Birthday dinner – flying lesson – triathlon – pass the buck

Posted on August 27, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

27 August, 2017            Birthday dinner – flying lesson – triathlon – pass the buck

Cessna 172 – I flew in that today! Turning, banking, ascending, descending, it is beyond amazing. I can hardly wait to learn more.

Birthday dinner at l’opossum. That is flash glare or something on my lip – if it was food I would have eaten it.

 

Me on the left, Pat’s brother-in-law Tom next, then Pat, then Andrew, Quantico Triathlon 2017 – photo credit to Pat’s wife (Tom’s sister) Megan. Thanks Megan! 

Whitetail buck on the side of Riverside Drive, August 24, 1:00 PM

This week, where do I begin? Evelyn and I celebrated my 56th birthday at L’opossum on Wednesday evening. My friend Andrew and my friend Pat and his brother-in-law Tom and I all completed the Quantico triathlon yesterday. This afternoon I took my first flying lesson at Heart of Virginia Aviation (HOVA) in Ashland, VA. Thursday after we hiked at the river, Mackey and Turner and I saw a whitetail buck in the woods alongside Riverside Drive, squiring around a herd of four or maybe six pretty little does and fawns.

This is my first birthday since Mom died. I hadn’t been thinking about her much recently but she came back into sharp focus on my birthday. When I was growing up, we didn’t have big birthday parties or get expensive presents or whatever. But just little things, like in the car you got to choose the radio station, you got your favorite food for dinner, that kind of thing. Just little stuff, but when you grow up in a family of seven, it’s really fun to be #1 for that day. And when we were adults, my Mom didn’t send real cool, clever, beautiful cards, but she always sent a birthday card – she never missed any birthday. Ever. And you better believe she’d call.

But speaking of cool birthday gifts. Even though my birthday was on a Wednesday, it was busy from start to finish. I was up at 5:00 and worked during the day plus took a long swim plus Evelyn worked plus we went out for dinner. But it doesn’t matter what you did during the day – the last thing before bed is take Mackey and Turner for a walk. So Evelyn and I  got home from our birthday dinner around 8:30 PM and the front garden beds were a little dry and had begun to get that late-summer dreariness. About an hour and a half later, Mackey and Turner and I walked out onto the front stoop and looked down and saw this final priceless birthday gift from Evelyn. Look at this beauty:

Last birthday present of the day, these gifts are beyond compare. Each one is priceless.

Here are some of the excellent cards I got from my outstanding family and fantastic friends. They’re all so thoughtful – I could not possibly be more grateful:

Birthday cards – everyone is so thoughtful. Especially Evelyn’s – on the left.

Here are a couple of pictures the ribbon from the triathlon we all did yesterday:

Front of the finisher’s ribbon

Detail of back

The race was a 750 meter (1/2 mile) swim in the Potomac River, a 20 kilometer (12.4 mile) bike and a 5k (3.1 mile) run. Low key and enjoyable. 

That triathlon ribbon is another bittersweet memento this birthday week, because nobody wanted to hear about triathlons in more detail than Mom. And this one, she would have just levitated. Because my Mom was the queen of networkers – she met people she knew everywhere. I went to high school in Washington, DC at a Jesuit high school called Gonzaga and our colors were purple and white. So when I saw a bunch of guys in purple and white at the triathlon, I went up and introduced myself. We had a great chat, then they introduced me to the base commander at Quantico, Col. Joseph M. Murray – Gonzaga class of 1985! Six years after I graduated! It was great fun talking with him. To give an idea of the esteem that Gonzaga alumni hold for their school, this is the first sentence of Col. Murray’s USMC biography: “Born in Washington, DC, Colonel Murray graduated from Gonzaga College High School and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps in 1990 after graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University.” My mom just couldn’t get enough of that kind of thing. Plus I guarantee – there’s a 100% chance – that she would have said “Oh, sure, Joe Murray, I was talking with his mother last week about…” Mom knew everybody, and knew something interesting about them. She was incapable of not carrying on a conversation. I don’t know how she did it.

My friend Andrew (on right w/glasses on head in picture at top) has been doing triathlons with me for decades. I remember going to his wedding, and now his oldest is a senior in high school! This year was my thirtieth anniversary of competing in triathlons, and he did one with me at Lake Anna in May. His birthday gift to me was a book – an actual book – about that race. Here are a handful of my favorite images. If you see me out and about sometime and want to see it, just let me know – I’d love to show it to you. I’ll probably carry it around with me in my car this week. It’s the only one on this planet! Unless  Andrew made more of them… Here are a few of the pictures I especially enjoy:

The author is wearing orange:

Two page view:

The book even has a picture of how I begin every race day (and every non-race day).

This is the place where I took the flying lessons:

Sounds simple enough:

I had my first flying lesson here today:

I had an excellent instructor named John Gillette. After some ground instruction we actually flew the plane for nearly an hour! 0.8 hours to be precise; that’s how many hours are in my logbook as I begin my journey toward earning a Private Pilot Certificate. My first flight was in equal parts invigorating and intimidating. John was calm and thorough and capable; he’s everything you’d want a flight instructor to be. I can hardly wait for my next lesson.

Of course Mackey and Turner and Yuki and I began our day at the river this morning. We started early so I could get out to Hanover for my flying lesson so we got to the river a bit early. Check these boys out at Pony Pasture this morning around 8:30:

This is just a tiny bit of what you missed if you didn’t go to Pony Pasture this morning:

In our family – Mom would have loved this too – other people had exciting news this week. My brother Shane was appointed to a new federal advisory council on motorcycle safety. If you’d like to learn about the appointment (and see a recent picture of Shane), here is the article: Transportation researcher appointed to federal advisory council on motorcycle safety. If you look at the picture on that article, I’ll tell you something about it you might not otherwise know. You might see his big smile and say “oh, he’s so happy he got that great appointment.” Which of course he’s happy about that, but you’d be wrong. Shane’s life is studded with remarkable accomplishments. Just google him. But he never smiled like that before he and Kristin got married and had Wesson. He’s done great things for decades and never smiled anything remotely like that. You are totally seeing Kristin and Wesson in that smile.

