A Crazy Couple of Weeks

Well lets just say I've been busy! Over the past few weeks I've traveled up to the Selman Ranch IBA, hit Robber's Cave State Park for the 2009 Oklahoma BioBlitz, a quick and dirty meeting at Beaver's Bend State Park with my favorite Okies from south of Muskogee. I took a three day trip to the US Fish and Wildlife Services National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia, made it back to Cameron University for my Chem II exam and lab, and spent this past weekend at the Wildlife Expo at the Lazy E Arena. I know I'm forgetting something...

Oh well. Instead of a long drawn out story I'm gonna throw some photos at you. Enjoy!

A few shots from the NCTC in West Virginia, my second visit, and equally as enjoyable.


The man, the legend!

A shot of Theodore Roosevelt our 26th President. I should have taken notes on the photograph, I don't recall who the other prominent fellow is. I do know it is not John Muir.

The gun on the left was at least seven foot long, a punt gun, it was attached to the front of a boat and could take out a dozen or more waterfowl in one shot. I'm glad we finally caught on! If we would have kept up with that practice there would be no waterfowl left!

Dreaming of clear streams and Kokanee Salmon!




A Few Words of Wisdow



These photos were a big surprise to me. I had loaned my camera to a good friend and look what he gave it back to me with.



The 2009 BioBlitz, from the eyes of Cameron University

I drummed up a few volunteers from Cameron University for the 2009 BioBlitz at Robber's Cave State Park, no these two aren't it but they meant business! We had a great time, ran into a few birder friends I hadn't seen in a while, and managed to not burn the place down! All in all a great experience.

One of the most common butterflies of the event . An Eastern-tailed Blue (Cupido Comyntas)

Apparently the pressure of the Cameron Biology faculty is almost too much to bare. At the actual site "Robber's Cave".

The bug whisperer, she stunned us all later as she did a repeat performance with a Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia). She actually got it to walk onto her finger. I later tried this technique on the way to the Wildlife Expo with a Hackberry Emperor (Asterocampa celtis), I was pleasantly rewarded.

A Variable Dancer (Argia fumipennis), these were pretty common along the shorelines of the lakes.

Till Next Time!

Salt Plains Mountain Plover

Well, I'm mid stream with classes so don't expect much. I figured I'd post these Mountain Plover pictures from Sept 4th at the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge. An especially pleasant surprise. These are digiscope photos taken using a camera that I was a little unfamiliar with so there a little grainy. Observers that were present were Ron Sheppard, Jackie Vargo an SCA student from San Francisco, and yours truly. Later!

Butterflies from the Lake Lawtonka area in Comanche County

I had a nice evening surveying Lake Lawtonka and surrounding areas. I was hoping to find some good birds, but came up short. The bugs proved to be interesting though. Lots of Leps and Odonates moving about. I captured some decent photos and thought I would share some of them. The first a Gemmed Satyr which was actually the last butterfly I found just happened to be a county record, woohoo! I'd never seen one and didn't figure out its identity until I got home.

Another species a little west of its range, although recorded plenty of times in the county were a couple of Red-spotted Purples. They sat patiently for me and allowed some pretty sharp photos. This species is just beautiful, this was the first time I was actually able to photograph the underwing which would be the first photo in the sequence below.



There were also plenty of Viceroys about, nothing really unusual but this is the best photo of this species that I have taken, so I threw it in there just for fun.


On to the more challenging specimens. I found two skippers both of which I am struggling to identify. So I'm leaving it up to the experts, let me know what you think.