We caught this meeting of nutria pups and ducks on the east shore of White Rock Lake the other day. The nutria pups were very playful and a bit pushy - not sure the ducks knew what to think of them. :-)
Music Credits "Scheming Weasel (faster version)" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Recently, we have been checking in a few times a week on the bald eagle family that's taken up residence near White Rock Lake. The adults, Nick and Nora, showed up a few years ago and have had a few attempts at nesting but based on what we've heard each nest ended up either blown down by a storm or was in an area with too much foot traffic. This year though, they took over what we understand was the nest of a red tailed hawk. The hawk's loss is the eagle's gain as they have two chicks in the nest. From talking with people who live nearby and have been monitoring the nest daily, it looks like the chicks should fledge in about 5-6 weeks. You can see movement in the next in this clip with one of the chicks stretching their wings.
This week instead of just taking binoculars with us, I took my Nikon D750 camera and captured this video. It's not great as the longest lens I have is 200mm and even with a 2X teleconverter and using the cropped (DX) mode while shooting, it's nowhere near the resolution and sharpness of images being shared online but some of the folks who shoot the eagles regularly. Having a 1000mm lens (even a 500mm lens with the 2X TC) sound tempting but that would be a big investment and I don't often shoot subjects that would benefit from that long of a lens.
Instead, we'll continue following the other folks who post such amazing photos of this bald eagle family.
For the third time this month, we spotted a bobcat on the southwest end of White Rock Lake.
The first time, we were sitting at the south end of the sidewalk along the pump station and saw one just stroll across from down by the building over into the woods across from us. I tried to catch it on camera but it was gone by the time I got my phone out.
The second time, we were walking a little north of that spot just beyond the filter building and saw one cross the street over into the woods across from us. See my last post for video of that encounter.
Yesterday, I was walking our Weim, Luna, on the north side of the pump station building and she spotted a bobcat walking into the shrubs along the edge of the building. In this video, I caught it walking out of the shrubs and down the sidewalk along the pump station building. It looked like it started to cross over about halfway down but changed its mind and trotted on down to the end of the sidewalk and down the steps.
By the time Luna and I got around to the south in the building where Linda was sitting, the bobcat had crossed beyond her into the woods. Linda said it's strolled across just as casually as the first one we saw.
It's amazing to me how unafraid this bobcat is.
I had always heard stories about how furtive they are and how hard it is to spot them.
This one sure is bold. Or perhaps there are more than one of them, in which case they are all bold!
Recently as we took a break while out for a walk at the lake, a bobcat walked across from down by the pump station building over into the woods. He must have been only about 20 feet away. He wasn't in any hurry but It happened so fast, by the time I pulled out my phone he was gone.
A few days later, we were walking the same route but had gone further north past the filter building, almost to the parking lot near the boat house, when we spotted another bobcat, this one coming out of the bushes alongside the trail. He trotted across the road and I caught this clip just as he was disappearing into the brush.
The first bobcat seemed larger than this one so it's exciting to think that there is a family, perhaps a community of them living in the woods around the lake.
It seems like I have always seen bobcats described as very furtive, rarely seen, so I feel pretty lucky to have seen two "in the wild".
Out for a walk yesterday along the northwest side of White Rock Lake, Luna and I came upon a Great Egret, easily identified by its yellowish beak and black legs. I figured as soon as Luna pulled on the lead, leaning in its direction to get a better look, it would fly off but instead it flew up to the railing and just sat there checking things out. Finally, Luna wrapped her lead around my legs trying to get a better view of the Egret and it took off. That was a pretty amazing close encounter!
