deponti

Sometimes I don't need to go into Forest Park at all, to see interesting birds...it so happened that this morning I decided to take along MLC2 (the weather seemed Not Rainy and Not Too Humid) and it was great, as I saw three DOWNY WOODPECKERS jumping around on a tree-trunk, on the Metro Rail bank, near a bridge that I was crossing.....I managed to get a FP (Foozly Photograph) of one:




And then quickly set MLC2 to movie mode and got this quick burst before they all disappeared:





here's what the Wiki entry says about these birds.

Why are they called "downy", I wonder? Is it because of the down feathers they have, or does the word come from the Old English "down" which means hill, or is there a reference to their ability to quickly hop out of sight...."downy" has a meaning of "savvy, smart"?.... I don't know...

Folks..meet Karen of Crane Creek, El Portal, Yosemite National Park.




In fact, given that the population of El Portal is....wait for it...635, I was wondering, why not rename Crane Creek as Karen Creek? :)

I had met Karen when Uma , a fellow NTP member, introduced me to her when we went birding in Nandi Hills


Here's more info about them .


On Saturday May 30th, yathin decided that we would see as much of Yosemite as we could before coming back to roost for the night, so by the time I reached the Amstutz home, it was past 10.30pm! Things were not helped by our mistaking another house for that of the Amstutzes and having that homeowner (Karen says he is quite grouchy...trust us to pick the only grouchy neighbour, possibly, in El Portal!) tell us he didn't know where the Amstutzes lived (they lived some houses away!)....so I just went in and crashed, and decided to have all the interaction in the morning...but even in my tired state, the beauty of the guest room (they have enclosed a patio to make this) was stunning:





( More about the Amstutz home, and the wonderful morning I spent there )

You'll agree, that's a very beautiful home, in tune with the surroundings of El Portal! I also enjoyed myself hugely, watching Lupin riding a horse...





Eliza is so responsible, that Karen left the other two in her care and came away to spend Sunday with us; and the little neighbourhood is so known and safe, that the children could wander around for the day! Can one imagine such a quality of life in larger towns in any country?

I loved your home, and the warmth of your family, Karen...thank you for making a memorable visit to Yosemite possible!


I'm off to a guided tour of Forest Park this evening..pity it's on a day when the temperature is 36 deg C!...but I don't want to miss the opportunity!

We were driving through Forest Park when I realized that this was a bird I was familiar with, but hadn't seen before in the US:





Well, here was a WILD TURKEY crossing the road! (No, please don't immediately ask, "Why did the turkey cross the road?" ...that one IS a turkey!)


I got this shot of the bird at the side of the road:







I wonder how turkeys came to be associated with Thanksgiving ....! All turkeys must have been wild once, but nowadays the only wild thing about them is the wild rice that they are sometimes eaten with in this country!

I got what I thought was another Black-Crowned Night Heron, but no...it was the YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT HERON .




If that's a yellow crown the bird has, I'm the Queen of England, see you all in Windsor Castle...


And then, in their usual fashion, this MALE KESTREL and HOUSE FINCH (and another bird that not even Dave Pierce can id) showed me nothing but bundles of feathers:





I ask you...is this any way to pose for an eager birder who's come halfway around the world?

I realize that half of humanity will not empathize with this post; but "parenthood" is NOT the same as motherhood.

Motherhood..is such an intense state of being. From the minute one becomes a mother, one realizes that one is so totally responsible for another (or several, as the case may be) living being, and its survival depends entirely on the care one gives.

The tie of the flesh is something incredible. My daughter says, "My body is telling me that the baby will wake in a few minutes and ask to be fed...." and so it is. Within minutes, the little almond eyes are open, and the mouth forms a hungry O and emits wails which mean "Feed me! Now!"

Sometimes fiction is better than reality...here's fiction by home-naturalist inspirethoughtsabout what she thought was a couple but which were, actually, a mother sparrow and its little one!

And here's a really beautiful (as always) sequence from yathin on the same subject .


