Rick started his new job in CB
Hooray!
And moved into a new apartment.
Not our apartment, because that got put on hold when the contractor's got re-routed because a tenant in another building set THEIR kitchen ablaze with a grease fire.
Hooray.
Then we found out it will be at least another week before he can move into our new apartment because there was a leak in one of the bathrooms that had be fixed.
Hooray.
So even though I drove out to see him this weekend, I didn't get to help him move anything from the temporary 1 bedroom he's in, to our new 2 bedroom apartment.
It also meant that he hasn't gotten a new bed yet because he doesn't want to have to move it, so all he had was a cot.
So we got Rollo settled into his third vacation home (he has one at each of our parents houses) and then Rick took me on a tour of the area - including the local Walmart, where we got a nice queen sized air mattress for camping and slumber parties like this weekend.
Then we went up to Crescent to the infamous Pink Poodle.
It looks like a dive and the decor hasn't been updated since it opened 60 years ago - not an exaggeration, there was an article about it on the wall. But the food was AMAZING.
Rick and I both got the prime rib (their specialty) and it came with soup, salad (with homemade dressing and croutons!), fresh bread and a side. SO GOOD.
We will definitely be going back!
Then Rick took me on a driving tour of the places we'd be hiking this weekend, De Soto and Hitchcock, then we went home and played with Pig and settled in for the night.
Saturday Morning
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| We woke up Saturday morning to this little cutie exploring the deck in search of maple seeds |
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| Apparently, they are delicious |
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| Pretty purple flowers at BIG LAKE PARK just down the street from our apartment |
De Soto National Wildlife Refuge - we first went to the Visitor Center to get ourselves season pass. There's TONS of hiking trails here, so we knew we'd be back.
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| American Redstart - this little male was working hard to show off for the ladies |
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| Yellow Warbler - he was working hard eating |
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| Yellow Rumped Warbler aka: Butter-butt |
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| A Butter-butt and the Redstart |
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| White Crowned Sparrow |
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| Eastern Kingbirds |
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| hermit thrush |
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| Indigo Bunting |
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| Scarlet Tanager - we've only gotten this guys picture from a very far distance once before - it was Super exciting to have him pose for us! |
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| Female Scarlet Tanager |
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| Baltimore Oriole |
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| Baltimore Oriole male - 1st year |
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| pretty sure this is a female Indigo Bunting |
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| Rose Breasted Grosbeak |
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| Hermit Thrush |
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| Baltimore Oriole - 1st year male |
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A Mink!!!
I heard a rustle and then spotted this little guy fleeing up a vine into the trees!
He only paused for a couple shots before vanishing on us |
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| Eastern Kingbirds |
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| Tree Swallows (male front, female back) |
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| Killdeer |
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| meadowlark |
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| painted turtle |
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| Canada Geese and goslings |
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| Hooded Merganser and her 9 ducklings- Iowa is not supposed to be in their breeding range, but we checked her photo against our Sibley guide and feel this is a very positive ID |
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| This little family was just too cute! |
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| Bald Eagle and chick (left side of the nest) |
After several hours of VERY SUCCESSFUL birding at De Soto, we decided to go get ourselves a season pass at Hitchcock Nature Center as well!
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| Rose Breasted Grosbeak |
But their credit card machine was broken and all we had was plastic, so we couldn't get our pass, and we were exhausted. So we went home and made french fries and took a nap.
For like 3 hours.
But then we were awake again, and still had a few hours of daylight left, so we went back to De Soto.
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| The rare and elusive Wild Turkey |
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| Wood Duck male and some Ring-billed ducks |
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| Ring-billed Duck |
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| A Robin channeling his inner Wile E. Coyote |
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| Song Sparrow |
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| White Crowned Sparrow |
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| wren |
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| At first we ID'd this guy as a towhee, because of that dark rusty color, but the behavior and shape were wrong, so the ID didn't sit well with either of us. It was bugging Rick enough that when we got back to apartment, he started looking for him and we realized that what we'd seen was NOT a towhee, but instead an Orchard Oriole! |
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| Tree Swallow |
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| This White-tailed deer's fuzzy antlers are so cute!! |
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| Ring Billed Ducks dabbling |
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| Common Yellowthroat |
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| Dickcissel |
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Harris Sparrow
- Rick had seen these guys thursday, and was started to get frustrated that we'd been to all the places he'd seen them that evening and couldn't find any (we're on the migration path, not the breeding ground, so they won't stick around all summer). We finally found them by coming back to the prairie in the evening! |
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The eagles nest at sunset
The nest is enormous, like the size of Rick's car enormous. |
Sunday Morning
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| Butter-butt |
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| Yellow Warbler |
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| lady bug - I love the red-orange on the bright green! It just looks like summer! |
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| Spotted Sandpiper - famous for it's butt bob! The way they walk is hilarious! |
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| Song Sparrow |
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| Tree Swallow in it's nest box |
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| Savanna Sparrow |
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| female goldfinch |
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| Tree Swallows |
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| Red-bellied Woodpecker |
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| bullfrog |
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I took this picture in Ankeny on Thursday (5/12/16), but I've taken it before, when we lived in Ames, and I've seen these guys over the ponds in Ankeny in the evenings and couldn't figure out WHAT they were.
So Saturday after sorting through the days pictures, I went flipping through our SIBLEY Bird Guide looking for SOMETHING that was swallow-shaped but way bigger, and had white bars on the underside of it's wings. It took a lot of flipping to find Nighthawks.
Sunday morning during our walk around De Soto, we watched those white bars fly over us again and knew right away what it was! |
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| A NIGHTHAWK!!! |
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These guys are AMAZING!
And OLD!
Rick was doing some reading after our hike, they've found fossils of these guys that are over 400,000 years old! |
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| Nighthawks (and other Nightjars - like the Whippoorwill) don't tend to flush and instead rely on camouflage and their amazing imitation of a tree branch to protect them. |
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| They hunt bugs at dawn and dusk, and will apparently, roost just about anywhere, trees, fence posts, on the ground... They're very confident in their stick impersonation. |
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| He was watching us pretty closely while we snapped pictures underneath him |
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But he kept going back to camouflage position
- that's why he squints his eye, so you won't see the shine and you'll think he's a tree |
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| He was SO COOL!!! |
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| Great Blue Heron |
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| Yellow headed blackbird in flight |
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| Orchard oriole male |
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| Orchard Oriole - male 1st year |
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| Orchard oriole female |
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| Eastern Bluebird |
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| Harris Sparrow |
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| Rick found mushrooms |
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| Scarlet Tanager |
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| Wren |
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| Baltimore Oriole |
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| "dogfish" (or bowfin) gulping air - apparently this fish is ancient and can breathe both water AND air |
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| thrush |
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| Rose Breasted Grosbeak |
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| Dickcissel |
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| Harris's Sparrow |
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| If you look closely in this picture he has caught one of those flying insects! |
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| painted turtles |
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| Pileated Woodpecker - we only saw this guy as he was flying off, cropped picture below to highlight the bird |
We then headed back to Hitchcock Nature Center (with cash this time) to get our season pass a couple cool T-shirts.
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| spiderwort? I think... Pretty Purple Flowers at Hitchcock Nature Center |
And so after a weekend of sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of a temporary apartment and eating Popeye's chicken on a card table of questionable structural integrity, Rick and I brought our first year of marriage to a close, and I was so sad to see the weekend end because everything about our weekend's adventures, including that air mattress, and anniversary Popeye's dinner, and that rickety card table
was perfect.
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