Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!   And, yes, I have a picture of wild turkey.   Not a great picture.  I'm still waiting for the shot with a tom turkey and its tail completely fanned.

The man cubs both contracted hand, foot and mouth disease this past week.  So, it has been all yard work for the past several days as they recovered.  The palm trees start to arrive this week.  The blisters are already here.

Back to the birds, here are a few more Texas species from 2024 that I have not previously shared.

This Common Nighthawk was sleeping on a curb in the middle of a parking lot at the Sea Rim  State Park.  Cars were parking in spots to the left and the right and nighthawk didn't budge.

This Eastern Meadowlark stopped for a quick portrait.

Also at Sea Rim State Park, this Great-tailed Grackle was finding great success with its crabbing effort.

This Loggerhead Shrike was quite the poser.

And, then there is the Pectoral Sandpiper...

That is not to be confused with the Stilt Sandpiper...

Or, the Spotted Sandpiper.  Naturally, this one has almost no spots.

Or, even with the Greater Yellowlegs.

Birding ain't easy.  Happily, these Royal Terns will never be confused with sandpipers.

While the grackle was crabbing, this Snowy Egret was fishing.  Here, it managed to nab two fish on the same attempt.  No pole.  No lures.  No bobbers.  As Henry would say... Awesome.  Tada.  

And, let's hear it for the diminutive Least Grebe.  One of the homeliest birds around.  It's less than half the size of a Mallard Duck.

In case my good buddy Judson is following along... don't listen to the fake news.  Alabama can still lose another game and make the playoff.

We are back in Key West this evening after several productive days of shelling on Sanibel.  We ended up with enough plunder to fill two 5-gallon buckets on this outing.  This will help re-stock son Nick's SanibelShellsCo Etsy store where the orders keep rolling in.

The shell piles were enormous on one of the beaches so, it was part Easter egg hunt and part looking for needles in haystacks to find the good stuff.   Could have used a backhoe. 

On one of our outings, three separate people asked me what I was digging for.  Each time I replied, "Sea shells."  Two kept chatting.  One walked off.  So, I was 1 for 3.  Not great.  Not bad.  Happily, there were very few people on the beaches the past couple of days.  So, we enjoyed great shelling and great solitude.

After digging through piles of shells for several hours, you tend to work up an appetite.  So, we hit the local favorite, Doc Ford's daily for a late lunch/early supper.  The cobia fish and chips were too good to pass up.  As Don Jr. said the other day... Making America Healthy Again can wait one more day.

On the other hand, chasing after Henry and O.G. has caused me to drop about 10 pounds from my office days.  So, I think I'm already headed in the right direction.  And, Crystal keeps pumping me full of supplements and organic foods whenever she can.   

It is a bit depressing to see Sanibel in its current state.  Hurricane Ian from two years ago and the two hurricanes that touched the island this past fall have the area looking like a nuclear disaster occurred there.  It's similar to seeing areas out west that have been devastated by forest fires.  It will take a generation for things to get back to normal, assuming the island isn't in the path of more hurricanes in the coming years.

Happy days are here again as we spend a few days in Sanibel doing some power-shelling.

Henry has been in the patriotic spirit over the past couple of weeks.  He decided Cinderella's castle should have the American flag on it.  Good idea.  O.G. is crawling.  So, with both now being mobile, this baby-sitting thing has gone to the next level.

With the 2024 bird count likely finished at 467, here is an initial look back at some of the species observed during the year that did not make my original posts...  Starting with the trip to Arizona in May.

Cactus Wrens on a cactus.  Go figure.

Acorn Woodpecker on wood.  Again, go figure.

Bendire's Thrasher  (One of the 31 lifers I picked up on the trip)

I pulled up behind a paid birding tour van and asked one of the folks what they were looking for as there were several pairs of binoculars peering through a Federal government fence.  The answer was Bendire's Thrasher.  No luck.  But, as I was leaving the area, I stopped near the fence and listened.  I heard the thrasher, then watched as it landed on the road beside my vehicle.  It left after I got my photos but before the paid tour van came back through.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

I played hide-and-seek with Grace's Warblers all over Arizona before finding this poser.

And, a Lark Sparrow sporting intricate color patterns around its face.

Mom passed last week, just shy of 93 years and 2 months.  So, the country roads took her and us to West Virginia for her funeral and a few days with family.  The perfect fall weather allowed us to visit old family homesteads and cemeteries that host grandparents that go back as many as 5 'greats.'

We also drove past the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV but for some reason, nobody wanted to stop there.  Not even with some encouragement.  This building is the 2nd largest cut stone building in the world.  It is second only to the Kremlin in Moscow.  That's Russia, not Idaho.

Henry seized the opportunity to arrange seeds in a bird feeder at his uncle's farm.  The birds were patient but not especially grateful for his efforts.