About seeing that buck near the river – I was parked at the foot of this sign when I took that picture. Facing away from the river:

I was practically touching this sign when I photographed that buck at the top of the page

There is so, so, so much happening at Pony Pasture right now – you owe it to yourself to visit. There are so many pawpaws on the ground in some spots you can hardly walk without stepping on them. They smell divine. This morning a guy was carrying his 2 y.o. (he told me) daughter on his shoulders. She was saying “Pick pawpaws! Pick pawpaws!” He said she didn’t know what it meant but she just liked saying it. It’s easy to tell why. I’ve been eating pawpaws on every hike. I described the flavor to a friend as “banana-peach-custard, only with a hint of vanilla.” Plus there’s something indefinable about the flavor of a pawpaw. Because the texture is part of the flavor. It is like no other fruit I’ve ever eaten. Plus whenever I eat them I’m standing on the edge of the river and there’s a breeze and there are river sounds and smells and usually a little dirt I didn’t brush all the way off – it is a treat for every sense.

I often say they’re perfectly ripe after they fall off the branch but before they hit the ground. The perfect flavor/consistency window is so narrow. But the flavor and the experience is transcendent. It is not to be missed. Or ever taken for granted. Here’s one that fell in a bed of wintercreeper. Wintercreeper is another nasty invasive species (just because it takes over) but it cushions the ground for pawpaws and keeps bruising to a minimum. Here’s a picture from this morning, after I gobbled a little bit for breakfast:

Fresh pawpaws (though one’s half-eaten) nestled in a bed of wintercreeper

This week has almost been too full! But Thursday (8/24, the same day I photographed the buck), Mackey and Turner and I were hiking in The Wetlands at Pony Pasture and we saw a doe stomping around in the undergrowth. I didn’t look at this video until later; I wish I’d gone over to see what she was pawing at. Take a look at the video; it lasts 25 seconds. It is not flawless, but you may see some deer behavior you’ve never seen before:

Whitetail grazing in Pony Pasture, 8/24/2017

Here’s a still picture I took of her at the same time. She’s in mid-chew, but her mouth is not open, so she still looks demure:

One of Pony Pasture’s healthy and well-fed whitetail herd

There is so, so, so much happening at the river now – and everywhere else. There are pawpaws and deer and cardinal flowers and – as my sister Katie told me (thanks Katie!) – “New York ironweed – I think the scientific name is Vernonia noveboracensis“. There are cardinals and ospreys and kingfishers and owls and paw prints in the mud and alligator gar lurking in the shallows, the first leaves are beginning to drop, the river flows and flows and flows, and it changes and changes and changes, and it’s always the same. It’s like the answer to a kids’ riddle: Q: “What changes all the time but stays the same all the time?” A: “A river!” 

Have an outstanding week. All best,

Jay

 

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, James River, koans, ospreys, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), triathlons, whitetail deer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Turns out I was wrong

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

20 August, 2017            Turns out I was wrong

I was certain I’d seen the last Barred owl (Strix varia) of 2017. It’s mid-August and I thought I wouldn’t see them again until 2018. Mackey and Turner and I were hiking in Pony Pasture on Thursday (August 17). We had just crossed the bridge that goes toward the Wetlands and turned left (toward the river) and the creek was on our left. I noticed an unusual shape below us, and this young Barred owl was perched on a tree limb that had fallen across the creek:

A young Barred owl peers up from the creek bed Thursday morning:

I can’t say for certain but I suspect that was a young owl. I steer clear of attempts to interpret the facial expressions of non-human animals, but I thought I picked up on a bit of bewilderment here. I suspect owls (almost any raptors) are not used to looking up at people. But the tree that bird was perched on was at least three feet below the trail. I suspect that was a “youngster’s mistake” getting caught down low like that. But there may be other interpretations – I’m not an owl expert. It only took a moment for it to hop up into some low branches so it was looking down at us. The correct position for a raptor. Maybe that was my last Barred owl viewing for 2017. I’ll keep my eyes peeled. When it got up higher it was hidden by leaves and hard to photograph. 

Cardinal flowers (see the last couple of weeks) are a harbinger of autumn in Pony Pasture. Another bright flower appears at the same time; I’m not sure what it is (identification is welcome and encouraged) but I always see this bright beauty in late August:

There are still so many colors in the park

There were plenty of Cardinal flowers Thursday too. They were still blooming all over the park this morning. And some bright yellow flowers. Lots of color still on the banks of the river. And there are pawpaws everywhere, and they’re really just starting to get going. I saw a Red-tail near home that day too – the raptors are beginning to show up everywhere. More than usual, believe it or not.

Anyway, what really prompted the title of this post was a sentence I typed on this blog exactly seven days ago. I put up a picture of a lovely gardenia blossom from our yard and wrote “I’m confident it will be our last gardenia blossom of 2017 but what a sendoff.” I should just stay out of the prediction-making business. I put up that blog post (A brand new treasure at Pony Pasture) around 8:00 PM last Sunday. The next morning – twelve hours later – I looked to the right of our front porch and saw (and smelled) this:

This graceful gardenia made a liar out of me (see last week’s blog post if you don’t believe me)

There are nasturtiums blooming with it, but I didn’t make any confident (and incorrect) predictions about the end of their growing season:

Brightest flower in the garden

I jumped the gun on several a number of predictions – I anticipate them too early in the Spring too – but many of these plants and animals will be assuming different forms or headed for a more favorable climate soon. But Wednesday there were still two (at least) ospreys on the nest near Fulton Bank. This was a very late arriving nest so I’m guessing they’ll be among the last to depart:

I think these birds will head south soon. But I have a poor track record when it comes to predictions.

Two hours earlier near Richmond Fire Station 25 (8800 Huguenot Road) I looked up and saw a Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura ) standing on a cell phone tower facing away from me with its wings outstretched. I’m not certain why the bird was doing this. It wasn’t drying out its wings; this was 12:00 in the afternoon on a dry, crisp day. And it didn’t fly either:

I can’t account for this behavior. But it sure looks neat.

