The fine art of Grackle bathing

This lady didn't mind bathing in public.  And, as long as I was inside my car, she didn't mind bathing right next to me in the puddle, while I waited for my wife to run into the store.  When I took this picture, this Grackle had already ducked her head in for a good shampoo and shaken her tail feathers in the water quite a bit.  She was settling for a little undercarriage rinse.

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The Nut Eater

This nut eater is one of the friendly, if very shy guys who wonders around the Beaumont Main Library where I work.  They play as much as they work scavenging acorns and other delectables.   He won't let me close enough to get a good shot of him, unless I am in my car.  I can even roll down the window to snap a photo, but I can't open the door -- that sends him scurrying.

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I missed the prize under my eyes

Here's the scene.  I pull up to a gas station to fill up with gas.  I spy a group of grackles making a racket in the grass.  I grab my camera just for some diversion until the pump stops.  One of them catches my eye.  It's windy, so I don't get a good view, but I snap the shot.  Back at my computer I notice that the grackle was not a grackle at all, but a Europan Starling.  I had known they were in this part of the world, but I had never noticed one.  Makes me want to go back through my grackle shots and see what else I may have missed.

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Hoping this icicles are not cyclic.

One last winter picture -- who knows when I will ever see icicles hanging from the fascia of my garage.  Sure am glad I live in the warm South.

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Winter's rare true colors

One last post, today on the winter palette.  Tarnished, dark, rust, deep yellows. Stained, mottled.  I'm just commenting about it, because this is the coldest I can ever remember for a whole winter down in the South.  We don't get to see winters true colors this upclose and personal down here.

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Ice -- the thick of it.

This was a fountain in Giddings (I believe) -- on the road back from Austin a little while back.  I never thought I would see ice that thick this far down in Texas.

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Winters colors awash in pale.

One of the things I like about shooting winter shots (not that in Southeast Texas we ever have much of a winter) is the pallet  -- nearly bleached grasses, crisp blue skies, dark shadows.   Seem the colder it gets, the truer the pallet.  This year was about as cold as it ever got.   Plenty of time to prove my thoughts true about what the winter colors are -- sans snow, that is, this is of course, the deep South.

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