Early Sunday morning, I took a trip to Port Aransas to walk the 2 mile boardwalk. Before stopping there, I took a detour to a nature center to see what birds were out at daybreak. A few. I climbed up on the observation deck and me and a boat tailed grackle had party. Well, I did. I don't think it liked me being an intruder to its territory. I was continually scorned!! And, I got some hilarious pictures of all the ruckus it created with some great facial expressions. While up there, I spied a beautiful Northern Harrier [one that is in my new frame seen below] and took several photos of it as it posed for me in the tall reeds. With my peripheral vision I also spied, off my left shoulder, BOOTS. The resident alligator...one of two, Boots is the male. I would guess his length to be between 12-15 feet!! He's humongous. I took out my cellphone and followed him until he sneaked under boardwalk...
The video is less than a minute long!
Watch Boots as he slithers under the boardwalk where a lot of people are standing!!
If the link is broken, here's the url: https://youtu.be/rox2tFHlsb0
...and if you don't wanna watch, here are some photos of him after I climbed back down and was getting ready to leave to do my walking for the day...
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I DID IT!!! I now have all my bird photos on disks; from the year 2016! All
5,867 photos of BIRDS. It took me quite a while to get them resized from the huge size off the camera to a blogging size and saving size for prints if I choose any in the future. I first categorized them by month [so when I think about checking for a certain species, I'll know what month they were seen last], made 12 folders -one of each month, copied and pasted them into the individual folders. Then, burned them onto flash drive pens AND CDs in case one gets deleted by error. They're all filed away for safe keeping. Phew! I'm glad that is done. Here I am into February of 2017 and have a goodly amount of bird photos for
THIS year already.
No, I don't save them to Flickr or any online sites. I want them protected for copyright and such; in my own little corner of the world.
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Early this morning, after the weekdays I've worked on getting those on the disks, I also picked eight more photos for another frame for the wall hanging. Ordered the prints and will go get a collage frame to add to my bird sanctuary room. This time the birds are a -top left to right- Solitary Sandpiper, the Pomarine Jaeger, the Pine Warbler, the Northern Harrier, Myrtle Warbler, the Nutmeg Mannikin, the Egyptian Goose, and a vagrant African bird [the Greater Flamingo] that showed up in Port A last year.
NOTE: ORDERED, PICKED UP, FRAMED...but, not hung yet.
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The most recent book I'm reading,
Surrender and Infamy, is pretty good. Of course being a vagrant Texan myself, being that it's a Texas Revolution novel, it helps to be living so nearby where the 'action in the book' is taking place. Just recently we took Erik, our son, to visit the historical Goliad Texas and the missions along with the Fannin Massacre that took place from the hands of Santa Ana [Mexico's president in the 1830's] -- the book is about Fannin and his army troops fighting the Mexicans for Texas independence. [the Alamo era]. Tho fiction, I am enjoying the fact that the author began with Fanning's [no typo, Fannin had a name change from Fanning] West Point background, his slave trade history, and his family life while serving under Stephen Austin [Austin Texas], and conversations with Jim Bowie along with much much more in depth facts of this time in our country's past. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres to read.
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On Tuesday after lunch I drove to check on the two Anhinga birds I posted about in my previous blog. I saw only one, but still there is evidence of two. But, this isn't really about the Anhingas, it's more about the weather. Tuesday, after two days of heavy rain in the mornings, the sky was a clean, cloudless, bright blue!! I couldn't help notice how GREEN it is getting. The trees, quite barren in my last post, have begun to leaf-out and it looked wonderful...
...what a difference a couple of days make!!
I DID IT!!! I now have all my bird photos on disks; from the year 2016! All 5,867 photos of BIRDS. It took me quite a while to get them resized from the huge size off the camera to a blogging size and saving size for prints if I choose any in the future. I first categorized them by month [so when I think about checking for a certain species, I'll know what month they were seen last], made 12 folders -one of each month, copied and pasted them into the individual folders. Then, burned them onto flash drive pens AND CDs in case one gets deleted by error. They're all filed away for safe keeping. Phew! I'm glad that is done. Here I am into February of 2017 and have a goodly amount of bird photos for THIS year already.
Early this morning, after the weekdays I've worked on getting those on the disks, I also picked eight more photos for another frame for the wall hanging. Ordered the prints and will go get a collage frame to add to my bird sanctuary room. This time the birds are a -top left to right- Solitary Sandpiper, the Pomarine Jaeger, the Pine Warbler, the Northern Harrier, Myrtle Warbler, the Nutmeg Mannikin, the Egyptian Goose, and a vagrant African bird [the Greater Flamingo] that showed up in Port A last year.
The most recent book I'm reading, Surrender and Infamy, is pretty good. Of course being a vagrant Texan myself, being that it's a Texas Revolution novel, it helps to be living so nearby where the 'action in the book' is taking place. Just recently we took Erik, our son, to visit the historical Goliad Texas and the missions along with the Fannin Massacre that took place from the hands of Santa Ana [Mexico's president in the 1830's] -- the book is about Fannin and his army troops fighting the Mexicans for Texas independence. [the Alamo era]. Tho fiction, I am enjoying the fact that the author began with Fanning's [no typo, Fannin had a name change from Fanning] West Point background, his slave trade history, and his family life while serving under Stephen Austin [Austin Texas], and conversations with Jim Bowie along with much much more in depth facts of this time in our country's past. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres to read.