I’m aware that I overdo it on Red-tail pictures in this blog but I saw – and photographed – Red-tails nearly every day this week. I get an odd feeling of comfort when I see them. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But it’s there. Here’s an “old standby” – a Red-tail in a predictable spot, on the cross at Discovery United Methodist Church (13000 Gayton Road). I haven’t seen this bird in some time and I was gratified to spot it looking down at my on Friday (8/18) morning:

Shadowy Red-tail at Discovery United Methodist Church

There was another one the same day near the Westbury Pharmacy, and another in the same spot on the following day. That is a bird (Red tails in general, not that one in particular) that I never tire of seeing.

Besides our gardenias and nasturtiums (and Red maple and elderberries and figs and basil and tomatoes) Evelyn still has our roses blooming like there’s no tomorrow:

If you’d asked me to predict rose blooms, I’d have been wrong about that too. That is a spectacular flower. 

I’m aware that luck is the main component when I get good photographs, and I wasn’t real lucky with this one. But I pointed my camera up and clicked this morning just as this osprey flew over while the dogs and I were at the edge of the river. I may get better at “aerial photography”: 

That blue background forgives a lot of mistakes:

These flowers were on the riverbank this morning too – just at my feet as I photographed that osprey:

These river flowers come and go, like everything else. What a treat while they’re here!

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I almost called this whole blog post “mea culpa”

I spend a lot of energy avoiding writing about politics, religion and advertising in this blog. I wrote a post in mid-2016 called NO POLITICS, NO ADVERTISING, NO RELIGION because I keep those subjects off this blog. The “mea culpa” part is, I don’t keep them off here out of any sense of duty or out of any nod to what I think is right or important or interesting or pleasing to an audience. I keep them off here because I am a naturally anxious person and I work hard to be calm and present. No matter what happens in the world – I mean, regardless of every single other thing – when I go to Pony Pasture, I know what I’m going to get. I know when I stand on the bank of that river and look across it, if I look to my left, the river is going to be flowing toward me. If I look to my right, it’s going to be flowing away from me. That’s the only way it’s every been, and that’s the only way it ever will be. I don’t watch television but I read the newspaper way too much, and it doesn’t take the edge off my anxiety. But the river always does. And so does seeing Red-tails on crosses. And watching flowers bloom and fade and leaves fall and come back again in the spring, and deer browsing in the woods. I may give the impression I just enjoy all that stuff, and I do. But the truth is – the mea culpa part is – it’s necessary for my peace of mind. I’m grateful every day.

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“Everyday I’m here I’m grateful’ 
And that’s the gist of it.” – Paul Simon, Cool Papa Bell

Posted in Birds, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, James River, ospreys, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, roses, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A brand new treasure at Pony Pasture

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

13 August, 2017

I began hiking and photographing in Pony Pasture in 1995. This morning – after twenty-two years – I photographed my first Indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea):

My first ever Indigo bunting – Pony Pasture this morning

I don’t have a million pictures this week and I am (as perhaps you have detected) enchanted with this gorgeous blue bird. So one more view of the same bird: 

What a fun surprise this morning

The surprising thing is not that I saw one today; it’s that I went two decades without seeing one. Indigo buntings are not a rare bird. And goodness knows they’re hard to miss. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says that male Indigo buntings (that one is a male) “…looks like a scrap of sky with wings.” That’s as good a description as anything I could come up with. Here’s picture of my three boys this morning at the northeast tip of Pony Pasture:

Yuki, Turner and Mackey. Turner is the one who is the color of a scrap of riverbank with fur.

I got so excited about the Indigo bunting I almost neglected the beauty that’s always on the riverbank in August. I took this a few minutes before I took the picture of the Indigo bunting:

Cheerful

Monday morning Evelyn photographed a cicada metamorphosis in front of our house. The excitement was over by the time I arrived – I only got to photograph the finished product. This is the recently emerged cicada to the left of its recently discarded shell:

Recently emerged cicada on left. Recently discarded shell on right.

Local raptors are going through their own metamorphosis, only in birds it’s called “molting.” Their feathers look unusually scraggly. This Red-tail was on the tower near our house, the same day as the cicada metamorphosis:

A Red-tail in poor light going through its own metamorphosis

A “metamorphosis” is a five-syllable word for a “change” and we’re just watching them go by quickly with some of these animals. We’re into the late part of summer now and the first leaves are beginning to drop on some trees. The seasons are in constant change, and here in Richmond, the trailing edge of summer is overlapping with the leading edge of autumn. But on Thursday (August 10) we woke to perhaps our most spectacular gardenia blossom of 2017. I’m confident it will be our last gardenia blossom of 2017 but what a sendoff. It’s still glowing and fragrant in a cup of water on our kitchen windowsill. But this was on Thursday morning:

Have you ever seen anything so spectacular? I have an uncontrollable urge to eat an entire bowl of whipped cream.

Friday afternoon across River Road from Starbucks, a Red-shouldered hawk was screaming and screaming and screaming. It was a long way off but I got a marginal image. This one is molting too:

Not my best work. I’m just so delighted every time I see one.

If you enjoy birds, keep your eyes peeled. I believe the autumn migration is beginning. These northern hemisphere birds don’t mate (or advertise for partners) at this time of year so their plumage is unspectacular. But I think the autumn migration is the reason I saw that Indigo bunting. There will be other birds. When the dogs and I got out of our car when we got home today, a hummingbird flew right past us! I drive out to the far West End, well past Short Pump Town Center quite early in the morning. Sometime between the middle of August (now) and the end of the month, every year without fail, I see my first   V’s of Canada Geese. The seasonal metamorphosis. You may notice the name of this blog is “NEWFAZE” and my car license plate (my dog car) is also “NEWFAZE.” The metamorphosis never ends. Have a great week! 

