I was at Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center and came across this bee hive in a downed tree and the bees were active. So I stood off a ways with my camera and took a bunch of photos but I couldn’t tell at the time if they were any good. I got home and I got this bee coming in for a landing. I was pretty happy with the photo.
More backyard bunnies at the house.
Lizzie chilling at home
At Lafortune Park I found this guy and his girl testing out the pond.
And the moose is loose!!
A squirrel getting a snack
A couple of geese getting their feet wet.
A sure sign of spring.
And another great blue heron. They are all over town this spring.
Heather, my wife, was gone for an evening and our little pomeranian Kodi got so lonely he decided he would sit with me. That hardly ever happens. He loves to play with me but gets grumpy if I try and do anything else like pick him up.
We had a really nice, warm, sunny day. Kodi went outside and just basked in the sunshine. He’s generally here, there, and everywhere but he was happy in the moment in the sun.
A walk in the neighborhood park gave us this great blue heron fishing in the creek.
On my walk around Lafortune Park found this guy and his girlfriend.
Also came across Mother Goose. Behind her you can see Alice and Peter Rabbit.
Here is a closeup of them.
I also found these feeding geese in a backwater of the Arkansas River on a recent bike ride.
I put my trailcam in the backyard again. I activated video. Stills are fine and are easier to edit but I like seeing the critters move. Here is a bird in the middle of the night.
That’s all my recent critter sitings. I’m linking withSaturday’s Critters. Go check it out.
As posted recently the family did a New Year’s Day Hike this year. I took along my telephoto lens and didn’t find much to point and shoot out at. Toward the end we came across a pond that had some ducks of some sort so I reached out with my camera and the results were not that good but hey this is the only thing I got that day. Highly cropped.
A few days later we were home and I got wondering what bird was singing so I went out in the backyard and there were three robins high up in a tree just singing their heart out.
I had to use the manual focus because of so many big and small branches in the way and again, these are highly cropped.
And so this is my humble contribution to Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out, Eileen has GOOD photographs posted by bloggers there.
I went on a hike the other day and encountered some deer. I love seeing deer. They are so beautiful and graceful. They are not hunted on Turkey Mountain and so are not skittish at all.
I went geocaching at a local park and saw some ducks paddling around on a pond.
Kodi and I were playing in the backyard and he decided to take a little rest break in the leaves.
Last week I went to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center. I went in search of otters. The staff reports that they are active on Coal Creek at 8 am in the morning. Well I got out there at 8:30 and I didn’t see them, I don’t think. Near the old beaver lodge which they reportedly have taken over I could see that something was moving under the water chasing fish. I didn’t know if they were otters doing the chasing or if it were bigger fish chasing the smaller fish. So another otter failure but for some reason I didn’t mind.
So I started hiking around looking at what I could see.
Oxley has nice wooded areas, lakes, ponds, streams, and swampy areas. All sorts of terrain and it is pretty flat and the trails are all in good shape so it is easy to move around the preserve.
I saw a great blue heron flying around.
And a closeup, sorry for the fuzziness.
I came upon a limpkin. A tropical wetland bird that has a large range in South America and in the USA in Florida. It is an apple snail eater but they can eat other snails. As apple snails have migrated into south Louisiana the Limpkins followed them. Nobody knows why they are in Oklahoma now. Supposedly Oklahoma has seven of them now, three of them at Oxley. They have been here a few years so I guess they like it. You can read the Cornell Labs writeup here.
And way off in a swampy area I saw these waterfowl feeding.
I saw several groups of deer in the preserve.
And a couple of ducks of some sort.
And more deer. I think I saw four small groups of them.
They were staying in the woods. They were being careful but not skittish like deer in hunting areas get.
They are beautiful animals.
I didn’t find the otters but you know the fun is in the looking for, right?
I headed out recently to Oxley Nature Center in north Tulsa to hike the trails and see what kind of animals were out and about.
During the middle of the day I didn’t expect to find any deer but I found a small family of three resting in the woods. They didn’t seem too bothered by me.
This young one was browsing then laid down with its back to me. Go Away!!
I found this cool butterfly resting on a trail. Google Lens tells me that it is a Gorgone Checkerspot. I have never heard of such a thing.
This turtle was catching a few rays.
Two grown and two baby geese (goslings). I’ve done my research and apparently you can’t call a group of geese less than five in number a gaggle of geese. A group of swimming geese is called a plump. So here is plump of geese. I find the names of groups of animals fascinating. My favorite is a Murder of Crows. So I can truthfully say that I have seen a few murders.
A raft of ducks. I think this raft is blue wing teals according to google lens.
And a solitary great blue heron.
Too blurry of a photo for an ID but these birds were swooping all over the place. I got a new word maybe. A group of unidentified blurry birds flying really fast is called a Swoop. You heard it first here. You better check in often to keep up to date.
I found this funky looking dragonfly on a trail. Not good enough of a photo to get google lens to give me results that I am happy with.
And on the home front.
Our six pound Pomeranian puppy Kodi is a bundle of energy. He hates to be separated from my wife. If she is outside he pogos at the door to join her. When she’s inside he wants in. I guess that he has separation anxiety.
That’s it for this week. I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out, lots of great animalcentric posts by some very talented photobloggers.
On a guided hike on Turkey Mountain, I was lagging behind the group (I like to lag) and found this butterfly. Google lens tells me that it is a Red Spotted Purple butterfly. Other resources say Red Spotted Purple Admiral. I don’t know, I just thought it was different.
An overhead view of the same butterfly.
I visited Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum and took a walk around the gardens. I saw this little pollinator working away, doing its thing.
And then a wasp looking critter working on these blooms.
And yet another pollinator, pollinating.
And a duck on the museum grounds. Do you suppose he snuck in without paying?
And they had sheep. I loved these sheep. They were on a secluded part of the grounds up until 2014 and then disappeared. They are back now in a more visible part of the grounds. There were lots of teenagers visiting the museum the day I was there and the sheep were a hit. Up to six or seven kids were sitting on them at a time. I just bided my time until they left to get this shot.
And then shift to our backyard. I was sitting on a bench reading and this downy woodpecker landed on a nearby branch and stayed for a little bit.
And going inside the house, Lizzie the cat spent a big part of a recent day with her tongue sticking out. Silly cat!!
And here’s the Kodi the Pomeranian puppy showing a little bit attitude during a training session.
And here he is at puppy school doing everything my wife asks of him. He’s a rock star at puppy school. When it is not his turn to do something he watches the other dogs and people closely. He’s taking it all in. I’m learning what it is like to have a dog smarter than I am.
And that’s a wrap this week for critters. I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out.
On my hike out to Oxley Nature Center I cam across this little critter. I may be wrong but I think this white-tailed deer is a yearling. It kept looking over to our right and I saw what I think was its mother.
She wandered over to where the young one was. They didn’t run off. They were grazing and moving slowly away from me.
Meanwhile I spotted dad he was way away amongst some underbrush in this tightly cropped photo which explains why it is so grainy. We all love using manual mode on our cameras and looking down on those still using automatic mode. I’ve learned though when going through the woods where the lighting is variable that I am best served in auto mode, without the flash, and using manual focus. Otherwise the camera wants to focus on the tall grass and miscellaneous branches. There you have it!! True confessions.
I also came across this armadillo. I have seen more armadilllos this year in northeast Oklahoma than I have in the thirty years that I have lived here. What is the deal?
I got a little video of him snuffing around. They are blind and deaf apparently. They look very ancient. I have a feeling that when human kind is goine, armadillos will be rooting around the ruins of our cities looking for bugs and other stuff to eat.
There were a lot of waterfowl out and about on the ponds and lakes but they were staying way away from me. I’m not much of a bird guy but I think these are mallard ducks. Correcting my ID of these critters will certainly not hurt my feelings.
That’s it for this week. My cats got tired of being featured every week. They want royalties, or at least a food upgrade or some new toys.
This newborn calf is walking around the same day as it was born. On a ranch in western Oklahoma owned by my wife’s family.
And this is son Logan with kitten Lizzy. Lizzy is affectionate, but she doesn’t like to be held, unless I am holding her, and even then I get about 30 seconds before her “I’ve had enough” signals to let her go.
I went on a bike ride last week on a suburban freeway trail and saw this horse.
We got a duck pair hanging out in the afternoon in our front yard. Heather fed them once and and now they come back every day, and if we don’t feed them, they head to the garage. Ducks are such moochers. We have another pair of male ducks that also show up. We call them the gay ducks, (no offense, seriously) and they get demanding about getting fed also.
