Featherfest is an annual celebration of bird migration, and is held every April in Galveston, TX. This year is the 23rd such event. Friends and I spent three full days there, and engaged ourselves in three sponsored activities. The first was an afternoon workshop on shore birds. The second was an all day trip to High Island, a well-known birding site on the upper end of the Bolivar Peninsula; we actually skipped the bus ride because of early torrential rains. The last was a morning catamaran ride to the edges of North Deer Island, a beehive of rookery activity. Here are a few highlights.

Shore Birds

High Island and Lower Boliver Peninsula

North Deer Island

Many people love leopards. Indeed they are the most attractive big cats in Africa in many ways. Lions are always great to see, and are easy to get close to. They often will walk around the safari vehicle and pay no attention to the vehicle of its’ contents. Cheetahs are also easy to get close to, and have been known to leap onto safari vehicles in order to improve their line of sight as they seek potential prey. Leopards, on the other hand, are much stealthier and like to avoid close contact with safari vehicles. They hang out in the bushes or up in trees, and are much more difficult to locate.

We have now been to Botswana seven times, and are booked for two more trips. We have seen a number of leopards, and one small cub. We have never seen two leopards together (except for mother and cub), and have taken many safari rides with no leopard sightings. But here is a small collection of our sightings.

Recently we have seen loads of migrating birds in our backyard. Most notably there have been numerous cedar waxwings and robins drinking at our pool waterfall, accompanied by the usual cardinals, northern mockingbirds, wrens, house finches, sparrows, doves, goldfinches and an occasional warbler. Here are some recent images, all shot with a Nikon D500 with 500mm lens, through a back window overlooking the pool and spa.

A few years ago we spent a week in the Jackson Hole area. While there I was fortunate to spend a day with Mike Jackson, a professional photographer and local guide. We had a lovely sunny winter day, with fresh snow everywhere. So we were fortunate to see some wildlife – bison, moose, otter and others – and to enjoy the many barns in the area. So here is a compilation of images from that day.

We have been to quite a few national parks. One of our favorite areas (will visit this summer) is Jackson Hole, with its’ pair of parks in Grand Teton and of course Yellowstone. Our last visit was in 2018 to fish with friends, and I thought I would post a few images of Yellowstone NP.

Last but not least – old cars. All over. many used as taxis. Interesting sidebar is the creation of literally dozens of cottage businesses that make parts for this fleet of 50-70 year old automobiles.

So who did we here about most while in Cuba? The Castro’s?? Absolutely not. The talk, visions, advertising and so on all focused on Che Guevera and Ernest Hemingway! Interesting.

Che

Papa

And here are some images that are more “impressionistic”.

The streets and buildings were interesting, some in good repair, some not. Here are a few images from our journey.

Eleven years ago, Karen and I visited Cuba for a week with about 15 people on a “charitable mission”. This was the only way to get there at that time. So we packed school supplies and medicines, and visited both a school and a hospital while in Havana. The rest of the time we were just tourists.

The visit was quite fascinating. Cuba is a lovely country scenically. We visited Havana, Cienfuegos, Trinidad and Santa Clara by mini-bus with a wonderful guide Osmos and an equally wonderful and hilarious driver Fernando (who was a smaller Bruce Willis and knew it!).

Our initial lasting impressions were of the Cuban people, who were friendly, warm, and seemingly reasonably happy. At the same time there were elements of sadness – unable to travel, relatively poor, limited futures, economic struggles and so on. Many were working, some relaxing, others in costume. Music is very popular as well. Here are a series of images from the trip.