Leech

With all of the recent rains, pastures are flooding and flooded fields are overflowing.  Ditches are full, and some roads are getting covered with water.  On a flooded road shoulder today, I saw this leech working its way along through the water.  I scooped it into an Icee cup (the pink stain in the water is strawberry, not blood).  I wanted to bring it home to watch it, but I realized I'd need to find something to feed it.  There's not really a lot of blood in the fridge, so I decided to let it go.

Cool Birds, Hot Boudin

A few quick notes and photos.

Yesterday I took a non-Atlas trip to the Gueydan area to study swallows.  I was hoping to look at young Cliff and Cave swallows to see how much room for confusion there is with the pair, and to look for clues for how to sort them out if they can and do look alike.

But funny things happen when you're trying to put the blinders on.

Among the swallows was a Bank Swallow that hadn't been recorded yet for the Gueydan Quad.

That meant I should spend an hour counting birds in the Gueydan Quad.  I was driving away from the swallow spot when I noticed a wet field along the highway.  In it were shorebirds, which the Gueydan Quad also needs.  And among the shorebirds there were two godwits, a Marbled and a Hudsonian.

These are probably the same godwits Steve Cardiff and Donna Dittmann found a few miles to the west last week.  Wet fields dry up quickly in summer, and when they do, birds move on.

Gueydan Quad:  10+ hours.  

This morning I headed to the Fenton Quad to put the final hours in on it.  It was tremendously birdy.  A Common Ground Dove flew up off a roadside and started singing.

Storks and other waders filled up flooded fields.

And there were swallows everywhere.  Caves and Cliffs, Barns, and young of all three.

Juvenile Cave Swallow

Adult Cave Swallow

Juvenile Cliff Swallow

Fenton Quad:  10+ hours.  

Next I found myself in lovely Iowa, Louisiana.

And, lo and behold!  It was time to eat.  Of course, when boudin is on the menu, it's always time to eat.

I parked between the lines, and porked out.

Pretty decent boudin.  I'd had Rabideaux's before, but this was better than I remembered.  Good flavor, good texture, nothing bad about it.  I added salt, of course.

The Iowa Quad wasn't quite as good.  The most interesting part for me was hearing Gray Catbirds singing.  I don't get to hear catbirds very often.  I had four catbirds, and every one of them had incorporated the caw of a crow into its song.  Do they often do that, or are the Iowa catbirds really talented?  Whatever the case, it was a perfect imitation.

I also got to hear a Bobwhite giving wacked out calls from a perch in a short monglier shrub.

Iowa is a good area for Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, too.

And this Common Nighthawk was kind enough to fly around and land where I could get a photo.

Dusty Old Dust, 7/3/12

I spent some time out around beautiful Gueydan today.  As the day got hotter, I started seeing white columns rising from the horizon in every direction I looked.  I thought they were hot fires making white smoke.  Some were distant bright lines that I could have passed off as my imagination or as the beginning symptom of some kind of heat illness.  Others seemed closer and were definitely real.  As I moved from an area of green fields to one of plowed fields, the columns began to pop up in spirals right in front of me.  They were what I called "dust devils" when I was a kid, little tornadoes of dust rising quickly over hot bare fields.

The dust devils started as puffs of smoke, and eventually built up like the smoke rising from a growing fire.  A few then died down while others rose high into the air to form thin tight spirals, kind of like waterspouts but on dry, hot land.  As I scanned the horizon I could see dozens at any given time, some near and some farther off.

Here's a brief clip of a short, shaky scan of the horizon.  I hope it gives an idea of the scope of the setting.  I also hope these fields got as much rain this afternoon as Lafayette did.  They needed it.