On the drive back to Florida, we enjoyed a quick visit to West Virginia's famous Babcock grist mill.  The summer drought has left little more than a trickle of a waterfall.

With the late afternoon sun providing a glare that drives photographers crazy, we also visited the New River Gorge bridge.  This bridge is the longest single arch steel span in the western hemisphere at just over 3,000 feet long.  The bridge crosses the New River which oddly enough, is one of the oldest rivers in North America.  Go figure.

The Bridge...

The Gorge...

Further south, we stopped at Gumbo Limbo park in Boca Raton to record our first and last bird for October.  With just 12 hours left in October, we located the Bananaquit feverishly working the park's butterfly garden.  The feverish part comes from the fact that these birds love sugar as much or more than hummingbirds.  These birds are typically found from southern Mexico to Argentina.  But, this one found its way to south Florida.  So, we avoided the 'o-fer October' with lifer number 537 and number 467 for 2024.

We're excited about son, Dr. Nicholas Jolley opening up his own chiropractic and wellness office in Winter Park, FL.  Encore Chiropractic and Wellness is going to be a tremendous success.

Otherwise, its back to house and yard projects for a while.

Milton has passed Key West and we're back to normal.  Being on the fringes of the storm, we experienced winds of 30-50 mph and almost no rain.  No big deal for this area.   Our folks in Orlando and Daytona fared well also. 

So, what do you do when it's windy and you can't take a walk?   You take a nap, of course.

Now, we are hoping we can get to Sanibel next week for what should be several days of exceptional shelling.

 #1 Alabama  35

      Vanderbilt  40

First of all, I didn't realize Vandy still played football.  Secondly, Judson... remember... Alabama can lose 3 more games and still make the football playoff.   So, don't let this loss ruin your wedding.

In other news, birding has taken a backseat to house and yard work along with walks and pool time with Henry and O.G.  However, we did manage recently to get 2 more species for the year including the Smooth-billed Ani shown below.  

Anis are actually cuckoos.  The smooth-billed is found primarily in South America and throughout the Caribbean. But, a few make their way to south Florida each year.

While the YTD tally stands at 466, I'm not sure we'll make it much past this total prior to year end.  A trip to the west coast that might get us to 500 is looking very iffy. 

We made it back to Cincinnati this week, leaving the 100 degree temps and the out-of-control mosquitos behind in Texas.  The recent tropical storm that hit the Texas / Louisiana gulf coast made for perfect mosquito hatching conditions.  Unfortunately, it did not result in good birding conditions.  A couple of outings around Cincinnati for migrating warblers have not yielded any new species for this year's count.

For the entire trip, we have observed more than 200 species but only 34 new for the year.  This leaves the YTD count at 464.  Getting to the 2024 goal of 500 is looking unlikely at this point.

A few of the species we observed on the trip that did not count as new for the year include...

Brown Creeper

Gray Jay

Black-bellied Plover

and Prothonotary Warbler

We're looking forward to arriving in Key West this week to finally unpack the household and start the backyard landscaping effort.

In my previous post, I showed a photo of a Sage Thrasher ruined by a branch across its face.  Yesterday, I got a much better look on our way to Taos, NM.

Previous look

New look

Before leaving Colorado, we picked up three new species for the year including the Townsend's Warbler.

Upon entering New Mexico, we made a beeline to the Taos Ski Valley to hike the trail from the base of the slopes two miles up to Williams Lake at an elevation of 11,040 feet.  This Hermit Thrush greeted us at the trailhead and lead us up the first 20 yards of the trail before losing interest in our company.

After scanning hundreds of trees during the hike, the American Three-toed Woodpecker with its yellow cap become life bird #533 and the 62nd of 2024.  We have searched for these in the winter in Minnesota in vain.  And, I have to say, looking for them at 55 degrees and cloudy is much better than -10 degrees and sunny.

We were welcomed to Williams Lake by thunder and light hail.  So, like Clark Griswold at the Grand Canyon, we took a picture with 13,167' Wheeler Peak in view and said, "That's nice."  Then promptly hoofed it back down the mountain.

This was our first trip to Taos, NM.  And, it got me to thinking that there is a difference between 'historic' and simply run down.  Taos is mostly a run down tourist trap.  I had said earlier in the day that we should be able to find a good Mexican restaurant in Taos, NM.  Unfortunately, the spot we settled for was the worst Mexican food we have encountered.  Most of the town was dealing with a power outage so, our only other choice appeared to be McDonalds... which isn't a choice as far as we are concerned.  At least we didn't end up with a case of Montezuma's Revenge.

In Santa Fe this morning we picked up four more birds for the year at a superb Audubon birding center including this Rufous Hummingbird.  

Tomorrow we'll be birding in the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces and Carlsbad Caverns before heading back to familiar territory in south Texas, hoping to add to the current YTD total of 453.

