Just because.
Saturday
A quiet day. Nothing to write about. Sunny. Calm. Warm. Didn’t go anywhere. Sat outside. Watched some Australian Open Tennis. Took a walk. The dogs kicked the pillows off the couch and took a nap.
Barenaked birding
It’s a real birding term. It might sound funny, but it is not a reference to how much one wears, it’s about birding without optical enhancement. All the other clues: relative size, sounds, colors and contrasts, and behaviors, matter more. It’s fun to do now and then. While we’re here at this park outside Edinburg though, that’s the only way we bird, not because that’s the only way we want to see birds, but because this is a clothing-optional park. I’m sure it would be a terrible breach of etiquette to wander about with binoculars. There are many great places in the Valley to bird, so whenever we need a birding fix, we drive off to somewhere outside the park to do it with binoculars.
Follow-up
The Audubon Society owns The Sabal Palm Grove Sanctuary. They ran out of money and closed it. I heard they got money from a local foundation to reopen it, but there is more to the story than that. The local foundation didn’t grant money to Audubon. The Foundation actually leased the Sanctuary from them and agreed to run it long-term.
Remember that picture of the abandoned mansion I sent earlier?
Here is a Dusky-capped Flycatcher
From behind.You might think he looks a lot like the Ash-throated, Brown-crested, and Great Crested Flycatchers…, and you’d be right. They all have a little rufous on the wings and tail, and some yellow underneath. There are variations of each. Accomplished birders tell them apart just by looking at them. Luckily for us, he was calling incessantly, and his call is distinctive.