could share the relief birds must feel. The pine trees broke the power of the wind, and reflected the sun to the ground, warming the sheltered area. Enormous old live oaks provided even more sheltered space in their branches and leaves. We saw warblers -- we think they were Yellow, Magnolia and Louisiana Waterthrushes-- along with a vocal group of Bluebirds and Blue Jays.

The Fort Morgan area is known for hawks migrating through as well, and we really hit the jackpot today with raptors. Unlike the songbirds, the raptors seemed to enjoy the strong winds, soaring gracefully through the air. We saw Merlins, American Kestrels and Harrier, all from the warmth of our car in the parking lot! The strong wind made it easy for the Kestrels to "kite", hovering in one place without moving a wing. Then they landed on a phone line to search for another tidbit in the mowed grass. The Harrier swooped close to the ground, as usual, showing his white rump when he turned for another attack. The Merlins would soar nearby, then disappear, only to pop up again down the road. A Red Tailed Hawk enjoyed the gusts, causing me to have a big case of BIADD (Bird Induced Attention Deficit Disorder)! Good thing there wasn't much traffic on the road, because I drove slowing and stopped whenever something interesting appeared.

Life Bird at Gulf Shores

We enjoyed the Gulf Coast Birding Festival in Mobile, AL, so much last year, that we decided to come back ourselves this year for more birding. There were only so many trips we could take during that weekend, so we will followup with the Alabama Birding Trail for spots we missed before. We would get up early to board a bus and drive an hour to the Gulf Shore during the festival. Why waste time on a bus both directions? We have a terrific time share on the beach and a full week of great weather and birding in Alabama to look forward to.

As we drove through the resort town of Gulf Shores, we saw the Wade Ward Nature Park right in the middle of town. After settling in at the condo, we headed to take a look. The sign warns of penalties for feeding the alligator, including up to six months incarceration. Well, I guess that depends on what part of the body is fed to the gator, doesn't it? Look, there's a little duck in the reeds, I notice. On closer examination, it isn't a duck at all, but has a large downcurved bill and chicken type feet that allow it to walk on the reeds. The field guide confirms our lifetime sighting of a Clapper Rail. The Birding Trail entry comments that the Ward Park "offers ideal habitat for bitterns and rails." Pretty exciting for the first day!

The boardwalk has many interesting opportunities in a few steps. Some kind of seed eating critter used the boardwalk to do his business. I'll have to ask Swampy about this. Could easily be a raccoon or possum. Two mystery bugs sun on the rail.

The most numerous flying creatures are dragonflies darting back and forth. Although I dearly want to take some photos of them, the only chance I may have is if one of the flies before me while I'm aiming at something else. And how about that! It happened!

By 6:00 the sun went down, making dramatic reflections in the water.

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On the drive south, we expected heavy rain all day. However, we caught the trailing edge only. The sky was dark, dark purple, with thin white clouds scudding across. So dark, in fact, that the photo looks like a nice blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

Down in the Pit

The Falls of the Ohio are famed for having Devonian fossil beds exposed and easily visible. The volunteers, or Naturalists-at-Heart, work hard learning about fossils while training, and for years after. No one is allowed to collect rocks or fossils within the park. It's not too surprising, then, that one of our favorite activities is going fossil hunting at nearby Hanson Quarry, with our resident geologist Alan Greenberg to help make identifications.

Living on the surface of the earth, most people give little thought to what lies beneath their feet. This rock quarry has a pit that must be 200 feet deep--wish I could judge distances better. It's enough to make my stomach drop. I'm very careful not to get close to the edge. In fact, Alan warned us sternly not to get within a car's length of the high wall today, since they were actually working with big rock moving equipment right above our heads. He didn't want one of us to get squashed if a piece of equipment tipped over the edge! I can't really comprehend the amount of time it took for mud and debris and dead animals to fall to the bottom of the ocean, get covered by more mud and debris and dead animals, over and over, to make rock this deep. I know it goes deeper than what we see here, but this is quite enough to blow me away, thank you.