Now that you've seen those fabulous photographs, here's a mother-and-child (this time, it's the COMMON GRACKLE .





"Feed me! Now!" says that open beak, and the urgent fluttering....

Well, one does also document the human presence at all points....! Here are a few images of the most successful mammal (in terms of breeding and presence) on earth...


This is Half Dome, and if you look closely, those ants are....people...








Here's a video where I zoom in. It's not *really* surprising, given the proximity of Silicon Valley, that the languages most likely to be heard at the viewpoint (this one's Glacier Point) are ...Indian! You can hear a little Hindi, and then, of course, the couple walk blithely between the camera and the view.

But then the camera zooms in on Half Dome and..you can see the rock climbers who have reached the top.








Here are some rock-climbers who have finished, and are drying out their equipment:






(  more if you click )


Deeksha pointed out these lovely criss-crossing vapour trails as we approached San Jose on our return...



We went to as many destinations in Yosemite as humanly possible, in those packed two days; east to west, I discovered the park as I have always wanted to, including such areas as the Tioga Pass, which a friend recently told me he had never visited though he has been to Yosemite four times!

This was a trip that I would rank with my visits to....the Pyramids, the Necropolis in Iran, the visit to Darjeeling when I saw Mount Everest at the age of twenty-one, the sighting of the tree-climbing lions in Tanzania's Lake Manyara....

Thank you, Y, thank you, K, you gave me great memories for a lifetime!

These images truly took my breath away;
I do love the mountains and the streams,
The springs and the snow.
With all the trappings of men,
These scenes are yet pristine and clear.
It takes me to when the rivers' flow
Was not dammed and broken.
In my dreams
I take the unfrequented ways
Filled with flowers, Nature's token
Of benison for creatures here.
It was not a time when
Man had left his mark on the lands,
Or wandered over the country in large despoiling bands.
These images make me sleep...
And dream of Paradise that's still ours to keep.
Nature's not kind, but always fair;
Those who are the fittest can survive...
Breathe the free, pure air,
Flourish, and thrive.




Storm gathering beyond Olmsted Point






Tree growing on granite at Olmsted Point



( More scenes from Yosemite )







Yosemite sunset


No photographs can do justice to Nature's majesty....

Thanks to Karen, I was able to id some of the wildflowers that grow in the Yosemite Park; they were so varied in colour, shape and size!

On Tenaya Lake, I loved the pattern this fallen tree-trunk made:





( some flowers, one VERY large tree, and so on... )


I liked this tree very much; someone has painted a picture of a cat sharpening its claws on it! It's as if the cat is inside the wood, clawing it!

I wondered if I should do a day-by-day account of the trip, but then decided that it won't be easy...I would probably mix up everything and give wrong information as usual...so here are some of the creatures of Yosemite...

The birds, of course, were far more in number than the mammals; and the only butterfly I could actually look at and photograph was the California Tortoiseshell; there was a perfect wave of them across the road and the banks of the Merced River, across from Karen's home in Crane Creek. We were not lucky enough to sight a Coyote (we never stopped complaining to Yathin about that) but we did see the Pica, and I think Yathin got some good pics of it, too.

If this was the rate at which one feels like taking photographs ( and in my case, at least 60% of the photographs should be, and are, deleted!), I can only imagine how many photographs Yathin must have taken over his eight trips to Yosemite so far, at various times of year. (I think to myself that Yathin only posts his best photographs and all the DM-quality photographs must be there, somewhere on his hard disk. I don't want to face the fact that photographers like Yathin won't HAVE DM-quality photographs.)

One of the very common birds that we saw was the AMERICAN RAVEN; Karen's email id has the raven in it. Here's one against the beautiful Yosemite sky:





And another view:




( lots more under here; look only if you have the time and the inclination )

Here's another juvenile Scrub Jay, turning over its shoulder to say bye to the visitor from far away:






Next up, other creatures of Yosemite...

It was dusk. I was walking back from the Farmers' Market; I had a gallon of milk and several vegetables to carry, so it wasn't a great time for photography... at Delmar Station, I heard a high "cheeking" noise, and looked up to see the KESTREL, hovering in the air, making the noise.





