Mudpuddle: Committing Fowls

With it's abundance of trees and understory brush, the farm is an attractive habitat for all sorts of birds.

The area right around the lake, while of course serving as a water supply, also provides nesting sites for various and sundry winged creatures and is a source of plentiful food.

Large Egrets (a type of Heron) are abundant around the lake. And even though these appear to be body surfing, they're simply wading around in the shallow water keeping an eye out for small fish, frogs, and insects to spear with their sharp bills.

You can always spot several, if not a hundred or more!

In this photo, taken a couple of months ago, you can already see many of their nests. Presently there are probably three or four times as many nests in this same area.

**Do you feel like you're back in school? Because I certainly feel like I am teaching again.

"Class, today's lesson is on Birds of the Farm."

"Jeremy, please do not make me ASK YOU AGAIN to keep your hands off of Jennifer."

"And NO, she doesn't like it- that's why she has slapped you twice."

"Let's continue..."

The Weege hates buzzards.

Hates them.

If he sees one soaring anywhere in the sky he barks incessantly until it's gone. He doesn't do this with any other type of bird. I suppose he has a sixth sense about their nastiness.

And just FYI - if you've ever wondered if one can crash right through your car windshield?

Ask my son Nick.

Buzzards I suppose certainly serve a purpose as "carrion feeders". And it certainly doesn't take them long to "take care of" a dead cow or pig or rabbit or skunk.

I salute you buzzards.

This cute little guy is a Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher. They do exactly what you would expect by soaring quickly though the air and plucking up insects in flight. They even have the ability to hover like a helicopter if the wind is just right.

I remember as a little girl, hundreds and hundreds of these sitting on the electric wires strung along the roads near the farm. For a few years I hardly saw any of them, but they seem to be back in full force.

Unlike the precious little Horned Toad (or Horned Lizard) or Horny Toad. We used to have tons of them around the farmhouse. But lo, I haven't seen one at the farm for probably 20 years or more.

The devil fire ants. I will never forgive the fire ants.

(In Honor and Memoriam of the Horny Toad, I sport his likeness on my License Plate.)

I miss you, my friend.

And finally the pelican. These huge birds occasionally number in the thousands in a certain remote cove on the lake. There is currently a flock of about 50 or so hanging out usually right near the shore at the bottom of the hill, directly down from the house. They are interesting in that they move from one area of the water to another in a long, single file line. It's really quite cool.
Here's what usually happens.
I look out the front window of the house and see a long line of them moving across the lake to the right (into the open water).
I say "Chief, the pelicans are moving to the open water-I'm going down to take some pictures of them." I immediately begin to look for my tennis shoes and socks and then of course I have to check my shoes to see if there are scorpions in them, then I have to find my camera, then I look outside to see where The Chief left the Mule, then I run to the Mule, then Weegie usually trips me making sure he gets in the Mule first, then I try for 10 minutes to start the Mule, then I say "crap" once or maybe three times, then I drive down to the lake and get there just in time to see the very last one in line moving back up into the secret and hard to access cove to the left.

Amen and Amen.

But the other day The Chief drove me late one evening over to the cove area (he's the best really) and sure enough there were just a few of them over there.

I decided to walk around the shore further so I could perhaps get a better photograph. The Weege started off with me.

It was pretty difficult walking. The weeds had grown up, and the pigs had been wallowing in the area, making huge and precarious holes. Weegie had to get in the water and take a dip every few minutes.

After a few minutes I noticed that Weegie had stopped following me. He had noticed that The Chief was not coming with us, so he decided to just stand in between and keep watch on both of us.