Golden Rule

Golden Rule:
"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them"For some reason I keep thinking about the GR and how it has backfired on me. What is this rule and does it really work.
I have always done unto others as I would want to be treated but here is how it panned out.

I was faithful and loyal to someone but that person was faithless and very very disloyal-
does it mean that if we are loyal to the other, that means we want them to be loyal to us, but there is the rub: Even if we treat others the way we want to be treated- it will not make them treat us back the same way.
The crucial thing is how can we make someone treat us the way we want to be treated. We cant do that merely by treating them the way we want them to treat us: we have to teach them what we are ok with.

When people treat us badly does this mean that they want us to treat them well or are they following the unGolden rule: treat others the opposite of the way you want them to treat you. So if they are mean, you are expected to treat them well.
In my humble opinion there are 4 kinds of people: People of the Golden Rule and People of the unGolden Rule. 
Ungolden Rule people treat you bad but want you to treat them well.
Golden Rule people treat you good and want you to treat them good.

Golden Rulees: people who treat you good to your own good
Ungolden Rulees: People who treat you bad even if you treat them good

My fate has been in all my relationships it is always a Golden Rule: Ungolden Rulee...........

Birding ( sort of) at WRL

So next week my kids and I will be busy with summer stuff. I decided to go to WRL for a ride. I wanted to see if I could do two rounds around the lake( 9 miles around).
Yesterday I went for a ride at WRL and there was debris in several spots across the trail. I hoped they had cleared the paths today. I left at 4 pm and am glad I did because halfway through the ride the rain came down.
I saw kingbirds at the start of my ride. They were large and yellow and looked more like flycatchers. I did not have my camera with me which as it turned out was good. The rain came down. All I saw was one lone great egret surrounded by mounds of trash. I know it was raining water but it seemed like it also rained trash down. There was serious stinking trash everywhere.
It was very sad and stinky. It was very dark and gray and the water looked very gray and dark. The think was though it cleared all the walkers and dog walkers on the trail so I was able to get away with saying 'on your left' only five times or so rather than the usual five thousand times that I did yesterday.
Anyway i finished only one round because the binoculars even in my bag were not too dry and I did not want to stay when it was so dark. Well surprise halfway home the sun came down and I could have finished another round.
Anyway not much in the way of birdwatching but I had a great time biking because it was so quiet and not crowded.
At sunset bay all the birds and ducks and geese came out of the water and were blocking my path. I would rather ducks block me than people with dogs on leashes. All in all I am glad I had a great time.

See who came birding with me

On my Lunch break today, I spotted DJ an old friend of mine from ToastMasters walking way ahead of me up the path. Later I encountered her on a largely bird free birding hour but she named some of the pretty wildflowers for me:

These are winecups. such a pretty name:

Thats firewheel or Indian Blanket.

Then we came across someone else who was watching the birds along with us. He was watching intently:

Scary isnt it. But its not a cottonmouth, its a yellow bellied water snake and has no poison though I still dont want to be bitten by it.

She pointed out that a pair of mallards had started hanging out at the pond.

So yes it was not totally bird free. I just did not see them , I heard a lot of birds. I only saw the silent ones.

Sweet visit to Bittern Marsh in LLELA The Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area

Today I decided to go back to LLELA. Yesterday I had tried to go but since Jones road was closed and I was unfamiliar with the area, I turned left on Jones Road from Kealy and ended up at Lake Park yesterday instead. Today I called up and the lady told me that Kealy road dead ended on Jones and I had to turn right for LLELA. It would cost me 5 dollars to get in and I knew it would be five by the time I battled freeway traffic and got to LLELA. It was 5:20 when I reached (Thank you DFW traffic). The ladies at the gate booth were very nice and gave me a map. The lady there said Oh I see you already have a map. She had sharp eyes and spotted my Lake Park map from yesterday lying in the car and then she said Oh you have the camp ground map. She then gave me the LLELA map and when I asked her where I needed to go bird watching since I only had an hour, she said to go all the way to the end of the road and then cross over some rails and go to Bittern Marsh. I told her that that was where my research also told me to go. She said the gate closed at 7 and I may get a citation from the ranger if I was later than 7.
Bummer that meant I had about an hour to go birding.
I headed to the gate ( she said go as far as you can go and then you can go no further). I reached the furthest point and crossed over the rail and headed to Bittern Marsh Trail. Right away I spotted some lovely lark sparrows and took pictures. Also some rough winged swallows.

A small sign told where I was otherwise it was hard to know. I went over a small single rail bridge and then down a smaller descending set of steps and found flowing water.

There were lots of great egrets and great blue herons milling around.

Some college students headed to the other side of the river from bittern marsh and there was one lone fisherman. I headed inside and photographed an unusual looking bird that turned out to be a tree stump. There were birds far away that i could not photograph as the camera kept focusing on the leaves instead. When I see great leaf shots ( leafers) I always think to myself, is this a bird shot that missed and focussed on the leaf instead.