All best, 

Jay 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, James River, Pony Pasture, raptors, red-shouldered hawks, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Everybody’s hungry…

Posted on August 6, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

6 August, 2017            Everybody’s hungry…

It’s early August, and most wildlife that was born this spring is at some stage of insatiable adolescence. They were just born a few months ago but now they’re doing their best impression of hungry teenagers. My sharp-eyed friend Sam spotted a pair – possibly three – young white-tailed deer the moment we stepped on the path at Pony Pasture Tuesday (August 1). It was so unexpected – to be able to see my parked car and a pair of fawns at the same time – that the only picture I got was sub par. But it’s still cute:

I didn’t have buck fever, but I still didn’t get a very good shot

Since I was in Pensacola last weekend, I left out some fun pictures from the week before. I’m going to use a couple today. I stopped on Wednesday that week (7/26) to see if there were any ospreys left on the nest at Fulton Bank near Stony Point. There were, and they were making a racket, but while I was getting in place for the picture, mockingbirds were making a racket right under my nose. There was a faded forsythia bush with a family of at least five – perhaps seven – mockingbirds swirling in and out. I managed to get one brief picture. I believe this is two recently fledged babies still insisting on getting food from their parents. It turns out all adolescents are similar:

This is what starving teenage mockingbirds look like

I pivoted from a quarter turn from that spot and pointed my camera up to take this picture:

Osprey parent on left and right, adolescent in middle, screaming for fresh fish

I pivoted from the spot of having lunch on my back porch Thursday (8/3) to take this picture of starving (they would have you believe) baby bluebirds trying to convince their parents that they are unable to feed themselves. Out of the overfull bird feeder they just pooped on about two seconds earlier:

Have you ever seen so many open mouths in one blog post? I’m not even kidding.

Something eats Parsley caterpillars a.k.a. Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars a.k.a. Papilio polyxenes but I’m not entirely certain what. Meanwhile, the caterpillars are the ones doing the eating (acting in a teen-aged fashion) and this is what they looked like on our still leafy parsley last Thursday (7/27):

Black swallowtail caterpillar – just prior to gorging itself on parsley

I don’t know if this is the same caterpillar, but it’s the same plant, six days later, on Wednesday, 8/2. Look what happens when they “eat their greens.” It does wonders for their complexion:

If you eat too much parsley, you’ll turn green

 In mid-summer (now) at Pony Pasture, if you’re lucky and hike in the right spots (this was near The Wetlands) you’ll spot glowing red Cardinal Flowers (Lobelia cardinalis). There were around a dozen in a little swampy area and I was peering around with my camera looking for the most photogenic specimen. As my lens came to rest on this one (it was around twenty feet away) I noticed movement near the flower. It was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris )! The first one I’ve ever seen at Pony Pasture!

Hummingbird just to left of center in the picture – see it there? So pretty.

Monday (7/31) (this image is a bit more pedestrian) there was a pair of Red-tails on my “local” powerline – I can walk one house down from my driveway and look right at it. The moon was up and although I couldn’t get the precise image I would have liked, this one came out okay. It called to mind a 1988 song by U2 called Hawkmoon 269:

A pair of Red-tailed hawks on the powerline across the street, moon rising behind them

Today at the river – this simply never happens – I had all three dogs standing in a row in the sun – and Mackey was closest! I don’t like it when I get my shadow in a picture but oops:

Mackey (black) in front in the sun, Turner (brown) behind him, Yuki (white) behind Turner

We’re looking forward to more rain here in Richmond this week, beginning tonight or tomorrow. Thanks to the relatively pleasant weather and Evelyn’s skill as a gardener, this gardenia burst into fragrant bloom on our back patio this morning before we sat down to breakfast:

Smells so great I almost can’t taste my oatmeal

Maybe next week I’ll be more organized – but possibly not. Either way, have a great week! All best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, mockingbirds, ospreys, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), whitetail deer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Bird” photography in paradise

Posted on July 30, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

30 July, 2017            “Bird” photography in paradise

“Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.” – Voltaire

A week ago I put up a blog post called “Guest ‘bird’ photographer – Mediterranean Sea – 1959”. This weekend – I only got home late this evening – my friend Pat and I went to Pensacola, FL to visit his son Daniel, who used to take us flying in this area. He’s now learning to become a Marine pilot at Pensacola, and he and his wife Mary were our gracious hosts this weekend. Mary was also our gracious photographer, and she took these two pictures of Pat and Daniel and me inside the National Naval Aviation Museum aboard NAS Pensacola. Here are a couple of the pictures Mary took:

One is obviously a pilot (Daniel). I obviously have a brace on my leg. In the center is the pilot’s father Pat. Photograph by the pilot’s wife Mary. Thanks Mary! F-14 Tomcat in the background. 

See caption above to identify humans. The plane is an F4U-4 Corsair, one of history’s  greatest fighter aircraft.

If you looked at the “Guest ‘bird’ photographer” link above, or at the USS Saratoga (CVA 60) link at the top of this page, you’ll see pictures my Dad took of Navy fighter jets (and one propeller plane) in 1959. Incredibly (to me) I saw several of those planes in the museum! Yesterday! My Dad took pictures of the actual aircraft on board an actual aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea in 1959, two years before I was born. And I was photographing the same planes fifty-eight years later! I hope you’ll forgive me; I’m going to put a couple of last week’s pictures in here, with pictures I took yesterday for comparison. We saw an F3H-2M Demon in the museum. Here’s the picture in the museum yesterday:

F3H Demon

Explanatory plaque:

F3 Explanatory plaque

Picture my Dad took of an F3H Demon – in 1959:

USS Saratoga, CV 60 – McDonnell F3H-2 Demon – picture taken by my Dad – 
Mediterranean Sea – 1959                 I just cannot stop being amazed

It was moving in the strangest way to look at that actual plane just a week after I discovered my Dad’s pictures. It was moving in a good way and unsettling in a good way. Unsettling as in, the odds of a sequence of events like that occurring are so unlikely. But so fantastic.

Similar situation with a Douglas AD Skyraider. Here’s one in the museum, from the front:

Douglas AD Skyraider (front) in museum

Explanatory plaque:

Explanatory plaque for Skyraider

Pictures my Dad took of Skyraiders – in 1959:

Middle: Line of Douglas A-1 Skyraiders – picture taken by my Dad, 1959

I have too much stuff! It’s overwhelming, in an excellent way, like being locked in a room filled with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and ice cold bottles of fresh milk. Not exactly like that, but overwhelming in the most rewarding way.