With one hand, I aimed the MLC and took a shot....




I really wish I could have aimed steadily enough to take a video of the hunting behaviour of the beautiful raptor!

We decided to take Eli (who has somehow become Biddles or Biddly) to Forest Park for an outing, and D had the idea of going boating. So that's what we did...how we managed to put her baby carriage in the boat, feed her, change her in the paddleboat (where two people pedal like crazy) is a different story!

But one sight that I loved was this bouquet of birds under one of the bridges that we boated through:





Those are BARN SWALLOWS, how lovely to see the fledglings like that! It was very dark, and so I had to use a flash, but that was the only shot that I took.

Another bridge also has a nest in the beginning stages of construction!


The fountains in the creek made a beautiful scene:





Close up, too, the water was delicately coloured by both the twilight and the light:






St Louis, I must say, is a beautiful city to live in...and the weather has been very kind to us so far, with thunderstorms keeping down both the heat and humidity.Yesterday evening was the first time it felt a little humid...I hope bright sunshine and high heat/humidity keep off this summer!


I really do enjoy not having a maid, and doing everything ourselves....it's so much more convenient! I wish this was possible in India, but with the dust there, it would mean (and it DID mean, in the days I didn't have a maid) that I would spend all my free time dusting, sweeping and swabbing.... lack of dust is a major plus, I must say.

I have started music classes for one of A's friends...let's see how they go, and if the person concerned enjoys them and finds them helpful!

I want all my chosen pics up on my photobucket site before making the Yosemite post, but it's taking a very long time because of so many reasons:

Every time the microwave is switched on, the wifi stops working.

Every time Eli cries, I stop working on the photograph uploading.

Every time the weather is cool and cloudy, I also go off for a walk.

And so the reasons go...but yesterday, when returning from the

temple

I am sorry to say that it's not overwhelming devotion that take us there but the fact that the canteen there serves fantastic idli/pongal on Saturdays and dosa/upma/puLiyOtharai (that's what it is, NOT the Kannada puLiyOgarE) on Sundays! In fact, we ate first and then went upstairs for the darshan...

On the way back, I asked to be dropped off at Forest Park, and asked A to join me, which she did...the men took Eli home in the car, and we walked back, enjoying the park and its sights...


The scenery was lovely, with these mammals boating in Des Peres Creek:




We saw the RED-TAILED HAWK overhead (remember I only had MLC2 and the hawk was FAR above, don't complain about the foozly shot, I can hear you!):




Here it is, with a CHIMNEY SWIFT in the frame, too:




This TURTLE (I don't know its exact id) in Des Peres creek swam away as we watched:




( more stuff here if you click )


I decided that even the weeds in this place are beautiful. See this close-up of a tiny weed for yourself!





Having people over for dinner; don't know when I will get to posting those photos, but I will inflict them on you you will certainly get to see them, never fear!

I zoomed in and out for this video, from the slope on the hillside that we were standing on; this is the continuation of the road, and the whole slope seems to have had a major landslide at some point of time.





The uploading of the pics is going slowly, with so much else to do and the wifi stopping whenever the microwave is on! :)

The day before I left for Yosemite, I decided to go for an evening walk, and hoped to see a Red-Tailed Hawk. I was unlucky with that, but as if to make up, on my way home I looked up...





Yathin and Dave Pierce, not to mention AMS, id'd it as the AMERICAN KESTREL. I've seen a lot of Turkey Vultures, too, but never a Kestrel before, so it was good that I was able to get a shot, even if it was a lousy one. If you look carefully, you'll see that it's got a small bird in its talons...

OK, working today on uploading the Yosemite pics, it's such a majestic place that even I have got good shots...will probably put up the post on Monday.

Here's a GREAT EGRET in Des Peres creek in Forest Park, making a fine catch one day:






Fresh fish for lunch, yummm....

