Familiarity breeds semi-discontent in re Friends of Hagerman NWR's Photo Club

NWR, for the non-environmental types, is a national wildlife refuge. All national wildlife refuges in the U.S., including Hagerman in north Texas, are parts of, and run by, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Hagerman, like some other larger, and generally more popular and visited, NWRs, has a "friends of" support group. It has a Facebook page, restricted to members.

The friends group, in turn, has a nature photography group Facebook page, NOT limited to official friends supporters, of which I am a member.

And, that brings us to the header.

For nearly a month straight in early summer (starts in May here in my climatological definitions) and into early June in full summer, most of Hagerman was underwater due to heavy rains.

To explain, Hagerman was created after the feds bought land on both sides of the Red River in the 1930s while Denison Dam, built to impound today's Lake Texoma, was being built, in anticipation of floods at times putting most this land underwater. This year, my area near and upstream of the dam got about 11-12 inches of rain, on average, in April, hugely above normal, and about 7-8 in May, a fair amount above normal. It's very flat land, largely surrounding Big Mineral Arm of the lake.

There's an additional twist, which ties indirectly with the header.

The feds bought ONLY the surface estate of all this land in the 1930s, primarily out of cheapness. Well, soon, the first exploratory drilling happened, and yes, found oil. There are still-active muleheads / nodding donkeys on pads within Big Mineral Arm, as well as in higher areas, in the latter case, having oil tank storage batteries with them.

Well, greenhouse gases and climate change, right?

A few of the members have talked at times about climate change, though none has talked about the climate crisis. And none of them batted an eye when a regional FWS admin this spring gave a presentation about how good the awl bidness was to FWS, as I wrote here, when I accused the friends group, since this was a regular event sponsored by IT, not Hagerman FWS, of whoring themselves out.

This:

Learn all about the oil rigs on the refuge, and the ways in which they benefit Hagerman NWR.

Along the lines of eXXXon saying "Carbon brings things to life," is whoring yourself out.

Few of the people there seem to have any idea how anti-environmental FWS is in general, specifically on things right here in Tex-ass like the dunes sagebrush lizard (with original help there from then-Texass Comptroller Susan Combs, then from O'bummer's Interior Secretary Kenny Boy Salazar), so bad it led to a new lawsuit, and the monarch butterfly, where even the Center for Biological Diversity fell for kind of a head fake — since Kenny Boy Salazar was involved. They just want to see purty birdz, probably mainly while driving in their cars.

Or now, FWS being a sellout again, this time on the lesser prairie chicken. (And, yes, that's in part Trump-related, but I'm sure not entirely) 

That's part 1 of the discontent.

==

Part 2? Non-locals, like people from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metromess, asking all during this time "Is it above water yet," and some even driving up here.

Admins have written occasional posts about how long it would still be before it aired out. But, they never "pinned" a post to the top of the Facebook page to cut off such dumb questions.

They never went beyond that and suggested to Metromessers alternatives to Hagerman, like I did in comments to two of the posts.

And there are!

From where I live, within 40 miles, there's national grasslands near Alvord, Texas, a city lake with 3-4 miles of trails at Muenster, Texas, and a city nature preserve at the northeast corner of Denton. In Fort Worth, Samson Park gives you up-and-down hiking and as for birds, I've seen a black-crowned night heron there. You can see all sorts of birds in the Trinity parks complex there, or White Rock Lake in Dallas, or one of the undeveloped Dallas County parks, all of which I've been to. 

During the "wet" time, I saw dickcissels, painted buntings and yellow kingbirds at Muenster, and further away, black-capped and white-eyed vireos at Wichita Mountains NWR.

Of course, at all these places, you have to actually get out of your vehicle and hike, per Cactus Ed Abbey.

==

Part 3?

Some of the newer members of the photo club.

There's one whose Hucksterman profile calls herself "digital creator," and whose home page says "Owner/Manager/CEO at Backroad Photography," with no website, in other words: 

"I'm a person who has a camera and shoots photos in the country."

To make it worse, her first profile photo looked like someone playing with Photoshop while indulging substances and who should have their Photoshop privileges revoked.

As it turns out, her "organization" actually a Hucksterman group created by said person. She's about the only person who posts there herself, and a bunch of it is cheesy 3-D Hucksterman photo effects that confirm what I just said above. Fortunately, she doesn't try this on the Hagerman site, or else they don't let her. 

That said, to sidebar? Hagerman photo group admins DID let one person, a very occasional poster, post a picture of a Brahminy kite from India claiming they'd seen one in or near Hagerman. Worse? It was the actual illustration photo on Wikipedia's article. He either hauled it down himself, or  admins did. I don't know if he got booted; he should have.

Back to the person at hand. I suppose I should salute their love of nature, but I don't, because of how it's expressed.

==

Part 4?

I've often suspected the photo group of playing favorites. And, the most recent Facebook "header" photo? The shooter said it was in a small pond "near Hagerman." As in, not inside refuge boundaries.

Add that to "overposters," who have to dump photos from a month earlier?

