{"id":1592,"date":"2023-06-11T13:12:34","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T18:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/?p=1592"},"modified":"2023-06-15T20:13:16","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T01:13:16","slug":"creature-feature-2023-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/creature-feature-2023-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Creature Feature 2023 #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know, it’s been a while…
\nI was going to ride my road bike this morning, but the atmosphere was threatening rain, and the radar suggested the rain might get here ahead of forecast. I don’t like to be on the road in the rain, so instead I took the kayak out on the lake. It’s not like a little rain falling from the sky will make much difference with all the water splashed around from the lake.<\/p>\n

And I had the mountain bike on the trails at the Lake Rabon Park<\/a> yesterday, so I got in some peddling. It was a chilly morning, enough so to raise some steam fog.
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
\nWhen mountain biking, it’s important to keep an eye out for other trail users and give them their space.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

A little catch up from around the neighborhood: this tree is one that just wouldn’t give up. It got bent over 90 degrees and put up 4 more trunks on top of the bent portion.
\n<\/a>
\nThis lead plant was starting to bloom and attracting the pollinators (bon app\u00e9tit!):
\n<\/a>
\nI think this must be where I’ve seen the vultures going to roost every night (N.B. that’s not snow on the ground):
\n<\/a>
\nI have Eastern Bluebirds<\/a> using the nest boxes in my front yard:
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Back to the lake this morning… The Osprey<\/a> are making good use of the platform by the dam. I saw a head pop up from the nest several times while I was watching, while the alert parent watched me.
\n<\/a>
\nThis Osprey in flight was giving a good demonstration of wing design. Those splayed feathers at the tips recover energy from the wingtip vortices, just like the “winglets” on human airplanes (note: the Osprey thought of it first).
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve mentioned before how difficult is is to get a good picture of the (relatively) small and fast-moving Belted Kingfishers<\/a>. Here’s a difficult photo:
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

This group of Canada Geese<\/a> included some young’uns. They grow up so fast….
\n<\/a>
\nAt the other end of the cycle, I came across this lone goose, who was obviously in difficulty, continuously turning around in one spot with his head off to one side.
\n<\/a>
\nI thought maybe he got caught up in some fishing line or something a sloppy human left laying around, so I approached carefully. He didn’t seem to notice me, and I got close enought to sweep my paddle under him to see if there was anything hanging. I found nothing, and as I watched he was clearly running out of energy. I tried calling the local wildlife rehab to see if I could get someone quickly, but that didn’t happen and with little option, I reluctantly left the situation to the natural processes. A little while later I came by and found only a feathery debris field in that area.
\n<\/a>
\nsigh.<\/p>\n

On a more solid footing, this rock gave an idea of the historical lake levels:
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

And finally, we have the obligatory Great Blue Heron<\/a> picture:
\n<\/a>
\nand this is what that long pointy beak looks like when it’s pointed right at you (yes, I’ll leave you alone):
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, it’s been a while… I was going to ride my road bike this morning, but the atmosphere was threatening rain, and the radar suggested the rain might get here ahead of forecast. I don’t like to be on the road in the rain, so instead I took the kayak out on the lake. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-nature","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1597,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions\/1597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}