But wait – there’s more. Because when you’re going to be overwhelmed, you might as well be really overwhelmed. As a Primary Flight Training student, Daniel is flying the T-6B Texan. We didn’t get to see Daniel fly, but there were T-6’s parked everywhere. 148 on the base, Daniel says. And guess who didn’t take a single picture!? What can I say. Just as we got there, one was doing touch-and-go landings and it flew over our head in the parking lot. I snapped this image just by luck:

T-6 with student pilot and instructor

Anyway, more luck than that. Daniel was able to spend time in the T-6 simulator Saturday and he invited Pat and me to watch. It was huge – actual sized – and it was so realistic it made you dizzy – in the best way, like a fun rollercoaster – to watch. Here’s a picture Pat took of Daniel in the simulator:

Daniel in T6 simulator

Daniel was a civilian flight instructor before he joined the USMC. He talked Pat and me through the maneuvers he was doing. Daniel is a superb instructor but I am only a fair listener. I think he said this was a spin. Pat took the video. Some viewers may find it vertiginous:

Daniel and Mary have a sweet dog named Jack; I’m always happy to meet a new dog during my travels. He’s a handsome little boy:

Handsome Jack in the backyard at the home of our gracious hosts in Florida yesterday morning

I’m going to bed! Daniel and Mary and Jack, thank you for your invitation and incredible hospitality this weekend. Pat, thanks for inviting me along! Have a great week,

Jay

 

Posted in Aircraft carrier, Birds, CVA 60, Fun, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), USS Saratoga | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Guest “bird” photographer – Mediterranean Sea – 1959

Posted on July 23, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

23 July, 2017            Guest “bird” photographer – Mediterranean Sea – 1959

Here are a few “birds” my late father photographed while aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CVA 60) in the Mediterranean Sea in 1959:

Foreground: F3H Demon
Middle: Line of Douglas A-1 Skyraiders
Rear: A4 sitting on catapult

After Dad died in 2012 we found a lot – 10,000 as it turns out – of old slides in his basement. They didn’t cross any of our minds at the time. When Mom died earlier this year we began cleaning up and found them. I began to poke through them not long ago and found this:

Box of slides my Dad took almost 58 years ago:

They’re photographs my Dad took fifty-eight years ago! This was a couple of summers before I was born. It says “October” on the box because that’s when he got home and had them developed, I’m thinking. I put that slide plus six more from that series on a page attached to this blog. There is a link to it below the banner at the top of this page, or you can click here and see it: USS Saratoga (CVA 60)  

A few pictures of my usual stuff (it’s early summer and it’s hot) then one more of Dad’s. There were still killdeers at the Y this week:

Killdeer in the grass on the northern edge of the parking lot at the Tuckahoe YMCA:

And I can’t let a week go by (hopefully) without a Red-tail picture. This one is a regular, on a cell phone tower in the parking lot between the Westbury Apothecary and the Divine Faith Child Care & Learning Center:

The obligatory Red-tailed hawk:

A lovely magnolia blooming so close to our driveway that I can lean my head through my open car window and stick my nose in it:

Magnolia that’s been greeting me as I get in and out of my car this week

If I put up an obligatory Red-tail photo I also have to put up an obligatory dogs-at-Pony-Pasture-this-morning photo. I apologize for the finger smear on my iphone lens:

Mackey, Turner and Yuki hike the Wetlands at Pony Pasture this morning

If you find errors in this blog post, it’s because I put my editor on this train at about 6:45 Thursday morning and she’s not home yet!:

Early morning at the Amtrak station

The river this morning:

Any way you look at it, the James River is lovely

One more picture Dad took at in 1959. Take a look at the Saratoga link to see a few more if you like planes or aircraft carriers; here is the link one more time: USS Saratoga (CVA 60). Last plane, last picture for this week:  

USS Saratoga, CVA 60
McDonnell F3H-2 Demon of Fighter Squadron VF-31 
Mediterranean Sea
1959

Have a great week, all best,

Jay

Posted in Aircraft carrier, Birds, CVA 60, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Trains, USS Saratoga | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Some days, revisited

Posted on July 16, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

16 July, 2017            Some days, revisited

“Some days it all adds up

And what you got isn’t enough” – U2, Some Days, 1993 

A Red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) in Glen Allen Wednesday morning: 

Red-shouldered hawk in western Henrico, Wednesday morning

I drove east from there to the Tuckahoe Y; a couple of adults and a couple of young Killdeers (Charadrius vociferus) were dashing around close to Patterson Avenue. This was an adult:

Adult Killdeer calling to daring youngsters

If you’re around Killdeers, you’ll understand in an instant why the second half of their binomial name is “vociferus” – the don’t stop talking. I took this brief video; you can hear the adult saying its name (that’s where the name came from) even over the sound of traffic on Patterson Avenue: 

I had so little content for this post, I kept thinking of the lines from that U2 song – “..what you got isn’t enough.” And thought to myself “haven’t I used the title ‘Some Days’ before?” So I checked back and I used Some Days three years ago this week, on July 20, 2014. Here is a link to that post if you’re inclined: Some days. The key element in that blog post is the opening sentence, which is why I came up with the same thing today: “Some days when you’re committed to a post a week, you come up to Sunday afternoon and you don’t have anything to post. ” It must be because it’s summer. I force these blog posts more on summer Sundays. But that hawk and that killdeer were nice. I apologize anyway.

I photographed a Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) and a female House finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) on my feeder at the same time earlier this week. It’s only unusual (and not very) because I almost never see mourning doves up high like that. My next door neighbor has two cats that have the run of the neighborhood. They’ve already killed two doves by my back feeders and two by my front feeders. I wonder if the doves are modifying their behavior in response to that. I suspect not; doves aren’t especially bright. But the less-bright doves have already been eaten so maybe the smart ones are “rising to the top”:

Mourning dove avoids being made into cat food. Accompanied by a female House finch. Look at that dove’s foot placement.

