Giraffe, eye-to-eye.

Seeing wildlife is an up close and personal thing at the Global Wildlife Center near Folsom, LA,  north of New Orleans.  The animals come up to the wagon train to eat from the visitors' food cups.

--steve buser

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Crystal flowers from Yellowstone

I love these lovely crystalline structures that grow in the pools of geysers at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.   Unless I am mistaken, that is a quarter that someone dropped (hopefully accidentally) on the "flower" -- it gives a sense of the dimension.
--steve buser

Yellowstone National Park

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Cool journey home

In the cool of the evening and in frigid mountain waters, this gal was slowly making her way back home up in the mountains.  This is on the west side of Yellowstone National Park, shortly before you exit the park.
--steve buser

Yellowstone, Mountains, Wyoming

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Skipping Sanderling

A Sanderling (Calidris alba) skips rapidly across the sandy beach at Perdido Key, Florida, finding a lot of good things to eat on the shore because of the high wave action in the Gulf of Mexico.
--steve buser

Sanderling, Florida, Perdido Key

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Chipmunk

This little chipmunk pounced out of the rocks in front of us on this trip to Colorado.  I don't think it was because he was not afraid of us -- more than he just wasn't paying attention to us.
--steve buser

Duckling sitting -- Salt Lake City

Mama watches over her young ones (although they are getting pretty big) as the sun rises and the joggers come out.

The pond was near our hotel where we stayed on a recent trip to Salt Lake City.
--steve buser

Ducks, Salt Lake City, Utah, ducklings

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Sunset breath-stealer at the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon at sunset is one of the real treats at this national park.  There are good spots and better spots to do this.  We kept traveling along the rim of the Canyon looking for that perfect spot.  Finally as the hour grew late, we pulled into a parking area and found a "suck-the-breath-out-of-your-lungs" view.  The scenery, the colors, and the shadows made a constant play as the sinking sun skimmed its rays over anything it could still hit.
--steve buser

Grand Canyon, Sunset

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Egret -- just winging it.

A Great Egret takes a leap into the air and glides away from his perch.  The picture is from the Oil and Gas Park in Jennings, LA. His companion for the the morning, the Anhinga on the right side, doesn't give it much attention.
-steve buser>

Great Egret, Louisiana

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Sniping Stripes --Zebras zerks

My biggest surprise at Global Wildlife Center where we visited this past weekend was the orneriness of the Zebras.  They would push their way to the front nearthe wagon train we were in and then chase away any animal that would push on them.  We were warned not to feed them from our hands because they will bite -- apparently an expression of affection. Apparently, from the way I see it,  the stripes are just to a make them look more friendly.

--steve buser

Zebras, Global Wildlife Center

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Wildlife are happy to greet you

We had the grandkids and a bunch from Linda's family at the Global Wildlife Center in Folsom this weekend.  I don't think I have ever seen brighter kids' eyes thatn when they found out they got to feed giraffes, zebras and buffaloes and more.  It's a vast open range prairie that the animals roam freely.
--steve buser

Global Wildlife Center, Louisiana

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Elk eye contact

A young buck elk in full velvet in Yellowstone National Park stops eating leaves for a second to check me out. I guess he was wondering what that big eye was sticking out of my face.  This was on a recent vacation Linda and I took at the end of the summer.  There was a big buck looking over the herd of about 12, mostly females.  He was laying in the grass and barely looking around.


--steve buser

Yellowstone National Park, elk

Great Egret,

This lone Great Egret (Ardea Albus) was ranging around the pond at the Oil and Gas Park in Jennings today. I managed to get in a spot, just behind a tree, that allowed me some camoflauge and a place to steady my shot.  He quickly found me, though, and took a couple stares right at me to check for threats.

The fishing wasn't so good, so he soon decided to head to his (seemingly temporary) nesting place in some bushes near the bank. 

What surprised me on this shot, was how limber you have to be, to be a Great Egret and keep your feathers straightened.
--steve buser

Great Egret, Ardea Albus, Louisiana

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Pasture perfect

Old school buses, put out to pasture, now just lineup behind a fence and watch the I-10 traffic flow by.   Near Winnie, TX (to the east of Houston)
--steve buser

Texas

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Green Heron

This Green Heron at Austin's Arboretum was wary of me, but didn't fly away as long as I kept my distance and didn't make sudden moves.
--steve buser

Green Heron, Austin

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Washington Monument at the edge

Our son, Charlie, and my wife, Linda, check out the map of Washington D.C. in the portico of the Washington Monument during a recent trip there.
-steve buser

Washington D.C., Washington Monument

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Black-capped Chickadee

I had to shoot between the legs of a railing to catch a shot of this Black-Capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) eating on some tender shoots of a branch in Yellowstone National Park this summer.
I think the railing provided just enough cover to keep my friend here unfrightened by me.
--steve buser

Black-capped Chickadee

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Blowing off steam

Will the geyser blow soon?  If you know the ways of this beast, you can probably guess the time it will blow within a couple hours.  A Yellowstone National Park ranger would come out to the site periodically to check the signs and give her prediction. 

