Tag Archives: Great Blue Heron

Saturday’s Critters – Winter Storm Fern Edition

My hiking friend and I went on a five mile hike on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain on Thursday. The weather was almost shirtsleeve warm. We saw this great blue heron fishing in one of the ponds. All I had was my cell phone so sorry about the graininess.

After almost a year together our two dogs, Kodi the Pom, and Sadie the Terrier have almost started playing together. I guess if this were human kids it would be called adjacent play. They seem to enjoy each other’s company now.

Kodi hides under this table when my wife is gone. He always has such a tragic expression.

Lizzie checking on the goings on out in front of the house.

This fiberglass penguin has its own geocache.

Winter Storm Fern came to northeast Oklahoma last night. This was the scene this morning. Not too bad. Not even an inch of snow. We are supposed to get more later on today and tonight.

And the backyard. Kodi the Pom got up this morning and went outside and did his business. He loves snow. Sadie is having a hard time. She wouldn’t do her business last night so she needed out at 3 am. I took her out and she peed and ran back into the house. She was in a world of hurt this morning. She needed to poop bad but wouldn’t go outside and wouldn’t go on a pad in the house. Finally I carried her out and plopped her in the middle of the yard and she saw a squirrel and she ran after it, completely forgetting about the snow, and then did her business. She felt so much better, she was running around the yard. (Sorry if this is TMI.)

We have a steady stream of visitors to the efeeder. Here is a short 12 second video of a male and female cardinal and a dark eyed junco taking advantage of the suet and seeds that I put out for them.

That’s it for now. We are staying home today and maybe tomorrow depending on road conditions. If you are in the winter storm, please stay safe.

I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Lots of great bloggers post there, check them out.

Saturday’s Critters – A Sampling, Live and Bronzed.

Here is out Lizzie the cat chilling out.

Sculpture on Tulsa RiverParks Trails of mule deer.

Some Canadian Geese in another sculpture on the RiverParks Trails

And also seen from the trail, a great blue heron fishing for its lunch in the Arkansas River.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Saturday’s Critters – Great Blue Heron and Others

I spotted this Great Blue Heron in the Arkansas River while I was bicycling.

On the same ride I stopped by this cool mural of a frog.

This is Sadie, our rescue terrier. She is a very sweet loving dog. She likes to play and play, and then she’ll stop and drop on the floor and fall fast asleep. Her fur is kind of scraggly but we love her just the same.

An Eurasian Eagle Owl on display at an event my wife and attended last week. What a beautiful bird. The handler said the owl flies free and hunts every day. He was only delayed once for an hour or so because some red shouldered hawks were attacking it, so it hid in a tree until the hawks went away.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – On the Lake, at the Mountain, and Home

I went on a bike ride the other day. I saw this great blue heron and a turtle hanging out together on Zink Dam here in Tulsa.

Nearby was this egret fishing for their lunch.

An isolated American White Pelican was paddling around.

I rode my bike over to the other side of the river and saw these geese wandering around.

Slim pickings on the backyard trailcam except for a couple of dog pics. This is our pom, Kodi.

And our rescue terrier, Sadie. Her tail is always straight up in the air.

With my camera I captured this mourning dove on the camera feeder.

And a sparrow with a bit of fluff it found.

A squirrel checking everything out.

A brown thrasher

A house finch

Another sparrow, tiny enough to sit down on the flat part of the fence picket.

I went hiking on Turkey Mountain on Wednesday. I heard all sorts of birds and even spotted some but I wasn’t quick enough to take their photo. Oh well, I saw this guy though out in the open and it was polite enough to wait for me while I got my camera, focused and took a few shots. Merlin and google images tell me that it is a Western King Bird. I had never heard of such a thing but there it is. Number 19 on my recently started life list.

Here’s the Merlin screenshots on the smart aleck birds that I could hear and not see.

And here is a short 57 second video of some of birds showed up at the camera feeder the past few days.