Of course since it’s Sunday the dogs and I had a nice jaunt at Pony Pasture, and we had our favorite guest hikers Lola and Luna with us. Here’s a picture of all five taking a break just before we get to the creek:

Dogs relaxing at the beach. Turner on left, Mackey between him and the river, Luna center, Lola foreground, the unmistakable Yuki walking toward me. 

Mackey and Turner and I hiked by ourselves late Thursday morning. We saw a lone jittery doe crossing the trail through the pine woods just west of the pasture itself. This isn’t one of my usual spots and I don’t think this deer is used to me. The deer in the woods south of  Charlie’s Bridge are so used to us they barely move when we’re around. This deer was on high alert and the photograph is weak:

A wary whitetail fades into the background at Pony Pasture

This was the river when we arrived that day: 

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

We saw one deer this morning, bedded down in that spot by Charlie’s Bridge. They are 100% docile when we’re around and we were quite close, but the brush is so heavy I was unable  to get a quality image. You can see the deer though. Not a leash-length away:

Demure deer from this morning. Summer photography in the brush is demanding.

The trails we hike in Pony Pasture have an unmistakable northern border – it’s the water in the river. There is also a well-defined eastern limit, the fourth hole of the golf course at the Willow Oaks Country Club. So the northeast corner of the park is a little spit of sand where a creek flows into the river. We always take a break there since that’s the last place for the dogs to drink and swim for a while. And it’s hot out! I took this picture from that sandbar at 9:50 this morning:

Standing at the northeast tip of Pony Pasture, facing northeast:

Have an outstanding week! All best,

Jay

PS McLaughlin males thus far have all been born in summer. My late father and Wesson and me in August, and my brothers Kevin and Shane in July. Happy Birthday Shane! Happy Birthday Kevin!  

Posted in Birds, cats, Dogs, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, raptors, red-shouldered hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), whitetail deer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Planes that take off

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

9 July, 2017            Planes that take off

“…we journalists have a bias toward bad news: We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off.” – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 1 July, 2017 Good News, Despite What You’ve Heard

“If my crude estimate of just one store’s numbers holds true, and half of all those [cash register] receipts become instant rubbish, then based on those Huffington Post numbers, this chain of some 10,000 stores accounts for the equivalent of around 125,000 trees being thrown away every year.” – Richard Branson: Let’s make the system less wasteful

Cash register receipts are wasteful, though with the advent of e-receipts they’re daily becoming less wasteful. But that’s a “plane that crashes.” We hear so little – almost nothing – about the ones that take off. The early summer days here in Richmond are long and sunny and wonderful, and my mind is drawn to planes that take off. I’ll expand on that at the end of the post. A few pictures first. Very few – I haven’t had a great deal of success this week.     

Of course from my POV it’s always a successful week when I photograph a Red-tailed Hawk, especially in a “new” spot. There is (as of this typing) a Sunoco station on the northeast corner of Gaskins Road and Patterson Avenue (9612 Patterson Avenue). It’s just west of the Bon Secours office at 9600 Patterson Avenue (I’ve photographed a Red-tail there) and just east of the Westhampton Memorial and Cremation Park (there too). This was the first one I’d ever seen on the flagpole in the Sunoco parking lot:

Red-tail with a moderately bulging crop at the Sunoco at Patterson and Gaskins

Earlier the same day I’d seen a Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) perched on a roof much farther in the West End:

How would you characterize that expression? I find myself at a loss.

Thursday I was on my way somewhere – I don’t recall where – and a long way away I spied what appeared to be a Red-tail on a cell phone tower near the Westbury Apothecary. It was in the general direction I was headed – probably to Kroger or The Fresh Market – so I thought I’d grab a shot or two. I parked directly underneath and opened my sunroof and got, almost literally, a shot or two before it flew off. Another Red-tail was flying above and they circled together and gradually drifted north. I noticed a movement on the ground outside the window on my side and saw a small bird on the ground. It was a small, almost unused parking lot – I was the only car – and maybe there were twenty spaces. There was a huge sawed off log, I’ll bet it was two feet in diameter and four feet long. And, inexplicably, one of those blue boxes people put donated clothing into. And lying on the ground was the top of a fallen mimosa tree, covered with fronds and pink buds, and a bird flitting around inside. I started snapping pictures, just for the fun of it. There were a few soda bottles, an empty cup, candy wrappers, litter. Not a ton – just enough to make an ugly background. And the more pictures I took, the more birds were coming in. House sparrows, mockingbirds, mourning doves, robins, it was like a little bird convention. No finches or bluebirds or woodpeckers or flickers – nothing showy – but almost every bird that visits my feeders. I have no idea what the attraction was. Food and shelter, I’m guessing. More fascinating than the individual birds was the phenomenon of this nondescript, junky spot filling up with so much exuberant life.

Finally a Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) landed, a bird I’m extra-fond of. They photograph extraordinarily well, and while this image is not extraordinary, it was one of the better ones I got during that “session”:

Brown Thrasher in the most nondescript spot imaginable

Of course on a lovely day like today (Sunday, 9 July, 2017), Mackey and Turner and Yuki and I hiked at Pony Pasture. The most appealing views (in my opinion) are facing upriver near the parking lot, but even though we got there early, it was crowded. So I didn’t get over to the riverbank until we’d hiked downstream for a few minutes. The crowds thin out. The greens and blues in this picture are always pleasing. There’s an orange kayak or an inner tube or something on the left but it doesn’t spoil the image:

I just love this river

Mackey is in the dark in nearly every picture I take. This morning, somehow, the sun was shining on him. Hiking with my little posse of big boys:

Rare shot of Mackey (on left) in actual sunlight. Then Turner, then Yuki

We stopped for a quick break just before we turned south and put the river at our backs. Mackey and Yuki are enthusiastic swimmers; Turner lacks that confidence. Or insulation or floatation or ability or something. He waited for his buddies to finish:

Handsomest lifeguard at the whole river – Turner

This is: 1. Out out of order (it happened earlier in the walk and) 2. Not a brilliant image. But we got to spend a few minutes on the ground just below a busy female Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus ) and we hadn’t been close to one in some time. This was not long after we’d crossed the big bridge across the creek, in the woods on the way to the river. I always enjoy spending time with Pileated Woodpeckers:

Female Pileated woodpecker. She was quite busy.

