Belted Kingfisher

Posted on April 4, 2015 by treshabarger

My hiking group took a field trip to the Nalle Bunny Run Wildlife Preserve. This reserve was donated to the Hill Country Conservancy by the Nalle family in honor of Anne Byrd Nalle and her love of nature. They give guided tours once a month. Our guide was Michael and he is quite knowledgeable about birds. He listed 33 birds he identified by sight or sound during our walk. My brief claim to fame from the walk is getting this blurry photo of a Belted Kingfisher as it flew nearby, over the Colorado River.

Look! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Wait, it IS a bird!

Ephemeral: Weekly Photo Challenge

Posted on April 1, 2015 by treshabarger

Texas is in a drought and has been for the last several years. This spring central Texas received some rain and the waterfall at McKinney Falls State Park was flowing. We don’t expect it to last long. Once the heat gets here it will dry up, with hardly enough for a trickle.

Spring 2015 rain results

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ephemeral

Waterfall and Ferns

Posted on March 30, 2015 by treshabarger

Waterfall

I met up with my hiking group at St. Edward’s Park. Bull Creek runs through the area and has this nice waterfall.

Ferns growing at the water’s edge

Monday Up Close

Feather, Sketch 051

Posted on March 21, 2015 by treshabarger

I’m much happier with this feather sketch than with others I made some time ago. The proportions are still off, (I didn’t leave enough room for the bottom portion of the quill), but getting better.

Getting close

I found this feather earlier in the week while hiking the Canyonlands Trail in Lakeway, Texas. My guess is that it belonged to a vulture (black or turkey vulture?). All the trails have signs about not removing any wood, rocks or any kind of artifacts, but I thought that as this fell from the sky and didn’t originate on the trail, I would claim it.