That’s about it for this week. I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Saturday’s Critters – Mother’s Day 2025 Edition

We finally took our new dog, Sadie, the terrier mix, to a dog park. It had been rainy and cold and we wanted to get our vet to clear Sadie so off we went on one sunny afternoon. Above is my wife Heather with Sadie and Kodi, our pomeranian, in tow.

Sadie loved it. She’s a social butterfly with both dogs and people. She was running here and there making friends with everyone. She was right at home. We kept asking her if she was looking for a new home.

Kodi has always like the park but is much more reserved. This time, our poor little dog, got run over by another dog and that was it for him. We were told when we got him that he is a little dog with BIG FEELINGS, and that is true.

Sadie is making friends with Lizzie the cat. Lizzie insists on boundaries though so even though they may be together eventually we hear a hiss and a paw whacking Sadie on the head when she forgets the boundaries.

Kodi being cute one evening. He looks like a little bear cub.

At Brookwood Pond in Tulsa, here is a Mother’s Day shot. Geese and goslings.

Also at Brookwood Pond, I’m sneaking up on Great Blue Heron. All I had for a camera was my phone.

And at Hunter Park in Tulsa, another phone shot of a Great Blue Heron.

In our backyard an Eastern Bluebird visited our camera feeder.

I attended an event at Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area and afterward went on a short hike. I was going along and I could hear all these birds up in the trees, but could I see them? No!! I then I got to thinking maybe they are not up in the trees, maybe they are down below so that is where I started looking and I started seeing all sorts of little birds close to the ground. I didn’t really have a good lens for taking photos so these are highly cropped and thus a little grainy. Above is a Carolina Wren.

And this is a Tufted Titmouse I think.

I guess that I am not as smart as I thought I was. I have walked miles in the woods over the years listening to the birds up in the trees and that is not where they were. Anyway, I finally learned something.

And Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers.. None of us would be here if were not for our Mothers. This Heather with our son Logan and Kodi back when he was little.

And here is my favorite photo of my mother. She loved fishing and she was good at it. She had mobility issues so she didn’t move around very much but she could catch the fish. This was her favorite spot on Birch Creek in southeast Idaho.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – 7 December 2024 Edition

Hey its getting to be Christmas. We pulled the tree out of the attic and stood it up and guess what? The lights still light up!! Outstanding. Plus, it’s my tradition that when Heather turns her head I put the star on the tree. It stays up there until she notices it.

This is our Pom Kodi. It looks like he is looking at the tree. Nope, he’s looking at the door to the utility room waiting for my wife come home. Kodi likes her lots more than he likes me. Notice the topper on the tree.

Our cat Lizzy likes Christmas trees as well. When she was younger she would climb up into it. She always waited until it was fully decorated. Kind of hard to perform a cat extraction with a fully decorated tree. I thought I had a photo of her in the tree but I couldn’t find it.

Our silly Pom saw us getting on our scale so he tried it also. He even put all four feet on it. He was too light to register a weight.

And here he is chilling out in his bed waiting for my wife to come home. He thinks that I am no fun.

Here is the tree at our gym. Complete with a stuffed lion. This morning somebody added a full size kangaroo. I forgot to a photo of it so you will just have to take my word for it.

We went on a dog walk our greenbelt spotted this great blue heron looking lost. He was about 30 feet from a little creek. He let us get pretty close and then he flew up and got on the peak of a house nearby. He looked pretty comical. I didn’t take a photo because I am leery of taking photos of people’s homes,

I was at Woodward Park yesterday evening and up walked this gaggle of geese. They reminded me of a gang, marauding through the park. Luckily, they ignored me.

And that is all that I have this week. Actually, I have more, but this is enough for this week. Check out Saturday’s Critters.

Wildlife on the Arkansas River

I went on a bike ride the other day. I saw this bald eagle. Very far away almost past the limit of my camera. Two years ago I was quite sure that I had never seen a bald eagle in the wild. Since then I have seen lots of them.