Until next week,

Jay

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I recently read that blurb (top of this post) by Richard Branson about “the system” being wasteful, or at least the system of cash register receipts. Which I can’t argue; I heard a person remark about buying a pack of gum from a convenience store and getting an 18” receipt. But earlier I’d been having a conversation with friends about photography. I’m 55 years old, and for most decades of my life, every picture anyone took meant film being developed, and printed on paper, with chemicals that believe me, you wore gloves. And all that stuff ended up down a drain or in a landfill in quantities I wince to consider. And leftover negative after leftover negative. And now when I take a picture – zero. “The system” was so wasteful twenty years ago, we wouldn’t even recognize it today. The improvement we’ve made in that system is vast, but I’ve not heard a word about it.

And music – don’t get me started. For roughly the same decades of my life that photography was trashing the environment, I was buying records. So were  billions of others who enjoyed music. Records made of vinyl. In big cardboard album covers. And eight track tapes and CD’s and cassette tapes, and trucks and planes and ships were hauling it all over the place, and all that was going into landfills and down drains and what have you. Being made in factories where people had to drive to work. 

Plus everybody had a turntable, a cassette deck, a stereo receiver, an equalizer, giant wood or fake wood speakers, we had whole cabinets for this stuff. “The system” that was producing and consuming that crap was wasteful on a scale that makes cash register receipts seem like so many wisps of vapor. “The system,” again, was dumping untold amounts of pollutants into landfills and into the environment. That system has vanished without a trace. 

I am not ignorant. I know our planet is warming at a rate we may be unable to reverse. I’ve had close friendships with people who died much, much too early from diseases they did nothing to deserve. Planes do crash. Sometimes I have to remind myself that most of them don’t. Remaining aware of positive trends does not mean ignoring waste. It doesn’t mean being okay with getting 18” receipts when we buy a 4” candy bar. But it’s important to recall we are surrounded by positive trends – every day.

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Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, Pileated Woodpecker, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Wildlife Center of Virginia – Wildlife Book Club

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

2 July, 2017            Wildlife Center of Virginia – Wildlife Book Club

Much of what I see and learn at Pony Pasture (and elsewhere) is informed by books recommended by the Wildlife Center of Virginia Wildlife Book Club. I wrote a little blurb at the end of this post. After the usual few pictures.

I’ve seen (and heard) multiple raptors nearly every day this week, all over town. All Red-tails and Red-shoulders until 1:05 this afternoon when my shutter clicked for the first time on this accommodating young Barred Owl (Strix varia) at Pony Pasture:

Young and possibly not extremely wise – yet

I say “accommodating” because it stayed in more or less the same place for a whopping seventeen minutes. As mentioned above, my first shutter click was at 1:05. I ended up taking 78 pictures and the final one was at 1:22 – and the bird had only hopped around a little bit. When Mackey and Turner and Yuki and I left, the owl was still up there. I have a few pictures of it yawning. But as you can see the light wasn’t very forgiving. I suspect it had just caught something in the creek and was digesting while it waited out the early afternoon heat.

All owls are referred to as “nocturnal raptors” which means they hunt at night. I see Barred Owls in the daytime regularly – I’m not sure why. The alpha nocturnal raptor in Virginia is by far the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) but I have never seen one in daylight. For comparison purposes, the maximum wingspan for a Barred Owl is around 43” and for a Great Horned Owl it’s around 57”.

Red-tailed hawks (and Red-shoulders and Bald Eagles and Ospreys and Peregrine Falcons and Kestrels) are all diurnal raptors, meaning they hunt in the daytime. Although I’m not a raptor, I too am primarily diurnal, and it’s a lot easier to take pictures. I took this one Monday morning around 9:30 across the street from my house. I know I photograph far more Red-tailed hawks than normal, but you would be amazed at how many times you click the shutter just as a mockingbird flies into the frame:

I wonder if mockingbirds are like mosquitoes to Red-tailed hawks.

Mackey and Turner and I snuck down to Pony Pasture Tuesday morning for a brief visit and saunter. The river only ever looks spectacular; Tuesday was no different. Sometimes it’s really high and brown and looks like the chocolate river in Willy Wonka but that has (to me) its own distinct appeal.

When we were in the back of the wetlands I was surprised to see two little wildflowers (possibly weeds) sprouting beside the trail. Colors this bright are difficult to not notice:  

Gorgeous early summer flower

This is the one that really caught my eye – you can see why:

Some of these flowers are so bright it hardly looks natural:

Speaking of bright colors at Pony Pasture on Tuesday, I photographed this damselfly while we were hiking. I think it’s a Blue-fronted dancer (Argia apicalis) but I am not fully confident. Corrections are welcome and encouraged – use the comments section or email me or put it on Facebook or wherever:

Blue-fronted dancer (I think)

I’d mentioned the abundance earlier of the raptors I’ve seen and heard this week. Friday morning (June 30) I was on my way to work early and I heard a hawk scream. This was about two blocks from our house, sitting in a tree. I pulled over and rolled down the window and got this shot. It was 6:45 AM and the sun was rising and shining directly on the bird and it was almost too bright to photograph:

Young Red-tail in the early morning glare, screaming

Eleven hours later almost to the minute – at 5:45 PM – Evelyn and I were driving down the street to go out for dinner. And there was screaming coming from the same tree. Different branch, but the same tall loblolly pine. More than likely the same bird or a sibling. I pulled over and rolled the window down and took this picture:

It’s just their facial structure, but they always look like they’re frowning. Or concentrating really hard.

I believe the parents are just pushing the youngsters out of the nest now and forcing them to get their own food. And the youngsters just scream and scream and scream and scream, hoping their parents will relent. Hopefully they got their dinner. I did get mine.