I saw egrets and herons high on the trees like it was the most natural thing in the world to perch on the tops of trees and then I spotted a lovely red bellied woodpecker.

There were European Starlings on the trees as well as cedar waxwings. I always scan the tops of the trees by occasionally standing still and turning around and when I did I saw a large hawk like figure on the top of a bare branched tree. It was far away and across the water ( isnt it always). At first when I saw it, it looked like it had a crest, the head looked wierd. Maybe a crested caracara???????Later when I reviewed the pictures I realized it was the Osprey. Strange cause I had been reading about it last night. Its also called the fish hawk and so it makes sense it was near the water and looking for fishes. Thanks to my camera, I could make out the bird was an Osprey ( a lifer). It looked like a balding old man from that distance. A very unusual bird. It shows us how the distance from which we view a bird makes things look different. The mustache of the bird looked like a receding hairline of an old man. Thanks to the

 camera I could see the light speckled breast band of the bird like a stately necklace.

Then I heard an unholy yelping sound and realized in a bit that it was gulls kettling and yelling at me. There were ring billed gulls ( ringers) and franklins gulls screaming overhead. I came to one small puddle and crossed it but the next one was too deep and I did not want to take a chance. I bid good bye to the gulls and took some distant shots .

At any rate my phone alarm dinged and told me it was time to head back anyway. So I turned back and as I came out I think I saw a purple finch and his female. I am not sure of the ID.

Anyway it cost me over an hour of driving and 5 dollars for about an hour of viewing, but I got to see four life birds and I learned that I would love to come back to Bittern Marsh and see the eponymic Bittern for which the Marsh is named. I got home safely and decided to pen this blog before I made up enough excuses not to.

Two kinds of crowned herons with superhero eyes

So in my busy life, I squeezed in some birding at White Rock Lake between work and bible study.
 I mentally prepared myself not to linger too long with the shore birds at the spillway and walk past into the hatchery.
Every time I pass the spillway, it is like a time trap and when I look up, it is too dark to go actual birding in the bushes. So this time I went to the spillway to start with and got some pictures of playful Least Sandpipers.

You can see how tiny they really are beside the coots. They look like little cotton balls. I tore myself from the Spillway ( which in hind sight really paid off) and then went past to the fish hatchery area. I was rewarded. I stopped a little ways past the entrance at a marshy area and some instinct told me to look closely. This has never failed me and when I looked, I could not believe my eyes. The Brightest coral legs stared me in the face. It had flamingo pink legs and a feathery bustle for a behind.

Its white cheeks and skulking long legs told me it was a Yellow Crowned Night Heron. Its coral legs told me it was breeding plumage. It was surrounded by a gaggle of crows and I remember reading that crows raid the nests of the herons. Sad but that's nature!

 Funny thing happened as I was trying to focus my camera, a young family ( human) comes up behind me and the guys voice behind me asks, maam, are you trying to photograph some wildlife. I was too tensed up focusing the camera to reply and he kept on repeating his question till I grunted an unfriendly 'yes' since I was perched one leg on a rock and another on a bush near the edge of the walking trail . Then the mans wife came along and said, don't disturb her and they walked off.

Later as  I went further inside the hatchery, I came across the same family and then I spoke to them and said, I did not mean to come across unfriendly but I was focusing and the camera was shaking. The lady said, yes I told him that you was in the zone and not to disturb you. They asked to see my pictures and the little kids loved my heron and said he had eyed like a superhero. It made me smile.

Then further into the hatchery I heard a loud series of quacks and knew some ducks were flying in and before my eyes the two wood ducks flew in. Then followed a merry leafy focus nightmare of a photo session. The ducks kept preening themselves and would tuck their heads in every time I clicked the camera button but I got some nice shots of a lovely female and her watchful male.

I was followed by a red cardinal who scolded me as I  went back to the spillway catching a few bob tails on the way.

Then back at the spillway on my way back, I paused to look since I felt I earned the right to look at some shories ( shore birds) and I was rewarded. Two Black Crowned herons jumped up and down on logs like they were giving speeches. There were great white egrets and the great blue heron in his own little pond. Someone told me there can only be one Great Blue in any small body of water. Two egrets were also having a face off. It looked like they had challenged each other to a duel near the spillway.

All in all a very rewarding day. I always wondered where the gulls went to. More and more as I see the spillway I see Great Egrets, Great Blue and now The black crowned and an assortment of plovers and pipers.

It was kind of funny seeing the Black and yellow crowned herons in the same day. The funniest thing was the way the kid said that the Yellow Crowned Night heron had super hero eyes. It made my day.

Disappointing visit to Little Lemmon Lake and Lake Joppa in Joppa preserve March 15th, tuesday, 2017

I set off for Little Lemmon Lake at 4 PM today after I got off of work and decided to take advantage of the daylight savings time with the spring forward.