New Orleans pictures!

Ah yes, been awhile since I've posted. I'm back in Florida now, but I got to stay a couple days in lovely French Quarter New Orleans. I got there in the afternoon and got a sweet hotel room with a balcony overlooking quiet Ursulines Street.

Ursulines Convent from the hotel

 

Looking northwest down Ursulines Avenue

 

Looking across Jackson Square to St. Louis Cathedral the next morning
 

Breakfast: a delicious beignet from Cafe du Monde. Damn now I want one.

 

Walking to the cemetary tour on some of the residential streets in French Quarter. And below, some cool shots of St. Louis Cemetary No. 1:

Travels to Big Bend

     As of about a week now, I fulfilled my promise of six months of work in south  Texas, and am now an unmoored wanderer bouncing my way back home. Of course, my first stop required me to go further west, but the detour was definitely worth it. Thus I came to hike and camp three days and two nights in Big Bend National Park.
     All in all, a very interesting place where a mountain range is an island in the desert. Crowds were manageable since the heat kept most people away. I ended up hiking in the mornings, seeing tiny Mt. Carmen white-tailed deer, Mexican jays, spotted towhees, and all sorts of animals and plants. Anyway, here are some pictures...

Me on Chisos Basin Trail, with the Window behind

Casa Grande formation from Chiso Basin Trail

Another shot of Casa Grande from Lost Mine Trail

A mountain dawn from Lost Mine Trail

Castolon Peak from Ross Scenic Drive

Walking through a wash on the Devil's Den Trail

Leaving the ranch, on to new adventures!

End of point counts: a commemorative set of haikus

I'll preface this by saying I recently submitted a challenge to my parents to immortalize their adventures and observations as haikus, starting with their going to home games of the Marauder's baseball team in Florida. Receiving their excellent and elegantly phrased poems and having come to the end of my field season bird point counts, I thought I would attempt a reply, albeit one with awful writing and a Monty Python reference. For those with brave hearts and terrible poetic taste, read on!

 

Two walk a long time

Listen for the birds singing

But where are the birds?

 

Breeding season gone

Birds a-flocking, taking flight

Ten minute silence
 

Bored out of our skulls

Think of something, just anything,

Bring the coconuts!

The long walk between point counts...

South Texas birding highlights

The problem with on-the-job birding is that you see a lot of cool birds (and also a ton of mockingbirds) but never have a chance to actually get pictures of them. Anyway, because I happen to like pictures, here are some of my favorites and new additions to my birding life list, all of which I saw in the wee hours of mornings May through July here in south Texas.

 

For those playing at home the birds in reading order are: Audubon's oriole, Bullock's oriole, groove-billed ani, greater roadrunner, painted bunting, orchard oriole,  blue grosbeak, pyrrhuloxia, dickcissel, hooded oriole, green jay, northern beardless-tyrannulet, varied bunting, yellow-billed cuckoo, and long-billed thrasher. (Photo credits in photos or from wikipedia.org)

Heading into thick catclaw scrub ...