A collage of some of the birds visiting our camera feeder.
Clockwise from top left:
A house sparrow feeding a chick right on the feeder.
What google lens tells me is a northern mockingbird.
A brown thrasher.
A house finch
A great tailed grackle
A northern cardinal.
Literally 90% or more of the birds at the feeder are mourning doves. Sorry I didn’t include a photo of one of them.
I’m using habanero flavored bird food supplemented with dried meal worms. Squirrels do hate the habanero flavor but strangely enough there is the odd squirrel that just gobbles it up.
I launched the drone the other day. It wasn’t sunset time but there were clouds and light so off I went. This is 40 meters over my backyard in Tulsa, Oklahoma, looking west.
And then I turned the drone 180 degrees to the east and pointed the camera closer to the ground.
And, as you can tell, I played with the photos a little bit. I used a program called Dynamic Auto Painter and used one of their watercolor presets.
Tulsa Tough is a big huge bicycle party in Tulsa. It includes three days of closed loop short distance races (called criteriums) in three different locations in Tulsa and two days of bike rides in the countryside in and around Tulsa.
I typically go to the criterium on the last day of the race. The course includes part of Riverside Drive and loops up steeply on a brutal hill called Crybaby Hill. I used to go up to Crybaby Hill but I’ve declined the last few years. It is very crowded and kind of outrageous in some respects but all in fun. So maybe next year when my knee will be fully healed.
The criteriums start early in the morning and go into the evening. There are sorts of races segmented by age and gender, especially for the amateurs. The professional races are later in the day and those guys and gals are amazing.
So I only saw a few of the amateur races but they were fiercely competitive.
It was hot. I don’t think I could ever do one loop going up that hill.
It’s a big party for the cycling community which tends to be kind of close knit anyway. Me, I’m just a recreational rider. Twelve miles is my sweet spot on level ground.
I actually did one of the rides years ago. The shortest one that they had at 32 miles. Great right? Nope, I had never ridden that distance before. It was kind of fun until it wasn’t and I got off the official course and so I just went to my car, loaded up the bike and went home. Ironically, I ended up riding a little more than the official course distance. Read about it here.
My wife and I had coffee yesterday at place that has this nice outdoor space which always has a breeze. I love the sails that they use for shade. They actually allow some light through. I’ve been thinking about something like that for our back patio which is nice but doesn’t really have much shaded area. Here in Oklahoma with our high winds I think it would be imprudent to do this as a do it yourself project. The wind loads on the sails and supporting post would be considerable. Fortunately I have a friend who is a mechanical engineer and knows how to do those kinds of calculations.
I fired up the drone yesterday to get a few photos of the midday sky. I also pointed the camera straight down to our backyard. You can see our patio with no shade. The orange object in the middle of the yard is the drone landing pad and just to the left of it is me, piloting the aircraft. This is at about 40 meters above ground level.
And I lowered it to about 20 meters and took another photo.
And this is what I was taking photos of while the camera was pointed out. Check out my Skywatch Friday post next week for more.
So, should I see what would it entail to get some shade sails over our back patio?
Sadie the rescue dog got her first spa day. I dropped her off for a trim and a bath. She seemed pretty happy when I picked her up.
Sweet Lizzy the cat is the queen of the house.
A bunny by day, from the backyard trailcam
And a bunny at night.
Some sort of bird, a grackle I’m guessing coming in for a landing on one of our feeders.
And a 53 second video on the birds that visited our camera feeder the past week or so. We have had tons of mourning doves, a few grackles, the occasional cardinal, some brown thrashers. Surprisingly, even though I am using the habanero laced feed there a few squirrels who eat hearty.
The other day we had a fast moving rainstorm move through Tulsa. It was very intense and didn’t last long.
It left a calling card, a beautiful rainbow to the east. It was rainbow mania on Tulsa social media. Everybody got rainbow shots that were a lot better than mine. But hey, I’ll take mine. I don’t get too many rainbows.
Looking west you can see the tail end of the clouds coming through.
I’m a pretty down to earth guy but I regard rainbows as a sign of good luck.
I went on a hike this week at Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness. I was rewarded with my first photos ever of an indigo bunting. I had seen them before but they are very flighty and usually behind a lot of brush. I come upon this perched on branch overhanging a trail. It sat there while I got my camera ready and I was able to take of shots.
They are such beautiful birds. We have painted buntings in Oklahoma but I have never seen one. I’d sure like to see and photography one out in the wild.
On the same hike I encountered this curious deer. We just kind of stood and looked at each other for a minute or two and it let me get a few photos of it. It never did run off. I finally walked away from it.
And now for the movies!!
First up is a compilation of birds from the past week captured on my camera feeder. Note that it takes literally about 200 videos a day. Almost all of them of doves, which although beautiful, are not interesting to me. With the use of habanero laced bird food, the squirrels pretty much ignore the feeder except for a very few who chomp down all the food they can, habanero or no.
This second movie is our rescue terrier Sadie romping around the backyard with the zoomies. She is the happiest little dog I have ever seen.
I fired up the drone again and flew over the backyard in between rain storms. This is looking to the west. You can see everything is very green in Tulsa right now with all the rain we are getting.
A stopped in traffic, crepuscular ray shot one afternoon.
And another shot from almost the same spot yesterday.
The City of Broken Arrow has a Veteran’s Park with all sorts of monuments in honor of veterans. This is the “War at Home” Memorial. It honors veterans who came home from war but committed suicide later. It’s a huge issue. War is hard on people mentally and emotionally and we need to make sure they are cared for when they come home even though their wounds are not physical.
And I went on a short hike at our Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area. The John and Kate Kaiser YMCA tucked to the very northwest corner of the Wilderness Area. I am a Y member so I just check in at the office and take off. I hardly ever see anyone else on the trails there. It’s pretty remote from the rest of Turkey Mountain.
