Post by Ryan Wunsch on May 4, 2006 0:26:25 GMT -5
Like I said, I’ve been working quite a bit, and been itching to get out taking pictures of snakes, or anything. So I took my camera to work.
Opportunities for pictures are quite sparse, that area of gas patch I consider a wildlife wasteland - it seems most of the wildlife (other than jackrabbits, coyotes, gophers and pronghorn) know to stay away, or are driven away by all the activity.
Here are a few pictures I did decide to snap "days in the life of a corrosion inhibitor injector"
First up is a picture I took first of red wing blackbirds. I think they are all females, because the red winged blackbirds I'm used to seeing are very vibrantly colored compared to these. Now I have to get some pictures of the bright colored ones.
While on the birds, this is a very common bird, whatever it is, and it blends in with the dirt very well when not zoomed in like this picture is.
A Hungarian partridge, very tasty. These game birds are not native to Canada actually, but I can't remember where they come from originally, I think some place in Europe.
This is the female, looking for the male in hiding. I really wanted to try and get a picture of both of them mating. I just read that mating takes place late April to September, and that they pair up at this time. During hunting season, it is not unlikely to find huge groups of these. Coincidentally, 5 American hunters (poachers) were caught and charged this year for over harvesting and illegal hunting activity.
Some kind of Hawk that I watched building its nest. Hawks are very sneaky and hard to get a picture of, I think this one figured it was hiding.
I see lots of these, but realize many of you probably don't. Pronghorn Antelope.
Below is a very stocky one with horns growing towards the front. We call them "speed goats" as most locals consider them closer to a goat than to a deer or true antelope. When I was younger it was not uncommon to see multiple herds of 200 or more, but a few hard winters nearly wiped them out.
As a result, the hunting of them was suspended for 5 years. Because of their prolific nature, (females start out with 4 fertilized eggs, and abort as needed depending on the annual conditions) Twins and triplets are not rare to see.
Group of females. The surrounding background area is prime hognose habitat - infact I would bet that a detailed hognose range map would follow a map of the prime pronghorn locations. Since the mammals can run 60 mph, they can be found anywhere in the area on any given day, and a sighting of them should not be considered grounds for an in-depth hognose search.
One of the most beautiful mornings, bright sun, cool air being turned into a hot day, birds were chirping, and the “gophers” were out playing. Must have seen 1000 gophers this day – but it is something I’ve never taken a picture of. I’ve probably shot 200 of them (or more) when I was younger, farmers used to give us 5 cents per tail, just to give us incentive to kill gophers.
However, like shooting coyotes, it is usually rogue males that one finds available to shoot – and by killing those ones off, more food is available for breeding animals and growing babies, and it is counter productive in the end.
Not to be confused with black tail prairie dogs, but these do build mounds that rival a prairie dog, and many people call these prairie dogs. Spermophilus richardsonii
Here is some good info on these guys en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson's_Ground_Squirrel
At one time, these sold for $300 as pets to some eastern countries. Quite difficult to captive breed from what I researched.
I used to keep 13 lined ground squirrels as pets as a kid (thanks for letting me keep weird pets mom) I will try to get pictures of those, they are super cool, but until then
This female was very fun to watch. I’ve never really watched gophers very long, like I said, I used to just shoot them. I have film pictures that show me feeding these guys out of my hand – they are not usually that tame, but a lot of animals are a lot more tame than they normally would be in my presence – Sheila says I “talk to animals” lol
Looks like a female with babies down the hole.
Part of the reason I have so many pictures of this one, was I was trying to catch it in mid chirp. The wikipedia link has a sound file link of the chirp. You could have set a clock to the chirping, I could only try to get a picture every 2nd chirp – this one shows the open mouth off the best.
There are a lot of badger holes around, but again, it seems like Clark Kent and superman, my camera is never around when I see a badger. Sheila found a place south of town with 3 badger babies (badger babies are so cute, and when we had the zoo permit we considered getting a badger to display for tourists) Badger pictures to come some time in the future, I promise, and I promise I will get closer than I should.
30 seconds after moving on from the gopher pictures, look what I found hiding in the grass.
And was soon running away from me
A jackrabbit. Lepus townsendi – not a rabbit, but a hare, a white tailed hair
More information about them can be found here
www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/end_species/species/jackrab.html
From my searches so far, I haven’t seen any pictures of these critters as good as the ones I’m posting.
They are called jackrabbits because of their big ears
And they can run very fast
Found another one, in a less than natural setting, but the closeness makes up for that.
It ran a bit, and then stopped, same as a mule deer would do, also named for their long ears. Coincidence? I think not!
Below, Prime garter snake habitat. There is a slough near by, a lot of amphibians, a rock pile formed over 100 years of farmers piling up the rocks from the fields. Curiously, garters have rarely been found in the area pictured, but had been in overwhelming abundance only 20 years ago, before the gas boom.
