Four Girls in Trouble (and a Migratory Event)

New ant mound near the parking lot. I suspect it will not be there long. But the return of the "big red ant" is a good thing...just pay attention (says the girl who inevitably realizes she is  standing too near too late.

We don't look like scofflaws, but we are.

Look at us. Do we look like trouble?

Four of us headed to the neighborhood park to walk (as we do a couple of times a week). We saw running man (as he ran by). And we saw another man enter the park with his giant black Lab...off-leash. We don't know this man or his dog. They seem nice enough, but we keep our distance.

We also keep the dogs on-leash unless we manage to find one of the sports fields open. Today we did.

The dogs ran round and round.* They drank water from the Igloo someone generously left on the dugout bench. It was still half-full of ice & water. Everyone behaved. No one left any surprises and we even picked up some of the paper cups left behind by the teams who played (or practiced) last night.

As we were leaving we saw the park pickup heading our way. Oops. Caught.

"Was that gate left open?" they asked us.

[Oh, come on -- do we look like people who are going to break in? Or be able to break in if we wanted to?]

"Yes, it was" we replied.

Yeah. I bet it won't be let open again.


In other park news - birds were flying and calling throughout the walk. More crows were calling today (yes, it was a murther** of crows) and the Scissor-tailed Flycatchers were making themselves known in the pecan trees. We saw a handful, but from the noise in the trees we knew there were more -- I am still convinced it it a premigratory roost and will continue to listen and look for them until they head off for the winter.***

I couldn't help myself - stopped to get a few (bad) photos of the Scissor-tails.

We also saw one Great Blue Heron in flight, just skirting the park.



NOTES:

*If you know Zelda, you know she runs in great swooping circles until she can run no further. She will rest for a minute or two and "take off" again. It is a joyous romp.

**The exact number is not important, but it is more than three. We heard or saw at least 6 today.

***https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Scissor-tailed_Flycatcher/lifehistory -- I love the description of the flocks as "bickering." Scissor-tails migrate to Mexico and Central America in the winter.



SPIDER WARNING:

Great looking spider on the fence.