A Lubbock Photo Safari

The past few days the playa lake at the Jan Jennings Park, where I bring the dogs for their walk, has been filled with Canada geese.

So after I walked the dogs and brought them back home, I returned with my camera to take some pix of the geese at the lake.

Because they are present all year round in Massachusetts, it is easy to forget that the Canada goose is a migratory bird.

Never have I seen this many geese in one spot. Get the roasting pan ready!

Many of the geese were along the edge of the lake.

But when I started walking towards them, they immediately made their way into the lake,

and began swimming away

to the other side.

It was amazing seeing all these geese in one spot.

The surface of the lake was covered with what could have been hundreds of birds. And God knows what it was like under the water's surface, with all those geese pooping in the water. The catfish and turtles were probably not to happy with the extra additives to the water.

Geese weren't the only birds I saw. Ducks also shared the lake with the Canada geese.

Not only that, there were even seagulls! I thought that I saw my last seagull just before I left the east coast. Who would have thought there would be seagulls in land-locked Lubbock?

This is what the dried up bottom of the playa lake looks like.

When I gave a quick glance at this, I thought it was a snake skin. After all, it was the same color and texture of a shed snake skin. But closer inspection revealed that it was a piece of bubble wrap.

Well, after taking pix of the geese at Jan Jennings Park, I wasn't quite ready to pack it up and go home. I was in the mood for taking more pix.

So I drove to another part of town, to Maxey Park, where the playa lake is much larger and has quite a few interesting features, like this lone tree in the middle of a tiny island.

A little bit beyond that tiny island is an uprooted dead tree that is a perfect resting place for larger shore birds like cormorants

and this white egret.


One of the reasons why I wanted to go to Maxey Park to take pix was because of its collection of interesting trees

And interesting tree roots.

This tree root looks like the ancient, weathered skeleton of some large and forgotten animal.

These roots look like a row of gravestones sticking out of the ground,

or something that you would see coming out of the ground in a dark and creepy cemetery in a scary horror movie.

I wasn't going to include this pic, but then I noticed the orb on the left. Could that be a ghost? Hmmm. It's somewhat fitting to have a ghost floating around in an area that would make a good setting for a horror flick.

These roots were quite extensive.

They look like something I would expect to see in the bayou.

There were also a lot of roots that would go into the water.

The root knots that were along the ground made some interesting patterns.

Can you see the face in this root knot?

There were grackles along the edge of the lake. (Grackles are considered to be a nuisance bird here in Lubbock.)

I had to use my zoom lens to take their pix because they would fly away whenever I tried to get near.

It was even difficult trying to take pix of the grackles in the trees. But I got lucky with this shot.

As the sun was setting, the moon was rising.

And by the way, did I mention that for the entire day the sky was a bright and beautiful, cloudless blue? Yup, that's true. Lubbock has lots of bright and sunny days. It's very easy to get used to this kind of weather.

Well, I was done with Maxey Park, but there was still one more place to go before I went home.

I drove back to where I started from - to my neck of the woods - because I just had to get some pix of a sight that one does not get to see very often in Lubbock.

After all what would a photo safari be without a camel?

This fellow, whose name is Caesar, is a rather large beast.

Doesn't Caesar's passenger look nice and comfy in between those 2 humps?

Caesar was working at Slide Road and the Loop, giving rides for $5.00 a pop. That was a bit too rich for my wallet.

So I just had to content myself to taking a pic of Caesar the 2-hump Bactrian camel.