6.15.05
95°F
1.25 hours
1.8 miles
n/a
red-headed woodpecker,
grouchy turtle

What do you do when the power goes off rendering necessities like cable, Internet access, and (gasp) air conditioning useless? Why, you don your hiking boots and take off...what else? ;-)

Distracting myself from the record-breaking South Texas power outage yesterday, I repeated the urban hike I'd made here, hoping to catch sight of the pair of pileated woodpeckers I'd seen on that hike. It was nearing dusk, so a good time to catch such things in the woods. I wasn't that lucky, but I did manage to catch sight of a red-headed woodpecker, my first sighting of this colorful woodpecker type, and enjoyed watching him work around a pine tree on the golf fairway that parallels this particular paved trail. He moved between two trees (thus the lighting difference in the shots...the bottom shot had full exposure to the setting sun while the top one was on the shaded side of the up-sun tree) doing his feeding and seemed oblivious to anything else around him. When he finally flew off, I got a good eyeful of his flight pattern. Woodpeckers are interesting to watch, even when flying away!

The rest of the hike went without interesting distractions except for when I got ready to turn around at the bridge overpass and begin the hike back to a hopefully energy-happy home. I spotted this old turtle moving in the grass by the open path, and from the debris and algae on his shell, seemed obvious he'd been around a while. He wasn't too happy to see me judging from the mock hissing and retreat into his shell as I postured for a a good shot. I left him alone and walked to the top of the overpass, then back to where he'd been, thinking I'd get another shot. I wasn't gone more than three or four minutes, but that was apparently enough for a turtle with a purpose, and he was gone. Surprised that he would have been able to move out of the open space that fast, I looked around in the brush nearby but never found him. Guess even turtles can pick it up and move it out when bothered by something that looks big enough to eat them!