This morning, I was walking and thinking about the baseball team that's named after the RED CARDINAL :





I looked to up to see the amazing sight of a skein (it's a "skein" in the air, a "gaggle" on the ground) of CANADA GEESE fly past in the typical "V" formation




It was uplifting to see them, and it wasn't only my head, but my spirits too, that was (were?) lifted up!

And then, as I continued my walk, I was able to spot (and actually photograph, before it flew off in a flash, in the drizzling rain), this beautiful BLUE JAY (there's also a baseball team named after it in Toronto, Canada!)...




Thanks for the id, chaibacca.


The crest that the wiki clearly shows, was probably wet in the rain...the bird was, quite literally, crestfallen! :)

Setting out for my walk this morning, I saw this flock of birds sitting, rather far away, on the top of a tree:





I was able to get a foozly close-up with the S10...




Dave Pierce of the St Louis Audubon Society say they are CEDAR WAXWINGS ....obviously, they are also common at this time of year.

More info about the waxwings

here .

A pair of HOUSE FINCHES have been checking out our front porch, trying to see if they can nest! But alas, there's nowhere for them to do so.

I seem to have left these birds out of the list of the Forest Park birds...

The PURPLE MARTIN is very difficult to photograph, as it rarely alights long enough! But I came across this condo built for them:






There seems to be some concern about these birds; I found this signboard giving details about the bird:





And it also said that the population of these birds is declining:




However, the wiki entry lists these birds' extinction chances as "least concern"



Certainly, they look fairly plentiful to ME! I hope it's not a case similar to that of the BARN OWL in Bangalore...I joined a Barn Owl Conservation group, and later Karthik laughingly told me it was totally unnecessary, because the increase in the rat population would automatically bring the Barn Owls back to Bangalore (which they did!)



Here's the common BARN SWALLOW:









Another lovely bird in the Des Peres creek is this lovely BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON






This one's the BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD :





And since I have found these birds very shy compared to the other everyday birds, and have been going around hoping to get photographs of them, this morning I found three of these RED CARDINALS looking down on me from our own rooftop! Before I could get the camera, one had flown, and the other two allowed me only a single shot, before they, too, disappeared over the roof:





Update: I had got this post and id's all messed up! A big thanks to the three people who took the effort and time to correct me! asakiyume did not even post a comment, she emailed me so that I could correct the id's without appearing quite the klutz I am...but I think my mistakes, as much as my observations, should be on public record...

As I opened the front door, this HOUSE FINCH (thanks for the correct id, yathin ) greeted me in the little tree right outside, with its bright, beady eyes...




As I crossed the road, I realized that it was going to be quite cold, as these cloud formations (that's ice causing the rainbow effect) portended:





( more random images and thoughts )

And yes, I saw the the legendary sword of King Arthur :



I did like the message at the bottom! When things are tough...do just that...shut up and hold on!

Yesterday, I took my 12-year-old nephew from Florida to the Zoo to see the stingrays; he was delightful about being ready on time, and didn't complain about the walk at all, which is about 2.5 miles each way, I think...and I told him that on the way, I would pause if I saw any "interesting" birds. He got quite interested in the birds he was seeing, and mentioned that they didn't see the American Robin in Florida; he kept asking about each bird, "Is it common?" and he laughed when I told him that the Grackle was called the Common Grackle! "Then why are they not called Common Starling and Common Robin and Common Pigeon?" he asked logically!

At the Des Peres creek, I spotted this GREEN HERON:





It was a beautiful, colourful bird, and there's more info about it

here .

It's been a very hectic, enjoyable but tiring weekend...it's also been a month since our departure and though there is much joy here, I cannot help missing home very, very much.....this is the longest time I have been away from home for many years!


Oh..and this nephew...it's very funny, he's totally gone on gangs, mafia and everything associated with it...he keeps wanting to know if St Louis is more dangerous than Chicago, identified several people during our walk to the Zoo and our drive downtown who, according to him, were smoking "crack-cocaine" or were members of gangs, and he wanted to know if this area or that were "ghetto" areas and dangerous!

I have told him to come to India, where I told him I could show him all the "ghettos" he wanted!