When it rains, you cake mud on your boots about six inches deep. Today was dry and cool, perfect weather for fossil hunting. The best fossils are usually found in rocks that weigh over 40 pounds, too big to carry home. We find enough corals, brachiopods and crinoids to make for a good day. Every year some lucky Heart finds a really cool trilobite. Again, I was not that lucky person this year, but that's why I keep going back! Alan says there is a "bone yard" area which has small fish bones and scales in it. You would not recognize them as bones at all, they look more like small flecks of black rock.

Leaving the quarry, I spotted a large Red Tailed Hawk perched in a dead tree. Hey, do we know how to have fun or what?

Big Sit at the Falls of the Ohio

The Beckham Bird Club in Louisville, joined The Big Sit sponsored by Bird Watchers Digest yesterday. Our club sat at the Falls of the Ohio, in a circle made from an orange extension cord, (clever, I thought) from 9 am to 6 pm. The Falls are a good place for bird watching in general, since it has shore and water birds along the Ohio River, woodland areas for forest birds, an area with feeders, and the possibility of seeing various raptors. The Falls has resident Peregrine Falcons and Ospreys.

By the time Dick and I arrived at 3 pm, the hot sun (a record 87 degrees) made the water sparkle like millions of diamonds. Very pretty, but also very difficult for birding. I just purchased a new broad brimmed birding hat, and baptized it at the Big Sit. Our group recorded 44 species till then, but no raptors at all. Some watched across the water through scopes, but hikers on the fossil beds scattered the few birds crazy enough to come out in the heat. Others watchers turned towards the woods with binoculars. Hurricane Ike blew the tops out of many trees, and we gazed hopefully at the bare limbs. The only ducks we saw were Mallards (pronounced Ma-llard with a French accent - it makes them feel special.) Even the vultures had gone someplace else. Overall, it was not an encouraging time. We weren't allowed to count the Great Brown-tailed UPS birds (you've seen it - big, silver body, and brown tail) that flew over constantly during the afternoon.

Then, out of the blue, a huge kettle of Black Vultures filled the sky, wheeling and soaring overhead. Of course, we scanned them, hoping to see a not-Vulture in the crowd. I see something white, but it isn't a wingtip. It's a tail. The bird turns a bit more. Now I see what looks like a white head. Let's see, large, dark body, white tail, white head -

omigosh! IT'S A BALD EAGLE!!!

I start to shout and jump around, unable to describe where the bird can be seen, but fortunately the other Beckham people are good birders, and they quickly find it too. Corroboration! Now, I'll admit, I pulled this picture from some older files. I wasn't fast enough yesterday to take a picture of our Eagle on the wing. As it passed behind the Interpretive Center, and reappeared on the other side, we saw another large group of birds in a straggling V formation. Sandhill Cranes! someone shouts. Sorry, not this time. I did not know that Cormorants travel in big Vs, but that's what they were. Later the Cormorants landed on the river for a little snack and to spend the night.

When we packed it up for the day, our total species count was a round 50. Click the link to see what species we spied. We did finally see the Peregrine and a Red Tailed Hawk. The Osprey decided to stay at his favorite fishing grounds downstream apparently. Ah well, there's always next year.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Boy, things have been really busy the last two weeks. Our daughter got married on Sept. 27, so things were in a turmoil. Actually, it went well. They'd been planning for a year. But when you get down to the last few weeks, you start worrying about things you may have forgotten, waking in the middle of the night for no good reason, and yawning all day. The wedding was beautiful. All the women went to the hairdressers to get beautiful - a real Steel Magnolias morning. Everyone cried through the ceremony. The flower girl and ring bearer waited until after the ceremony to throw up. Some stomach thing was going around. What more could the mother of the bride ask?