Off-putting.

"Hagerman influencers" would be another way to describe them.

==

Part 5? Friends of Hagerman itself.

I know more than most people about how "managed" many national wildlife refuges are, primarily to serve the "hook and bullet" constituency. So, "Adopt a Goose"? Uhh no. First, I'm not a total fan of the overseeding, any more than water diversions out west to places like Sonny Bono and Bosque del Apache. (Interestingly, a state part or wildlife refuge in the same area doesn't have the same problems right now.) Also, why not get the oil industry best buds to take up the slack? 

A secular spiritual experience while hiking and birding

Actually, it’s not the first such experience. Two years ago, high in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, I came across this rock, with a cascade splashing over it. It reminded me of a similar view at Middle Emerald Pool in Zion National Park, to which I had already, some time after I got back home, attached the Buddha’s likely most famous phrase in a photo poster.

This time, it was just the second half of that phrase.

But, I also invented a word: “humaste.” It’s a secular version of “namaste.” It means something along the lines of “I salute, recognize and accept the human in you because of the human in me.” It’s secular, non-metaphysical, and unlike Gandhi’s use of “namaste” (or “harijan”) it’s not patronizing.

And, I had a third such experience while hiking locally. No need to go to Zion or the San Juans. And, no inanimate rock involved this time.

After getting newspapers done for the week, and more unwinding with having worked over the weekend to finish a graduation special section, I went out to the local town's city lake again, as I had the previous two Saturdays.

Two Saturdays ago, I had hiked a fair chunk of the longest trail, coming from the south, the main access area. This time I hiked the north end. Getting near to where I had come up from the south two Saturdays ago, I saw the spot where I had turned around.

But, I didn't immediately see something else.

Imagine this beautiful lady of a red-tailed hawk (looks too big for a male) standing, STANDING, in the middle of a trail no more than 8 feet or so, 2.5 meters, away when you notice it. Imagine having to zoom OUT with your telephoto zoom because it overfills the frame. Imagine changing angles to get different sun, and work around the grass, and it NOT MOVING other than moving its head to track you. Imagine watching it for 15 minutes, between original photos, walking around side to side, more photos, then talking to it, then even shooting a bit of video, with a clip here, too. I told it "humaste" when it started to hop off in the grass.  

 

I have asked a friend on Shitter, former US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, if they have any "why" information from their background, since asking "why" is part of human nature. I haven't heard back yet, but will update as available.

An online and in-person non-local friend who's an even more avid hiker than me thought maybe a very close nearby nest was the answer, in a hawk's "stand your ground" world. Possible, I guess, but to me, it doesn't seem likely.

Another online friend, a birder of some sort herself, wondered if it might be due to injury. Possible. I never saw it fly, only ground-hop. 

Red-tailed hawks, like some other raptors, can make a kill that is too heavy to lift back to a nest, something like a large jackrabbit. But, there's no blood on the beak, and as far as I could tell, none on the talons.

In any case, folks, it is possible to be delighted and challenged and, in a non-metaphysical sense, spiritually stimulated by nature, even without diving coral reefs or other higher-dollar adventures. (It wasn't a spiritual experience at the time, and I wouldn't call it that today, but a "bucket list" item? Walking on a glacier years ago at Jasper National Park.) 

I’m trying to work in more non-political stuff on occasion here. And, this, by getting outside of politics entirely, certainly fits the “non-twosider” angle. As part of that, spread the word and idea of “humaste,” please. Also remember that human beings do have free will and that, in some sense, the spiritual blessing of “humaste” has to be in part earned. This isn’t Martin Luther’s sola gratia.

Merry Christmas and into next week

As you see this, I'm out in the semi-wilds of Southern California. I should be out and about hiking and birding at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, which I stumbled upon last year.

This year, I'm back there intentionally. I wrote this in advance, and I am hoping there is a Christmas Day Bird Count there. It actually started last week, as far as the actual Audubon-organized national event, and runs through the start of the new year.

From there, Joshua Tree and more in Sand to Snow than I did last year. Hoping to meet up with friends in the Southland, too.

I'm hoping to both see new birds and get better pictures of some of the noes I saw last year, as well as shooting a bit of video.

This is obviously posted ahead. Posting for the next week will be light, and posted-ahead stuff. See you in the new year.

===

Update from kyped wifi, Dec. 27; bird spottings thin but desert bighorn good with La Niña rain.

A bird by any other name may not have evolved the same

A major five-year study of birds may result in the creation of new species and major taxonomic reorganization. For instance:

Flamingos and some other aquatic birds, such as grebes (freshwater diving birds) and tropicbirds (white, swift-flying ocean birds), did not evolve from waterbirds. This suggests that birds have adapted to life on water multiple times.

And:

Birds have had a complex evolutionary history after an early and rapid explosion of species that occurred sometime between 65 million and 100 million years ago.

Thos are just two of 10 things LiveScience says you probably didn’t know about birds.

Even many of the estimated 82 million birdwatchers in the U.S. may not know most of those 10 facts.