When the geyser blows, it really puts on a visual and sound phantasmagoria.
--steve buser

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

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A Peek at the Peak Peak

At the top of the photo is the peak of the Grand Teton.  The photo is from our trip to Yellowstone earlier this month.   We were climbing to Inspiration Point on the far side of Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons National Park.
--steve buser

Grand Tetons, Wyoming

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Do not spindle.

How willing would you be to assume that the cloud shape overhead was just an accidental formation as the clouds swirled around?

I walked outside and saw this one day back in November.  I then ran into the house, grabbed my camera and started shooting.  I'm still perplexed by what it was all about.  Despite what you see, it didn't seem to be spinning rapidly.  At least it wasn't spinning any more rapidly that anything else in the sky which look more like a ocean full of splashing clouds that a sky.

This is a SkyWatch Friday post.  Hundreds of other bloggers post sky-based photos each Friday
Go and check out more Skywatch images at the Skywatch Site!

--steve buser

clouds, weather, swirling.

Rolling during the marathon

While the older people were running the Houston Marathon Sunday, a fewof the kids took to the hill in from of the George R. Brown center to enjoy the art of rolling down the hill

--steve buser

Houston Marathon, kids, sports, Houston, Texas

Looking down on Atlanta

A shot out my hotel window in downtown Altanta,GA from a trip there a few years ago.

--steve buser

Home away from home

a 

Stairs lead to the second floor of a home and then to a deck on the third floor.

The home itself was last seen shortly before Hurricane Ike slammed ashore on the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas.

In the foreground, not even the pilings remain of a home that was washed away. On the other hand, the slab is still there for the parking area under the house. Many homes even had the slabs washed away on the finger of land facing the Gulf just southeast of Houston.

In the background, two homes remain standing, though most homes on the island that withstood the fury of the massive 400-mile-wide beast still have to be gutted to return them to a livable condition.

--steve buser

Lost and found, but not fixed

While driving on the Bolivar Peninsula a few days ago, we came across this collection of found items.

There was a man wandering around, and I assumed it was his work. All around stood sticks where houses and been -- gutless houses with nothing below them -- and every kind of destruction you can imagine.

It has been more than 90 days since Hurricane Ike unleased its destructive force on the defenseless finger of land.   Still little has been done to restore the island to life. Building codes, financing, real estate laws, insurance, FEMA assistance, flood elevations, work to restore utilities, roads, dunes -- it is all in a snarled mess.

So, this man does what he can. He places things he finds in this pile, hoping that someone will recognize something that was theirs. Maybe it will restore a little, though very little, order to their life.

Behind his foundlings laid out on the driveway is a gaping hole where homeowners used to park their cars on a slab beneath the house. The slab is cracked into pieces, some in the hole, some missing.

Meanwhile, on a internet forum board for the peninsula, volunteers saying they are working to get donated ladders so that people can enter their houses and see what is left.


--steve buser

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Ike, disasters, hurricane recovery, Texas, Bolivar Peninsula

Peek morning

The early morning sun peeks through a glen in west Houston.

--steve buser

Technorati Tags: Sunrise, Houston, leaves, bright, trees

Shine On.... you

May the Star of Bethlem shine your way this Christmas.


--steve buser

Blind kiss

Our grandkids came to visit a while back and their friend, Jenna Anderson, took them to see her FFA project -- Randy the goat.   Sophie gets in close for a kiss.   Do you close your eyes when you kiss a goat?

--steve buserTechnorati Tags: kids, children, goats, animals, kiss, FFA

Blanketed with Christmas spirit

The weathermen and weather ladies said Beaumont received three inches of snow this week. Maybe at the weather station it did. There were lots of places that clearly got five to six inches.

Let us not quible over inches. It was a rare event, in terms of  1) it snowed at all  2) how much it snowed   3) that it snowed so early

It, put me in the Christmas spirit, though.

Oh, see the green in the foreground, by they red curb. That is a helium balloon that lost its spartanic battle of trying to stretch to the heavens. I suspect it sucumbed to the cold before it sucumbed to the snow. The shot is at the Preserve on Old Dowlen Road. ( I left this picture pretty big, so double click it to get a good blast of snow in your face.)

--steve buser

Flag still wave into the sunset.

 
Flags in the sunset from a couple years ago at a church in Beaumont Texas.  You can tell the flags had quite a whipping in the wind.

One thing about flags,  they may get a bit frayed, but their message just intensifies.
--steve buser

The unbelievable adventures of Dr. Jones.

We ran into Indiana Jones at the mall in College Station. TX, this weekend. (Actually, he prefers to be called Dr. Jones, if you please.).

From the look on our grandson's face (I mean Dr. Jones' face) you can tell he was letting his imagination and his energy run wild in the play area. He has the whole garb -- the whip, the hat, the khakis, the Crocs (Dr. Jones does wear Crocs doesn't he?) and the case (do not call it a purse, handbag, satchel or anything like that, if you don't want to feel the crack of a deadly whip!).

This is his daily garb now. You are probably thinking that he got this as a Halloween costume. Actually, he got it before Halloween and began the daily drama immediately. When his mother went to ask him "Do you want to dress up as Indiana Jones for Halloween?" he was quick with the retort. "Mom, I AM Indiana Jones. You can't dress up for Halloween as someone you are!"

YOU probably would've known better thnt to ask that silly question. Wouldn't you? Never mind, I know you better than that.

My daughter is wondering where he got this drama streak. I was not brave enough to tell her that when she was just a little older than he is, she decided she was going to be the first kid astronaut. I decided I needed to "manage her expectations" in the parlance of today. I said very politely, "You know, Vicky, they don't have any kid astronauts."

She didn't miss a beat -- she popped a pose, arms akimbo and head bent in that "I can't believe what my dumb dad just said" way.

"Of course not, " she said "If they did, I couldn't be the first one."

Drama, it seems, runs in the family.

--steve buser

The lazy days of summer's shadow

It was a lazy day at the Houston Zoo this past weekend when we were there. It wasn't all that hot, which brought lots of people (we had the very last parking spot, furthermost from the entrance.). ;

The animals were languid. There didn't seem to be any snap in anybody's pace, on both sides of the fence.

Just a lazy semi-summer afternoon.

The brown pelican above and his (her?) mate barely moved unitl the fish were brought out for their meal. After eating, they took a short swim on the pond. Don't ask me what that was about -- don't you always take a swim after you eat? You don't? 


 Go figure.      --steve buser

Eye zoo

This is the American Bald Eagle at the Houston Zoo. We took our grandchildren there recently to see the elephants. This guy didn' get a glance. Giraffes were the surprise favorite.


--steve buser

Ocean sand slide

 
The water slides up and along the beach at Perdido Key in Florida. While a couple figures splash along.


--steve buser

Steamy D.C. sunrise

 
This was the steely-blue scene in Washington D.C. recently when we travelled to see our son in a triathlon. The sun was still yawning and jets flying in over head were leaving vapor trails behind them as the snaked along the river into the Ronald Reagan National Airport nearby.


The summer humidity was already wrapping us up even in the early D.C. hours.

Can I have a bite?

 
This is one of the gators at the Louisiana Gas and Oil Museum in Jennings, LA, where I stopped off the Interstate the other day. If I remember right, he is about 14 years old. It's a fun stop for kids and the whole family. The visitors center there is a great place to stop and learn more about the region and these guys.


This gator has just one question for you. "Can I have bite?" Fortunately, he can't get to you.


--steve buser

Come on, let me see you wash a tail feather

Bath time. Save these pictures for the next time the kids complain. Even ducks like to take baths. This fellow was ruffling his feathers at the Louisiana Oil and Gas Park in Jennings the other day. Several good long splashings later, he was ready to retire to the shade, straighten out his feathers and pick off the stuff that had come out.




Abraham Lincoln on this bird blog, Sunday, had a great little write up about this routine and more.

Stare-down -- Great Egret and Comorant

 
A Great Egret and a Comorant seem to be having a stare-down on the small lake at the Louisiana Oil and Gas Park in Jennings, Louisiana. The Egret flew off when he noticed me. A few minutes later the Comorant's partner swam up to it as if to plead with it to make a quick escape, also.


The I-10 park, which is midway between Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, is a great place to pull over for a break and a little scenery


--steve buser

Washington Monument -- early up

This is the Washington Monument in Washington D.C in an early-morning, before-sunrise shot.
We were up early to make it down by the Tidal Pool for my son, Charlie, who was racing in the Nation's Triathlon.


-- steve buser

Wind and water skimming

A Great Egret (Ardea alba) skims gracefully away over the water to find a better feeding spot. This is at the Louisiana Oil and Gas Park in Jennings where I stopped the other day for a break from my I-10 travels. Never one to miss a good shot, even on a bathroom break, I had to hold nature back while I ran back to the car to get my camera. Map

Buddy, can you spare a meal?

 
I looked down and this Ring-Billed Gull was standing right beside me. Maybe he was just trying to get a hand-out, but he stood still long enough for me to get his picture. Then he had a enough and took flight.


This was on the Nation's Mall in Washington, D.C.


-- steve buser