Bad things usually come in threes, and our three bad things weren't too bad. Hurricane Ike blew through two weeks before, and although my daughter and son lost power, we were OK at our house. Our sister in Houston didn't get to come due to looting and no power though. The groom's father was in ICU during the first part of September, but attended the wedding. Hooray! My car was in an accident the week of the wedding, and since it was eight years old anyway, the insurance company just wrote us a check. So I now have a new son-in-law, a new car, a new camera, and a new cell phone.

The moon is in its Cheshire Cat phase right now, in a clear fall sky. I couldn't resist going for some sunset/moonrise photos at the Falls of the Ohio. After all the recent stress, it was great to relax and calm down with a little moon watching.

Mighty Jungle Cat

I am a jungle cat, a mighty hunter. Able to leap 6 foot fences in a single bound. I don't have any front claws, but that doesn't stop or slow me down at all.

Just because I got hit by a car as a youth, my housekeeper thinks I shouldn't be allowed outside. Ha! She just doesn't understand my cunning nature. Anytime I want, I can streak out the door when they go out and they don't even see me . I've trained my housemate Pippin to tell them to open the door when I'm ready to come back in. He's too fat and lazy to want to come outside. They open the door for me, and I'll walk up and then walk away again, just to remind them who is in control around here.

When I'm on the porch, the chipmunks taunt me. My housekeeper says if I can catch them or scare the @#$% out of them so they move somewhere else, I can go out more often. If you were a chipmunk, you'd be petrified to see me outside your hole.

From the top of the fence, I keep an eye on the neighorhood. I growl and yowl when the neighbor's ginger cat comes by, to keep him in his place. I'm a lot bigger than I look, and not afraid of anything.

After patrolling the yard, I come in for my nap. Then I turn into my mild-mannered alter-ego, The Invisible Cat. I curl up on the couch or the top of the Cable box, close my eyes, and no one can see me, even if they are standing right next to me.

My name is Binx. Life is good.

Testing, Testing, 1,2,3

Ominous Skies

Ducks on a Rock

Small flowers growing in crack in rock

This weekend is the Fossil Festival at the Falls of the Ohio State Park, and highlight of the season for the volunteers. It rained at home when I got up, but only sprinkled on the fossil beds. We had wonderful crowds come to hike on the Outer Fossils beds across the river, as well as the Lower Beds on our side. While roving on the fossils beds, with a few trainee volunteers, I took photos whenever the opportunity presented itself.

The lower beds are usually covered by rushing water. When the river level goes down, the flat broad rocks are exposed. Everything is covered with a layer of silt, so our favorite activity is getting the children to scrub off the mud to see more of the fossils. Natural springs seep from the cliffs on the shore, feeding small puddles across the rocks. Children love to jump over the puddles, but when they miss and go splat into the dirty water, they think they've broken a leg! The ducks don't ever have this problem, of course. I like to watch the seedlings and small flowers that put root into this unforgiving environment. I know they won't last longer than a few weeks, until the river rises again, but these small plants persist.

Will it rain on the Ryder Cup, being played in Louisville this weekend? I certainly wouldn't bet against it, from the looks of this giant puffy cloud.

Double Crested Cormorants drying off.

More river birds taking their ease.

Goldenrod Leatherwing beetle.

I love this macro on the new camera!

New Camera - Happy Happy, Joy Joy

Wide, wide panoramic view from Conference Room on 32nd Floor of the Aegon Building, Louisville. Medium zoom to barges on the canal. Zoom, zoom, zoom.

Although I like my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30, it didn't seem to do what I wanted on the close-up pictures of butterflies and bugs this summer. And it's been a bit of a nuisance to cart it around with the teleconverter, which is heavy and limits my ability to change from telephoto to close-up shots. Therefore, I've been on the lookout for a new camera.

I found the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28, a 10 megapixel camera with 18X zoom and 27mm wide angle in a Leica lens. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy! It is much lighter weight than the old one and takes unbelievable macro shots. It's a smarter photographer than I am, and I can set everything on automatic to correct my errors, or put it on manual if I get brave. My hope/plan is that the zoom will be enough for my birds, but if not, I can use the teleconverter I already have with a simple adapter to fit the front of this one. AND, I can use the extra batteries, cables, etc from the old camera since they are the same brand.

