After Four Years Searching...

Thursday I had a wonderful birding experience! I'll share the photos on my birding photo blog someday. I'm still on cloud 9, and the photos are still on the camera for safe keeping right now. It'll be a couple of weeks probably, before I get them off and readied for blogging. I can tell you this, tho....Bud and I saw a bird [three of them actually] that I have been searching for for nearly FOUR YEARS; putting 100s of miles on the car's odometer in hopes of spotting this one, adorable, special bird!!! Finally... As my sister said to me over the phone when we last talked..."It's a red letter day!" I must mark February 23rd on the calendar. lol

Anyway, we went to the wildlife refuge in town first. Yes, to check on the anhingas and breeding plumage. [The male is the one with the darker neck, the female has more brown in the neck] To update my vigil: The couple was still there in the vicinity, but no special colors....yet. This was again, on Thursday. I'll probably go back either today or tomorrow to see what happenings, if any, are lying in store for me.



After the walk around this area, we stopped to buy some wine for dinner, and then ventured forth to the Botanical Gardens. We had hoped their outdoor rose pavilion would be in full bloom. It was... And there was the wonderful scent of rose everywhere nearby!! Those photos I worked on. I even found this online website to turn my photos into antique oil prints.  As always I add the 'original' in the inset...




After walking the trails and boardwalks, we drove out into the outskirts of the city and then turned off onto the county roads [The historic Chapman Ranch area] where another wind farm is going up to spoil the scenery. These roads, thankfully, are paved but NO TRAFFIC other than the farmers now and then...we can drive to a crawling 10MPH searching the drainage ditches and culverts that are here and there.




The bird we've been hunting down is known to be a prairie dog den dweller and can also be found in culverts if dry. Creeping to a near stop speed, the crunch of the tires heard from the window as they slowly moved along the shoulder of the road could be heard, Bud said: "Wait, wait, wait". I stopped. He then said, "Back up....slowly". "There's one of the boogers!" I spotted it also. In a culvert. Of course our windows are tinted, so I had to sneak out of the car as quietly and stealthily as I could in hopes to not startle it enough to have it fly off before I could focus on it. The winds were blowing, no time for setting up the camera's tripod, so I attempted to hold the camera steady and snap as many photos as I could. Got several. I even walked down the road a bit, and found one on the opposite side of the road out in the plowed field!! FULL BODY views. I managed to get two shots before it flew off. I got back, put the car in gear, and continued down the road. Found a THIRD one out in full view, sunning. I didn't even have to get out of the car this time [Bud rolled his window down]. I think it was a juvenile.

I AM STILL ELATED!!!

Nearly four years, finally photographed.  Later that day, we went out to celebrate with a steak dinner with all the fixin's!!!

PS...Marie, you asked me about photo watermarks.  I make my own with Paintshop Pro program I've installed from the software disk.  But, there are FREE online watermark generators.  Just do a Google search, "free watermarks" and you'll get a listing of ones you can choose.  Also, the photo inset is of my own making...not on any photo editing sites.  [that I'm aware of anyway].