Speaking of eating outdoors, you can make a meal out of blackberries in this area at this time of year. They’re everywhere. These may be black raspberries; I haven’t precisely learned the difference yet. But they taste delicious:

You really need to not-miss these. They’re like candy. And they’re all over town. 

There are still plenty left to ripen (I took this on Friday) so get out and eat some yourself!: 

Look at all those berries still to ripen! This was Friday late morning at Deep Run.

The Rose-of-Sharon in our backyard was blooming like mad last week and it’s still open; I took this picture today. Every year at this time I think of The Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer prize winning novel from 1939. If you’ve never read it, read it. If you read it, every time you see a Rose-of-Sharon flower, you too will think of that book. Here’s one from our yard this afternoon:

Rose of Sharon or, as they referred to the character in Grapes of Wrath, “Rosasharn.”

I’ll close with (of course) Turner (foreground), Mackey (shiny in the center) and Yuki (cooling his feet). They were waiting patiently while I photographed the owl early this afternoon:

Three handsome, patient, well-mannered boys, waiting for me to finish taking pictures

I opened up this post mentioning the Wildlife Center of Virginia’s Wildlife Book Club; I’ll close with it here. And have a great week! All best,

Jay

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Wildlife Center of Virginia – Wildlife Book Club

If you’re a reader and you’re interested in learning more about wildlife in Virginia – or about wildlife in general – the Wildlife Center of Virginia hosts an online Wildlife Book Club every other month. If you click that book club link and go to the bottom of the page you’ll see a list of the nineteen books they’ve read. The next meeting (you just have to be online at a computer) is on Tuesday, August 1 at 7:00 PM. The book for August 1 is Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators. The author is William Stolzenburg. I’m just over half way through and I am deeply impressed. He’s a hard worker, a dedicated researcher and crisp, confident writer.

The Wildlife Book Club began on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 with a book called Smiling Bears: A Zookeeper Explores the Behavior and Emotional Lives of Bears by Else Poulsen. I still hadn’t learned of the book club yet, and I missed this and the next two. My first book was Winter World by Bernd Heinrich on Tuesday, February 4, 2015. I immediately became hooked on both Dr. Heinrich and the Book Club. After that meeting in early 2015 I began buying more books by Dr. Heinrich; I’ve since read ten.

The Wildlife Book Club’s recommendations are like a course in outdoor fauna and behavior. As you can imagine, it aligns closely with my personal interests. I don’t enjoy every book, but several (like the current book) have been jackpots of new authors for me. Since I don’t own a television, it’s a gift when I learn about talented and prolific authors. These books (and the Wildlife Center itself) are a constant source of illumination for the mysteries I continue to find in my jaunts on the banks of the James River in Pony Pasture. Check out a few titles for yourself – or better yet a Book Club meeting. You won’t regret it.

If you click on the Wildlife Book Club link above, you can read transcripts of several of the meetings. It’s very, very informal – just try and “listen in” some time. They encourage “lurkers” and I predict once you’ve dipped a toe in those waters, you’ll read one of the books and come back to participate.

Try it out! And have a great week!

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Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, mockingbirds, People, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Wildlife Book Club, Wildlife Center of Virginia | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Cobbled together

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Jay McLaughlin

25 June, 2017 Cobbled together

I was hiking Saturday morning. Sometimes there are no words:

This is what our river looks like. If you don’t get down there, make it a point – that is priceless.

I took that picture when we arrived around 10:15. We hiked for over an hour and we were almost at the parking lot when a large doe stepped across the trail, followed by three fawns. This is the first trashcan near the parking lot; we were that close, and by this time it was 11:40; the parking lot (and the park) were filling up fast. Poor quality shot, but this is right there almost at the parking lot on a Saturday:

Deer crossing the trail at Pony Pasture within sight of the main parking lot at 11:40 on a Saturday morning.

Some weeks I’ll get a picture I love or see something that fascinates me and I’ll be thinking about Sunday’s blog post all week. Some weeks (this week) it’ll be Sunday evening and my mind and this screen are a blank. Unfortunately this week Ev is out of town, but fortunately my friends Pat and Megan invited me over for burgers tonight. And I pulled up to the light at the end of my street and saw – for the first time in it seems like a year – a pair of Red-tailed hawks on the powerline across from DS Freeman High School:

Hawks in the ‘hood – I can almost see this pair from my house

So I was a couple of minutes late but not enough that it would be considered rude. I hope. The burgers and the company were both beyond compare.

So anyway as some of you may know, I am a chocolate addict, and I haven’t admitted I have a problem. And I was low so I stopped at Kroger on the way home for my “fix.” Kroger is where I keep seeing these sunsets that I love so much. Tonight’s wasn’t quite Kroger-on-Maui caliber, but it was lovely:

Seeing this kind of beauty from a grocery store parking lot makes life great. It doesn’t take much.

I haven’t talked about moon pictures recently; it can be a dull subject. It’s possible you’re aware I have some faint obsessions with subjects others might find dull. The moon is always between 0% full and 100% full. The higher percentage full, the easier the photograph. Trust me if you haven’t done this – any picture of the moon between 10% full and 100% full is easy. Anybody can do it. But as they get down into the single digits it’s really, really hard to get a picture. When I came back out of Kroger, the new moon was up – according to an app I have, it was 1 day, 22 hours and 26 minutes old. And it was 5% full. Moonset tonight is at 10:05; I took this picture at 8:58. This was the best picture I could get:

Tiny waxing moon

So, three pictures on this otherwise threadbare blog post I took around dinner time tonight. Fortunately I was able to cobble this together!

Once again – like a stuck record – I am running too late. Blackberries – or perhaps black raspberries – are coming in all over town. Both are equally edible and equally delicious. I’ll look into it more this week; I think I can tell them apart. The lake at Deep Run Park is surrounded by them. They made a great snack Friday before lunch:

These are smaller than grocery store blackberries but infinitely more flavorful

I’m going to go – triathlon training begins tomorrow between work. Have a great week, all best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, coffee, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, James River, moon, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), sunsets, triathlons, whitetail deer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment