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

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