A picture of a small gas well. The yellow fence is meant to keep cattle out, but I found this young calf trapped inside one. Sheila sells and sets up fencing similar to this, but this is a fence built by the competition - I wonder which of the 2 fence companies might pay more for this picture. Too late now I guess.
That is the calf’s mother in the background all ticked off. I let the calf out of the fence, mom and baby were very happy for that.
[/QUOTE]
Set of panels (that Sheila set up for the company she works for) around a well that I blew back, and also did the completion on, set up the tank and containment container.
Found 3 bulls and wasn’t sure if Black Angus bulls had these kind of curls up front, where a buffalo would have long hair.
He stood up and I got his attention (no zoom used on these pictures, I could smell his breath)
Staring and snorting at him got him quite pissed off, as you can see in the picture.
I think he is impersonating Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull”, but doing the “you looking at me?” line from taxi driver.
I stayed near the truck to make a quick exit around, in or on top of should he decide to come through the fence at me. He snorted, and tossed some dirt – I tried to get a picture but decided to jump in the truck and drive away before he broke through a fence I would be expected to fix. It would have been a great pictures.
There is not the amount of cool old abandoned places in my work area as there is nearer to Leader, but I've got a few shots of a few older places that must be rich with untold stories of the past.
Same place, in color, different angle.
Not only can these old places provide barn wood for city folks wishing to sell overpriced picture frames or spice jars, but left standing they also provide shelter and habitat for a variety of animals. Owls, bats, badgers, skunks, and a lot more can be found in these old haunted houses for those inclined to watch and look.
A view of the whole farmyard, probably 40 years after any people occupied it.
Some more abandoned places I ran into.
Very old and little house…
Couple of old buildings with lichen growing on them, and also an old windmill. Notice, one building no longer has any sides, just a roof.
Another very old, but very tiny old house. Gotta find out the story of this one, it is tiny.
I found a very cool house. There is another house that looks like a barn that I will take pictures of soon, but this one was either built like the top of a barn, or is the top of a barn put on a basement. Notice the 50-year-old agriculture equipment still beside the old place.
This one shows the basement foundation a bit better.
Lighting was not on my side, but this is the entrance way and porch of the old place, I thought it was cool.
An old truck (thousands of old valuable restorable vehicles just sitting on farms like this) with some old equipment parked by. I tried to get the “cockshut” name of the equipment in the picture, but the shadow does not help. I wonder who named that company…..
Did a few of the pics in Black and White
Texas chainsaw massacre (part 5b) could be filmed here
Opportunities for pictures are quite sparse, that area of gas patch I consider a wildlife wasteland - it seems most of the wildlife (other than jackrabbits, coyotes, gophers and pronghorn) know to stay away, or are driven away by all the activity.
Here are a few pictures I did decide to snap "days in the life of a corrosion inhibitor injector"
First up is a picture I took first of red wing blackbirds. I think they are all females, because the red winged blackbirds I'm used to seeing are very vibrantly colored compared to these. Now I have to get some pictures of the bright colored ones.
While on the birds, this is a very common bird, whatever it is, and it blends in with the dirt very well when not zoomed in like this picture is.
A Hungarian partridge, very tasty. These game birds are not native to Canada actually, but I can't remember where they come from originally, I think some place in Europe.
This is the female, looking for the male in hiding. I really wanted to try and get a picture of both of them mating. I just read that mating takes place late April to September, and that they pair up at this time. During hunting season, it is not unlikely to find huge groups of these. Coincidentally, 5 American hunters (poachers) were caught and charged this year for over harvesting and illegal hunting activity.
Some kind of Hawk that I watched building its nest. Hawks are very sneaky and hard to get a picture of, I think this one figured it was hiding.
I see lots of these, but realize many of you probably don't. Pronghorn Antelope.
Below is a very stocky one with horns growing towards the front. We call them "speed goats" as most locals consider them closer to a goat than to a deer or true antelope. When I was younger it was not uncommon to see multiple herds of 200 or more, but a few hard winters nearly wiped them out.
As a result, the hunting of them was suspended for 5 years. Because of their prolific nature, (females start out with 4 fertilized eggs, and abort as needed depending on the annual conditions) Twins and triplets are not rare to see.
Group of females. The surrounding background area is prime hognose habitat - infact I would bet that a detailed hognose range map would follow a map of the prime pronghorn locations. Since the mammals can run 60 mph, they can be found anywhere in the area on any given day, and a sighting of them should not be considered grounds for an in-depth hognose search.
One of the most beautiful mornings, bright sun, cool air being turned into a hot day, birds were chirping, and the “gophers” were out playing. Must have seen 1000 gophers this day – but it is something I’ve never taken a picture of. I’ve probably shot 200 of them (or more) when I was younger, farmers used to give us 5 cents per tail, just to give us incentive to kill gophers.
However, like shooting coyotes, it is usually rogue males that one finds available to shoot – and by killing those ones off, more food is available for breeding animals and growing babies, and it is counter productive in the end.