And nearby a brief of White Pelicans. They are beautiful and comical at the same time.

And one of the big loners of the world, a Great Blue Heron. In some places, like on a beach, they are almost social with people but usually they keep their distance.

And I focused on a random pile of rocks and sure enough there were some basking turtles. They use up all the rocks and dead trees in the river.

And switching gears, our little Kodi, the Pomeranian graduated from puppy school!!

Here is what he was best at, the thirty foot treat run. He’s really been a good dog and we love him.

That’s about it this week. I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out.

White Pelicans and More on the RiverParks Trails

I went on a bike ride the other day on Tulsa’s RiverParks trails. I generally like to take one of my better cameras on the rides in hopes of capturing some critters.

I saw a great blue heron and took a photo through the vegetation along the shoreline.

Later on, on I came across this rookery of American White Pelicans on a sandbar out on the river.

There were a bunch of them and they were very skittish as I walked around trying to get a photo through the trees and brush so I didn’t try and work my way to the riverbank to get better photos. I figured they would all split if I tried that.

So I moved back and forth trying to see what I could do. These are not too bad.

They always seem to be on the wrong side of the river from me but this time they were right by me.

Here is a photo of me from my go pro clone camera on my bike. I guess I could have tried to not be so bright and yellow.

And by the way, I saw more evidence of beavers along the river.

And now on the home front. This is Lizzie the Kitten. She is no longer a kitten but she is still very sweet.

And earlier this week it was National Puppy Day. I celebrated by chasing our Pomeranian puppy Kodi around the house with a broom. He and I both had fun. Please don’t think less of me.

I wore the little guy out. He kind of hops around now when I get the broom out wanting to play some more.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critter’s. Go check it out!

Gulf Coast Beach Wildlife

I’m running late on all my posts. Life has been busy lately which is a great thing!! I’m not a fan of being busy busy busy but I am a fan of enjoying life and spending time outdoors instead of glued to a computer. So these are wildlife pics from our trip to Orange Beach, Alabama a few weeks

We saw several great blue herons. This one started out on the beach in front of our condo and it slowly walked to the barrier dune in front of our condo. It looked like he was following a lizard or something. We thought he was going to dart down and grab the lizard and eat but he never did. He flew down the beach after a while. We have these herons in Oklahoma and they hardly ever move a muscle unless they are spooked off. (By the way, if I miss an ID feel free to let me know. I welcome corrections.)

This is a different heron hanging out by the beach. We encountered standing next to somebody surf fishing. One guy said that the bird was his best buddy. Waiting for a treat.

This guy/gal was hunkered down in the grass at a state park.

Even in October, there were lots of sea gulls.

I’m not sure what this one is but there were lots of them as well, and other birds.

One day we ventured off to Pensacola and walked on the pier. There was this brown pelican there. I think it is a teenager as it was kind of small and some downy feathers. It didn’t move much. A couple of nearby fishermen would toss it something every now and then.

We had a great time on the beach. We had enough warm weather for four days of laying on the beach and we found something to do the other days. We love talking walks on the beach and we did plenty of that.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out. Lots of good photobloggers link up there.

Tulsa Wildlife Update

I went hiking earlier this week on Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa. I came across this tiny frog traversing the trail.

I also went for a bike ride and took my camera with me again. As I was going down the trail I spotted a bald eagle flying high over me but headed down to the river. So I pulled out and spotted this guy fishing. That’s two weeks in a row I’ve seen a bald eagle in approximately the same location. Sorry for the fuzzy photo. I was at the far end of the range of my Canon Superzoom.

I also found this egret, or white heron or something several miles north of the Eagle out in the river looking for lunch.

And white pelicans on a sandbar.

And a log with two pairs of turtles. I didn’t know that momma turtles gave baby turtles piggy back (turtle back?) rides.

And a great blue heron. Again at pretty good range. They are skittish!!

That’s it for this week. I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Lots of really good posts there. Check it out.

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