Oasis good - me bad

I'm so very disgusted with myself. Monday after banding I came to town and left a water hose on. I had checked that everything was off, then decided to quickly add water to the water feature so turned the hose on full blast to make it go fast so I couldn't forget. But forget, I did. It cost over one foot of water from the stucco tank. That equals one month's watering, or 2 weeks of leakage, however you want to look at it. Sure hope it rains one more time this fall, enough to top the tanks off. Thank goodness I was only in town two days. It could have been much worse. A few trees should be very happy. I've had a lot going on lately, but that's no excuse. Even though I have a ton of things to remember when I'm packing up to leave, those 3 faucets must have priority over everything else. Of course, I turned off the faucet before snapping this photo, so the waterfall that was going over the rocks can't be seen on it.

I wasn't able to spend much time at CMO today, but there was good bird activity. I finally got a photo of the Virginia's Warbler that's been hanging around. I guess they all loved the running stream I accidentally created for two days. The Virginia's Warbler was flitting around in the trees. I knew I couldn't get it in my viewfinder and focus before it would have moved, so I decided to just find it and click and hope for the best. Imagine my surprise when one of the resulting shots was halfway decent.

I'm amazed how things are blooming as if it's spring. Goldenball Leadtree, Mexican Redbud, etc.

And along Highway 118 there are lovely stands of Standing Cypress. I don't remember seeing that before.

Photography at CMO

Recently CMO has been honored to host quite a few top notch photographers. They share some of their photos with me with permission to post them on my blog. So much has been happening so fast that I think I forgot to post some lovely ones taken by Mac Womack last week. Here is a great one of two juvenile male Lucifer Hummingbirds. The one is practicing his courtship displaying abilities on the other.

And I sure wish my dragonfly photos could compare to Mac's. Thanks, Mac. This one, I believe, is of a female Blue-eyed Darner.

CMO had a new yard bird Monday, spotted by Kelly Bryan, but no photos that I know of. It was a Zone-tailed Hawk flying in the sky overhead.

Alan Murphy at CMO

Here are a couple of Alan Murphy's shots from last week. The first one is a Gray Vireo, a lifer for him. Followed by Lucifer Hummingbird (took him 3 days of patience to get that one), Scaled Quail, and Elf Owls. Posted with his generous permission.

Must be nice to be so talented. And patient. Sigh!

An intense day at Balmorhea

We saw many wonders today. Check out this Ambush bug eating an Orange Sulphur butterfly.

And this oversized fly, whatever it is, loved Desha's car.

No idea what this Rambur's Forktail damselfly is eating, other than it's not the above fly.

And a lovely pair of Phaon Crescents.

Here are three damselflies in one shot. Seldom do I get that many in focus at one time, but they were lined up just right. Familiar Bluet below mating Powdered Dancers.

And here's a swarm or hive of bees, not sure which, in a Retama tree right beside Lake Balmorhea.

Those of you that know me, know how I live life at full speed, so you might be surprised to see me patiently waiting at Desha's car for her to get done photographing whatever she was photographing. She took this in Shafter yesterday. Of course, I didn't really have much choice. LOL

More stuff, but too tired once again. Tomorrow is banding at CMO.

Too tired to blog

 Desha Melton and I went to Big Bend Ranch State Park to photograph Mayan Setwings. We really wore ourselves out, but are satisfied with our photos. Hers are always better than mine. Here's mine.

We stopped off at Shafter where Desha got two more lifers.

All I can do tonight. Tomorrow we're going to Balmorhea. That won't be as much hiking. We only had to hike a mile and a half to the setwings, but I made 3 trips back to the car for various reasons. I'm sure I hiked a good ten miles total.

Better luck today

There's a light south wind, but maybe stronger farther south. Lots of migrants, especially warblers, seemed to stop in at the oasis for a break. The indefatigable photographers finally got shots of a male Lucifer. Today is their last day. Then the feeders will go back up and hopefully some good fall and winter hummers with start showing up.

Late last night Michael Gray showed me a patch (batch?) of bats up under the roof of my courtyard. He says they're Pallid bats. While I have more tolerance for bats than for mice, I don't know their species.

Here's a happy, well-fed Wilson's Warbler.

Other interesting birds seen today are numerous Townsend's Warblers, one Virginia Warbler, one Nashville Warbler, and a Black-capped Vireo. Yesterday I had a Black-throated Gray Warbler.

Townsend's Warbler

Red Saddlebags

In Alpine, our ducks left two days ago. Guess they got the urge to migrate. Hope they come back in the spring. All six of them were born at our ponds.

Back at it

Gnats are really bad but surprisingly few mosquitoes.

Here's a better shot of the Gray Vireo. It was a lifer for Alan. I'm sure he got a far better photo of it.

Here's a Black-chinned Hummingbird I snapped coming to their setup. My camera wasn't on a tripod or plugged into the flash setup, so this isn't anything comparable to the quality of theirs. Absolutely no sign of a male Lucifer.

All the hummers have pollen-laden beaks these days. I had an encounter with a Black-tailed Rattlesnake today.

Back to my stomping grounds

Came down to CMO this morning. All the stomping around I did produced no interesting species. First is a Gray Vireo that I spotted and ID'd by his insistent song. I'm sure he was migrating through, but sometimes they sing along their way. Some overwinter along the Rio Grande, so I guess they don't migrate far.

Still a couple of Elf Owls hanging around.

Lots of great blooms. My sister and I looked hard several times for the Havard Plum bushes. Finally found a few small ones today. They were smaller than we were looking for, with no blooms or fruit on them.

Well-known bird photographers, Brian Small and Alan Murphy, hung out all day trying to attract a male Lucifer Hummingbird to their setup, with very little success. Maybe tomorrow.

Festival excerpt

Here is a paragraph from an article in the Big Bend Gazette about the festival, written by John MacCormack:

And this is Showy Menodora I shot this morning at the oasis.

Bear season

My sister spotted a bear near her house today so I hung as many of my feeders as high as I could. I imagine a visit is imminent.  I had a little help today (thanks, Mac) working on making the feeders so I don't have to worry about bees getting into them when it rains. They need to be bear-proof, ant-proof, and bee-proof. Hope I have it covered (no pun intended). I had tried covers before but had them hanging. The wind took full advantage to wreak havoc. Now the covers are bolted on to where the wind can't move them. It was Mac's idea, and I do not know why I hadn't thought of it before. I must have assumed it wasn't doable. Silly me. It isn't on that one flimsy stand, but at least I should have less rainwater getting into the other feeders now. Eventually I hope to replace that flimsy stand. Mac made me that stand in the foreground (#3).

We went to Lajitas today, but I only saw one species of dragonfly that I couldn't have seen if I had stayed at CMO. And it was a Four-spotted Pennant, which I've seen a lifetime supply of already.

My sister and I walked a ways on my South Saddle Trail and saw these lovely deer. We were looking for Havard Plum, which I know is there, but we couldn't find it.

Other than that, not much going on. I managed to totally wear myself out anyway.