Month: March 2024

We call these guys Kramer Babies (real name Sand Hill Cranes).

It was a really foggy start to the day and long before it burned off and gave us some blue skies yesterday, we went down to Circle B onto the Marsh Rabbit Run trail.

Our timing was perfect, because we got there before most people and were out of there before all the Sunday crowd hit.

While the images I got don’t have the normal blue sky feel to them, I did manage to get a few decent shots. Apart from all the usual suspects, there was a gorgeous Painted Bunting (that’s a rare sighting for me!), a distant shot of a bald eagle, and some Tilapia drinking in some carbonated air.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. They are at the end of this note.

This is my final blog and while I will occasionally add some trail images here, I won’t attempt any more of my dumb thoughts that get inspired by them. I am withdrawing from much of life as I have done a lot of self reflection lately and don’t like what I see.

Stay safe and enjoy the trails.

Nev

I got to finally show off my favorite trail to one of my favorite peeps yesterday! Jax and her daughters accompanied me on an early morning trail at Circle B that took us down by Lake Hancock.

It was a perfect day made more perfect (a conflicting absolute) by the company I had with me. Apart from just seriously enjoying the company, they also had me look at things in a slightly different way, stopping along the way looking as insects that I had already passed out, plants that were seeding, and examining the minutia of fallen seeds that glistened on the green-leafed waters.

We had a wonderful time and got to see lots of the familiar faces along the way. Herons, Ospreys, Hawks, Gators, Egrets, etc. They were all out in numbers and there was one moment in particular where everywhere around us, someone was taking off or splashing in the water. The senses went into overload.

Anyway I took a bunch of images and have attached most of them to the end of this blog. I say “most” because there was one sequence I shot of a hawk that I will hold for a separate blog over the coming days. Stay tuned!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

The thought for the blog today actually came from circumstances around myself. We all look for things that make us special or make something about us special. It helps us feel a little more significant than we actually are.

I was born under a full moon on March 16th. So, I often say that one day later and they would have called me Patrick.

Then today I realized that a day sooner and I would have been born on the Ides of March. Which is kinda cool. I am sandwiched between two very important days in the calendar and given a bonus of a full moon, even.

Wouldn’t you think that would make you special?

Unfortunately I am just a nobody and despite all these possibilities to have become someone, I managed to make sure that I didn’t.

I remember that old movie sequence where Marlon Brando moans that he “coulda been someone. Coulda been a contender.”

And it is reasonable to moan at ourselves about things we did wrong or opportunities missed, or plans that came out badly. There is a realization attached to those actions that involves self-examination and that is always a good thing.

Sometimes though it is important to realize that not everyone can be a somebody. Being a nobody is not the worst thing to ever happen to someone.

Not everyone can be a contender!

… just a thought.

The clock went forward yesterday and almost everyone in the country had to adjust their day to allow for the missing hour. But as I hadn’t told the cats about the clock change when it went back initially, I got to lie in an extra hour and still arrive over to take care of them at what they feel is the same time 🙂

Smart, huh?

Not really but at least for the next six months or whatever, I will be letting them out at six instead of five and they will all be none the wiser (unless they read this blog, of course!)

The significant other benefit of the clock going forward was that everyone chose to lie in and they left the trail to Inna and me and we took full advantage and several times had it all to ourselves. It was only as we were leaving that the cars really began to arrive and by them we had already savored our morning alone with nature.

It was a wonderful visit and at that time many of the birds are out hunting for breakfast and many of the fish are saying goodbye to their families for the last time.

I know I have said it before but I WOULD HATE TO BE A FISH at Circle B. The poor babies have no chance. I had to walk away from one of the sequences I was shooting of a Great Blue with a fish because it was so savage I just couldn’t watch any more. He was repeatedly spearing the fish with his beak and the sounds where really upsetting.

But we love Great Blues and I don’t hold it against them. I just wish the whole world was vegetarian, sometimes.

Anyway I got a whole bunch of decent pics and have attached them at the end of this blog.

The initial few which are silhouette were of a Great Blue that was gathering small branches for a nest he was building. That was so cool to see.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

The thought for today’s blog came from the whole time and clock concept of the day that was in it.

I have wondered for a long time why humans put themselves through this whole clock-change thing and in today’s world, at least, it is a seriously stupid difficulty that we set ourselves.

But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about.

It is the whole notion of time and how we use it, that really played around in my head yesterday. I mean, I was kinda proud of myself that I didn’t get saddled with the whole clock-change thing from yesterday and even more proud that I used the time well.

When faced with time possibilities, there is a wide range of how it is used by us humans that seems quite distinctly different from the rest of the animals … at least those that live in the wild.

There is an appreciation for time that animals seem to share that is sorely lacking in the human race. I think a big part of that is that every day they have to do things in order to eat.

They don’t have a pantry and fridge stocked with food, or a bank account and debit card that allows them to pay for stuff even when they have done nothing to earn it that particular day.

If they don’t earn it that day, they don’t eat. Simple as that.

But we have found a way to manipulate time to create this thing called leisure time and while on the surface, that sounds like a good part of being human, the bad part is that not everyone has access to the same leisure time pool.

Other than the self-made few, most rich people that have a life of leisure are born into it. And they had no part at all in earning it. They just slid out of a vagina onto a surface and if they were lucky, the surface was a luxury soft warm spot in Beverly Hills. If unlucky it was a pile of dirt in Sub-Saharan Africa.

When we don’t earn something, we have no true appreciation of it. Those with these riches, flaunt it, abuse it, accumulate more, and then judge those that don’t. As if somehow their wealth makes them a better person than the poor guy living in a box in a back alley.

Who we are is a function of what we do with our time on this planet. You can be a real estate mogul with your name plastered on the skyscrapers you own, but if your use of time is all about you, then you are a worthless piece of scum and are stealing the air from people who deserve to be breathing it.

Narcissistic assholes rarely see themselves as that and they see their time accruing more wealth to surround themselves as good use of their time. But the real truth is that they are simply parasites on a planet that struggles under the weight of all the parasites that bleed it every day.

Our allocation of time is unknown. We don’t know how much we have and when it will run out. So, continually using it as a source of leisure is poor use of a precious resource. When we use the time to enrich the life experience of those we love, or the creatures that we share this time with, then we are respecting the value of time and the importance of the contribution that we can make.

So, the simple question that we should ask ourselves each day is what did we do today that earned our right to be here? If you can’t answer that occasionally, don’t worry; we all have off days. But if you can’t answer that question in a positive manner repeatedly, then Walmart sells a lovely straight-edge razor blade for just $14.95. Grab one while you run a bath.

… just a thought!