Friday, November 21, 2008

The Wild Side...

While walking to a mall yesterday along a drainage canal we spotted these interesting creatures. I felt bad for them as the canal was full of garbage and shopping carts being right along a main road but they must have been finding something as there were the four or five varieties plus some ducks. It runs along the out side of the Armed Forces Reserve complex and I was amazed the first night we were here at the massive size of two of their 'buildings' for lack of a better word. These pictures don't really show it too well, but if you were to stand in front of one you're about the size of a pea, at least you'd feel like it. The builds to the left are some normal sized two or three story buildings.

Notice the white Crane or Heron in to the left, he was too shy for a close up and flew in there when we came along.

This guy wasn't too worried about us, I have no idea what he is.

This one looked like a mini Heron he was only a little over a foot long.

This guy was cool looking, his head feathers stood on end when he flew away. Not sure if they were s'pose to or if we scared him.

Being white birds you would think the would be easy to spot in a brown ditch but two of them flew up from right beside us before I noticed them. In this picture there are two white ones and one brown one all in one area there.

And one beautiful little flower that was part of the landscape at the mall.


Just a bit of God's marvelous creation we found along the way. Proof that HE's still got HIS handy work here in amongst the high rises, 8 lane roads and 100's of malls and eateries in this area. Having grown up where God's natural handy work far exceeds the creations of man on the landscape I guess it being the opposite here gets tiring for me after a while. Love the beach though!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Sjo, sorry that we missed you on Wed. night, we would have loved to see you guys and your little ones! Next time you come down we'll have to get the kids together... when Amelia isn't sick!

Also, those big buildings were blimp hangars. Huge, huh? They are probably going to be torn down soon as there is a proposed park going in there (it is no longer an air base) and the buildings aren't structurally sound any more.

And, as a transplant, I do drive faster now than I used to, but I still use my turn signal! :)

The Chatty Housewife said...

Those birds look like the kind you would see at the zoo!

At least one of the white birds is probably a snowy egret or great egret.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_egret

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/30/_/Great_Egret.aspx

The one with the curved bill looks like an ibis of some sort, but my favorite bird website tells me only white faced ibit's live in CA. Maybe this was a young one or a female.

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/71/_/White-faced_Ibis.aspx

As for the one with the rust colored throat, I can't find it anywhere! The Whatbird search feature is really good, try using it! You just choose the categories at the bottom and add clues until it guesses what your bird was.

http://identify.whatbird.com/mwg/_/0/attrs.aspx

Anonymous said...

Chattie eh?

It seems like you have a lot of time on your hands to do research and posts to my wifes blog.

That's great, since she needs an audience and comments when I am busy.

Mr. Tech (the laptop provider for the last 3 posts...or more)

The Chatty Housewife said...

I knew a comment like yours would follow mine.

I was bored, what can I say? And I LOVE birds.

Oh, and it's "chatty" not chattie lol. Seen any soovee's recently?

The Chatty Housewife said...

I knew a comment like yours would follow mine.

I was bored, what can I say? And I LOVE birds.

Oh, and it's "chatty" not chattie lol. Seen any soovee's recently?

Sjo said...

Natalie, it would have been fun to see you too! Interesting to know what those buildings were, certainly massive, must be an interesting chore figuring out how to destroy them with the mall right next door.

And Chatty, thank you for the comments. I love it that you take the time to look stuff up as I don't have it. They were very unusual birds I like to know what they are too but didn't know where to begin looking them up. Cool Web site.