Not to be confused with black tail prairie dogs, but these do build mounds that rival a prairie dog, and many people call these prairie dogs. Spermophilus richardsonii
Here is some good info on these guys en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson's_Ground_Squirrel
At one time, these sold for $300 as pets to some eastern countries. Quite difficult to captive breed from what I researched.
I used to keep 13 lined ground squirrels as pets as a kid (thanks for letting me keep weird pets mom) I will try to get pictures of those, they are super cool, but until then
This female was very fun to watch. I’ve never really watched gophers very long, like I said, I used to just shoot them. I have film pictures that show me feeding these guys out of my hand – they are not usually that tame, but a lot of animals are a lot more tame than they normally would be in my presence – Sheila says I “talk to animals” lol
Looks like a female with babies down the hole.
Part of the reason I have so many pictures of this one, was I was trying to catch it in mid chirp. The wikipedia link has a sound file link of the chirp. You could have set a clock to the chirping, I could only try to get a picture every 2nd chirp – this one shows the open mouth off the best.
There are a lot of badger holes around, but again, it seems like Clark Kent and superman, my camera is never around when I see a badger. Sheila found a place south of town with 3 badger babies (badger babies are so cute, and when we had the zoo permit we considered getting a badger to display for tourists) Badger pictures to come some time in the future, I promise, and I promise I will get closer than I should.
30 seconds after moving on from the gopher pictures, look what I found hiding in the grass.
And was soon running away from me
A jackrabbit. Lepus townsendi – not a rabbit, but a hare, a white tailed hair
More information about them can be found here
www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/end_species/species/jackrab.html
From my searches so far, I haven’t seen any pictures of these critters as good as the ones I’m posting.
They are called jackrabbits because of their big ears
And they can run very fast
Found another one, in a less than natural setting, but the closeness makes up for that.
It ran a bit, and then stopped, same as a mule deer would do, also named for their long ears. Coincidence? I think not!
Below, Prime garter snake habitat. There is a slough near by, a lot of amphibians, a rock pile formed over 100 years of farmers piling up the rocks from the fields. Curiously, garters have rarely been found in the area pictured, but had been in overwhelming abundance only 20 years ago, before the gas boom.
A picture of a small gas well. The yellow fence is meant to keep cattle out, but I found this young calf trapped inside one. Sheila sells and sets up fencing similar to this, but this is a fence built by the competition - I wonder which of the 2 fence companies might pay more for this picture. Too late now I guess.
That is the calf’s mother in the background all ticked off. I let the calf out of the fence, mom and baby were very happy for that.
[/QUOTE]Set of panels (that Sheila set up for the company she works for) around a well that I blew back, and also did the completion on, set up the tank and containment container.
Found 3 bulls and wasn’t sure if Black Angus bulls had these kind of curls up front, where a buffalo would have long hair.
He stood up and I got his attention (no zoom used on these pictures, I could smell his breath)
Staring and snorting at him got him quite pissed off, as you can see in the picture.
I think he is impersonating Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull”, but doing the “you looking at me?” line from taxi driver.
I stayed near the truck to make a quick exit around, in or on top of should he decide to come through the fence at me. He snorted, and tossed some dirt – I tried to get a picture but decided to jump in the truck and drive away before he broke through a fence I would be expected to fix. It would have been a great pictures.
There is not the amount of cool old abandoned places in my work area as there is nearer to Leader, but I've got a few shots of a few older places that must be rich with untold stories of the past.
Same place, in color, different angle.
Not only can these old places provide barn wood for city folks wishing to sell overpriced picture frames or spice jars, but left standing they also provide shelter and habitat for a variety of animals. Owls, bats, badgers, skunks, and a lot more can be found in these old haunted houses for those inclined to watch and look.
A view of the whole farmyard, probably 40 years after any people occupied it.
Some more abandoned places I ran into.
Very old and little house…
Couple of old buildings with lichen growing on them, and also an old windmill. Notice, one building no longer has any sides, just a roof.
Another very old, but very tiny old house. Gotta find out the story of this one, it is tiny.
I found a very cool house. There is another house that looks like a barn that I will take pictures of soon, but this one was either built like the top of a barn, or is the top of a barn put on a basement. Notice the 50-year-old agriculture equipment still beside the old place.
This one shows the basement foundation a bit better.
Lighting was not on my side, but this is the entrance way and porch of the old place, I thought it was cool.
An old truck (thousands of old valuable restorable vehicles just sitting on farms like this) with some old equipment parked by. I tried to get the “cockshut” name of the equipment in the picture, but the shadow does not help. I wonder who named that company…..
Did a few of the pics in Black and White
Texas chainsaw massacre (part 5b) could be filmed here
Those are some great pictures Ryan.You got some nice shots of the local wildlife and pronghorn is somethin you won't see here.I like the shots of the old buildings as well.They make your imagination take off as to picture what all went on there. 
