It's a wild, wild, wild, wild world

Pictures from my my outings the last couple of weeks.

Texas longhorn

Buffleheads (ducks)

American bison or buffalo.
These were once so abundant they would stop trains for days as the herds moved across the tracks. Then they were hunted to the brink of extinction but have made a comeback. They are found mainly in national parks and other protected areas such as this one on the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.

Northern Cardinal (female)

Harris's sparrow

Barred owl

Prairie dog


A trio of prairie dogs on alert. Predators include hawks, falcons and coyotes. (But it was me who alerted them!)

Hackberry Flat

This afternoon (18/12) I braved the chilly weather (I really miss the tropics!) to do a little bird watching. Hackberry Flat is a short drive from my parent’s house and is a flat that acts as a type of shallow pond or wetlands area. Migratory waterfowl use it as a stopover, lots of raptors hunt in the wetlands and other wildlife stop in as well. I saw six white-tail deer in the tall grasses around the edge of the wetlands as I was leaving. Here is my list for the day:

Red-tailed hawk
Common snipe
Red-winged blackbird
Sandpiper sp?
Green-winged teal
Western meadowlark
American robin
American kestrel
Northern harrier (not a positive ID)
Great blue heron
Blue-winged teal
Northern shoveler
Greater white-fronted goose
American coot

Common snipe

A weed at twilight.

Tilting at windmills

My home has been become a paradise for Don Quixote! The part of Oklahoma that I am from is flat and, well, windy. Growing up it was something that I hated. Try playing badminton in the backyard with a stiff wind blowing in your face and you will give up quite quickly. Maybe that is the reason I still am ranked as one of the worst badminton players in the world.

However, recently wind has become something of a boon for the local economy. They have started installing giant windmills to harness the wind and turn it into electricity. Now the horizon is covered with massive pinwheels spinning the gusts into volts. It seems counter-intuitive to me to clear large sites for the windmills with service roads and then market the electricity as environmentally-friendly but I do applaud the move to a renewable energy source.

The house and barn help to give you an idea of just how big the windmills are.

Sancho, bring me my steed for there is a giant to slay!

As the sun set in the land of the pinwheels, and Alice longed for her duvet.

Going home

Well, it is the night before I leave for the US for Christmas with my family, the first one at home in five years. I haven't packed but I do have the most important detail nailed down: my reading list. Here they are, in no particular order:
Freakonomics
1984 by George Orwell
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The last trip I read just a shade under 2000 pages, which gives you an idea of how long a trip to the US and back really is. It didn't help I was delayed in Chicago for a day though. I'll spend 14 hours in the Singapore airport on layovers going both ways, 7 going and 7 coming back. But, if you have to get stuck in an airport for 7 hours I would definitely put Changi at the top of my list.

I should have some time over the holidays to sit down and write and get some of these random thoughts out of my head and onto paper/screen. Until then, I'll be the guy reading like mad next to you on the plane!