botanygirl's Favourites

Is it a fish? Is it a slug? Is it a fishy anemone? I do not have a clue what this is!

It is about 30mm long and there were a few of them in the sand - outgoing tide nearly on the turn. Most were buried and only the "fan fin" was showing.

Resting on the wet sand, when the sand collapsed it arched it's face upwards (2nd and third photos) and seem to spawn capsule from somewhere - there are 2 floating in the 4th pic.

Totally hypnotic, by the time my sister-in-law and I carried on the brother had walked 2kms away from us!

One of the photo opportunities we were most interested in at this location was the vulture photo blind which had been constructed nearby. King Vultures are regularly seen here ad we hoped for the chance to get some shots. I have seen King Vultures on numerous trips to southern Mexico and Central and South America dating back to the late 70s, but most of my views were of birds soaring very high in the sky. The species is known to be shy of people and can difficult to get close to.

Our guide obtains pig heads from a slaughterhouse in the region when he has clients such as Dave and me who are interested. These heads are put out in the early morning and hopefully by 9 AM or so the Black Vultures will find them which may attract one or more Kings.

The hide or blind is constructed into the ground so that the photos are taken at more or less ground level. You are shooting through optical quality glass in windows in order to lessen the disturbance to the birds and from the bird side of the glass only a dull reflection is seen. It is an incredible piece of construction and was designed very well.

To make a long story short, during our morning in this blind we had hundreds of Black Vultures and 6 Kings! Three adults and other younger birds of various ages. I have over 400 nice images, just a few which are here. It was quite an experience to see this magnificent bird up close and personal. At one point an adult King Vulture was within 5 feet of us....I took some cell phone shots!

Elizabeth and I visited Palo Duro Canyon State Park -- such an awesome and amazing piece of land. It was quite dry, so we didn't see too too many flowers, but we did spot other really magnificent things.

THIS was the find of the day -- Elizabeth and I were keeping our eyes open for a rattler, and sure enough, Elizabeth spotted this one. It was quite cool, so it was definitely chilling out. :)

My mom and I drove around a little bit around Aledo -- where I grew up. It was a bit of an adventure. :)

This was a really neat spot called Hood Family Cemetery -- they had a historical marker here too. http://www.9key.com/markers/marker_detail.asp?atlas_number=5367002555

This was a fun final find for me on this Georgia trip. Found it as I was walking out to the car to head back to the hotel -- feeding on some Asian ladybug.

ID based on:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/51958

Great trip, great conference with the ANCA folks, and yep, lots of cool observations. :)