My wife and I were taking our dog for a walk the other day and we came upon this guy/gal. INaturalist says it is a Ruddy Shelduck. It had three friends nearby and they had a very cool vocalization that I did not capture. I come to find out that a neighboring subdivision owns them and they escape quite frequently.
My wife put up bird feeders and the grackles really appreciate it. Talk about loud and noisy though.
Lizzy gave me a big yawn when I was trying to get a portrait.
Here is a sculpture at a nearby park of a dog flushing some bobwhite quail.
We visited Tulsa’s Botanic Gardens today and in addition to the beautiful flowers, shrubs, and other plantings they had an exhibit of animals made out of Legos by an artist. This is a spiny anteater.
That’s a wrap for this week. I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out.
So I ride my bike from time to time along the Riverparks Trails in Tulsa alongside the Arkansas River. I’m always seeing stuff that you can’t really capture with a small handheld camera or cell phone. I was reading somebody’s blog a few weeks ago and they described how they took their “big camera” in a backpack when they went bike riding. The light went on, a dim light in my case, but it was duh. I need to do that. So I loaded up my old Canon Powershot. It can zoom optically out to 40 and beyond software wise. And it is a ton lighter than my “big camera” Nikon with a long lens.
It’s pretty light so I loaded it up in a small backpack, and took it to the Riverparks with me.
For years there has been a large population of pelicans hanging out at sandbars on the river. I could see them but now I could photograph them. Here are a group of three with a grackle or some other black bird hanging out with them.
Here is another group. Both these photos were taken on the east bank near where the Gathering Place is located.
On the west bank of the river, about a mile upriver I spotted this armada of geese all headed to somewhere.
There was another grouping nearby. So I took a lot of other pics of none wildlife stuff. I’ll be taking the camera in my backpack some more. I forget who gave me the idea, if it was you, let me know. I’m thinking of getting some sort of basket to carry it in.
And now to switch gears to my back yard I have been trying for a couple months to capture an image of a hummingbird at our hummingbird feeder.
And I finally got one!! Not though, it is just a female cardinal flying in back of it.
My trailcamera caught a swooping photo of grackle coming in for a landing.
We have lots of bunnies in the back yard.
And sometimes even a raccoon.
This is Rascal our Pomeranian. He is our baby. He is only eleven but he has developed hip and shoulder issues, along with some heart problems. He lives for his walks though, they revitalize him but it has been really hot.
So now we are dog stroller people. We take him on his walk until he gets winded and then we put him in the stroller. He is getting acclimated to it, so win/win.
But maybe we overdid it. We thought our little plump kitty, Lizzie would like the stroller. Nope, she is not a fan. She didn’t have any fun. But we did, so all was not lost.
She was exhausted after her short jaunt. Literally down and back our driveway in the stroller wore her out. She thinks we suck at cat parenting.
That’s about it for this week. I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters.
