Day: October 25, 2018

Final Autumn Visit to the Bear River Refuge

BlueRavenBirders

October 7, 2018

The movement of the wind in the reeds is quite hypnotic.  This is a movie, click on the image to get to the Flickr site to play it.
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Smiling Pied billed grebe. I think he really looks like he’s got a secret. _JLS1986b

They have done a controlled burn in parts of the refuge, more effort in trying to kill/reduce the invasive phragmites. The black added an interesting contrast to many of these photos.

Killdeer
_JLS2006

Great blue heron, this bird was PATIENT. I spent 15 minutes here waiting for him to take off. He outlasted me. Of course he was on the passenger side of the car so I was having to twist in my seat and hold the heavy lens level. Better luck to me next time… _JLS2052b

I may hate phragmites for its inexorable invasiveness, but it is pretty.
_JLS2061

Snowy egret _JLS2076

Hiding Snowy egret
_JLS2100

There were hundreds…

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Barred Owl Spotted in East Dallas Along Santa Fe Trail

Wild Dallas

Owls are more often heard than seen.

On my walks in East Dallas, I often pause when I hear owls hooting. Their calls occasionally emanate from the dense trees along White Rock Lake.

I visited the lake many times in recent months in search of owls and their babies, as barred owl families often nest there. But the owls remained elusive and unseen.

I also occasionally hear owls in the early evening as I walk my dog along the Santa Fe Trail.

But I had never spotted an owl before. That changed on a recent Sunday evening around 5 p.m.  as I took my dog for a walk. After heavy rain earlier in the day, I glanced a large bird that I thought was a hawk fly past and land on a tree branch.

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I squinted at the dense tree canopy of leaves, and saw the bird hunched over…

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