With family birthday parties completed in Daytona Beach and Cincinnati and a flawless visit to the dentist completed in Charlotte, we sprinted from Cincinnati across Indiana and Illinois toward our next destination... Boulder, CO to babysit the man cubs for a few days.  Our first birding stop was near St. Louis where we picked up the Eurasian Tree Sparrow.  This bird is found throughout Europe and Asia but has very limited range in North America, primarily around St. Louis of all places.  The black spot on its cheek and its burnt orange red cap separate it from the very common House Sparrow found throughout North America.

In Kansas, I spotted an Upland Sandpiper in a recently plowed field while rolling along at 60 mph.  They blend with the dirt very well, so, I was fortunate to spot it. The sandpiper was nice enough to hang around while we did a couple of U-turns and switched drivers so I could take pictures from the road.

In all, we added on 5 new birds to the 2024 tally across Missouri and Kansas. This was well short of our target list of 21 species.  

We made it to Boulder last Thursday after leaving Cincinnati on Monday.  The birding here has been tough as well.  But, I did pick up the unassuming American Pipit.  It isn't a sparrow.  It isn't a warbler or a thrush.  So, I guess that means it's a pipit.

Life bird #532, the Sage Thrasher, came this morning on an outing with Henry.  We were ready to call it quits when a young lady from Oklahoma asked us if we knew our thrashers.  She was observing three birds in a small tree directly in front of our parked car.  We confirmed for her that she had indeed found the sage thrashers.  I got a couple of quick pictures before they took off but, as is so often the case, there was a branch positioned perfectly in front of the bird.  So, I'll have to try for a better shot of this species on another day.  Yet again, we were lucky she was there or we probably would not have noticed them.

Henry enjoyed the prairie dogs during our outing.  I couldn't tell if Henry was trying to decide how to catch one or what he would do with one if he did catch it.  If my good buddy Judson is still reading along, the prairie dog is not a bird.

Meanwhile another lady all geared up with hiking poles to walk the flat gravel road asked if the trail around the lake was open.  She indicated the gate is usually closed.  I indicated it was open and she said she did not think it was.  I advised I had walked the trail yesterday myself and that the gate which was 10 feet in front of us was wide open.  She still wasn't sure.  So, I read the sign on the gate which said closed between April 30 and August 31.   I said it's after August 31 so she should be good.  By now I was trying to refrain from just laughing at her.  She finally said, why yes it is after August 31 so I should be good.  I tend to think it's just further evidence that there are too many cannabis dispensaries in the Denver area.

The YTD bird count stands at 439.  Tomorrow, we head into the heart of the Colorado rockies in search of mountain birds with an ascent of 14,000 foot Mount Blue Sky.  Yes, by car.  I'm not walking up that one.

The first big trip of the fall is underway with a route that will traverse 17 states from Florida to Colorado.  With a day to spend in Port Orange, FL, we made a stop at the Smyrna Dunes Park.  Happily, we picked up three new species to raise the year-to-date total to 429.  

Snowy Plovers, about the size of newborn chickens...

The aptly named, Common Tern...

And, Red Knots sporting their not so red fall plumage.

We also found some Black Skimmers that were eager to pose for close range photos.

Next up is a quick stop in Charlotte to visit the dentist and then on to Cincinnati to celebrate my mom's 93rd birthday.  From there, we immediately head west to Boulder, CO to perform babysitting duty with Henry and Owen for a few days.   As I have noted before, there are no days off when you are retired.

We made a quick dash to Charlotte last week and loaded the entire household on a 26' U-Haul truck.  Then made the 900 mile drive back to Key West.  It was only 90 degrees when we unloaded in Key West... much cooler than 94 degrees when we loaded the truck in Charlotte.  

We held up for one day just north of Miami to allow last week's rain storm to pass the keys.  So, what do you do with a free day?  Well, you go birding and shelling.

We found species #426 for the year and another life bird, a Brown Noddy, at Sebastian Inlet. 

After a terrific lunch at Captain Charlies, we hit the beach at John D. MacArthur park near West Palm Beach in search of bittersweets (below) and scotch bonnets.  

While shelling, we observed one newly-hatched green sea turtle making its way down the beach to the surf... always a great sight to see.

The water was a beautiful milky blue through the keys as a result of the storm including this view from the famous 7-mile bridge.  As you can see from the picture, most drivers did a great job of staying out of my way.

All-in-all, the move was as easy as could be.  Whomever was responsible for the planning, logistics and execution is someone who knows how to get things done.

Henry quickly reattached himself upon our arrival to his best most-favorite walking buddy... Grandpa.

A couple of days later, Henry gave Boca Chica beach a thorough investigation, looking for sea beans, hamburger beans and shells.  We ordered new shoes for Henry the next day.