Louisville's West End from Aegon Building.

Power Plant stacks - about 3.8 miles away.

With the lens set at wide, I can move it as close as 1 cm to the subject and still get a good focus. With this we should be able to count the hairs on a butterfly's legs! The real test will be how well the zoom does getting birds across the river at the Falls tomorrow. I have high hopes!

Bad Hair Day

So you think you've had bad hair days? Take a look at this guy!

This could be either a Fall Webworm or perhaps a White Caterpillar - Spilosoma virginica. Checking with Bugguide.net, and I'm still not sure. The Fall Webworm descriptions show it in tents and not so hairy looking. But the Peterson Caterpillar book says there are black spots on each body segment, which seems to be the case here. This guy, believe it or not, was crawling all by himself on black pavement - at high risk of becoming some bird's dinner.

It crawled willingly on to this twig and held on for dear life while I carried it to house and camera. Can a caterpillar have acrophobia? When the pictures were finished, it gleefully scurried off into the grass.

Stormy Weather

Whew! What a weekend!

Hurricane Ike blew through Texas then up through the middle of the country. We tried to call our sister in Houston, but no answer yet. Lots of rain fell north of here, in Indiana and Ohio. Louisville only got wind, and lots of it. Our kids, in two different neighborhoods, are both without power. Even houses at the other end of our street are without power, so we are very lucky. No cable, but there is power. (This picture is not of our car, thank goodness!)

In the cool evening, we started the cleanup of the yard and saw more neighbors outside than we've seen in ages. One house down the street lost a big tree or limb off the tree. We were lucky that nothing landed on the roof, since the wedding is in just two weeks now. What a variety of leaves traveled to our yard! At least half a dozen different kinds of oak, plus maple, ash, and even some sycamores, which don't live in our neighborhood at all. It's not so bad raking up the leaves, but those sticks really get caught in the tines!

The Courier-Journal says wind gusts exceeded 70 mph at times. Dick was out in the yard, trying to pick up debris, when I saw some big limbs fall across the street and made him come inside until it died down. One boy was outside mowing, got hit by a flying tree limb and died. Roughly 279,000 people are without power. This is about 75% of all LG&E customers, more than during the 1974 tornado.

Walking to the bus, we heard the hum of generators in people's yards. Omigosh! I had a terrible thought - what if there is no power downtown? I work on the 27th floor in the IT Department. Darned if I'm going to walk up 27 flights of stairs to sit in the dark with no air conditioning! They closed all the schools. Boy, will those kids be bored at home with no power.

We, at least, can be thankful that the damage was no worse than it is, and pray for others who suffered more losses.

Addendum: We heard on the news that many people are being hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning. At least one person died. Generators are put inside the house and not ventilated. Also, at least one house caught fire when something was sitting on the stove burner when the power came back on. As if being in the dark for a week isn't bad enough....

Golden Autumn Field

Go ahead, enjoy! It's dark by 7:45 now.

Gold is definitely the theme color for autumn. I never realized there were so many kinds of Goldenrod till I started trying to ID some of these.

Every time we spend time outdoors, I think I'm making a mistake with my indoor life. I have decided on a tentative retirement date, in a few months, and may go earlier if I can't stand the law firm that long. Not that I'm unhappy, just that there are better things for me to do with my time. When we were kids, it was an insult to be called a Know It All, but that's what I've always wanted to do, and I've waited too long to get started. When I'm with bird people, I want to know more about birds. When we see wasps and butterflies, I want to know them. Then we walk in the field with all the golden flowers. I can't wait to get started!!!

Now, when I do retire, I need a place that I can get to regularly, and watch the changes of the season. I keep thinking I need more land, then wonder how blind I am being to the land we have in the yard. I need to learn how to see, not just look. Can that be taught?