Peacocks in Austin's Rescue Zoo

I don't usually like to go to zoos, but the Austin zoo is an exception. That is because it is a rescue zoo and sanctuary.

Last weekend while we were there, I was totally captivated by the peacocks and peahens that wander about freely within the zoo, hopping in and out of other enclosures at will.

I have seen several peacocks in India and here in the US, but I am always still awed by the extreme ostentatiousness of their plumage. How complex the combination of colors are! I wonder if they know how striking their appearance is.

They must be pretty used to the attention they get, because they pretty much ignored me as I stalked them with my camera.

As the sun started to go down, many of them suddenly launched into this cacophony of screams and calls ...

... and fanned out their feathers as they walked about with heads held high.

Of course, the lady looked pretty unimpressed. I wish she hadn't been sitting against those trees, or I could've got a better picture of her.

I had a collection of peacock feathers as a kid in India, and remember well how soft and silky the shiny feathers are.

The weather is turning warm here, but the wildflowers still linger. Spring has taken its time here this year. Wishing you a colorful week, until next time ...

It's wildflower season in Austin!

It's been almost three months since my last post, and I've been trying to get motivated to start blogging again. And spring in Austin brought me the motivation I was looking for! It's been a very wet winter here, with lots and lots of rain. Maybe as a result, the roadsides are completely bursting with color now - it's wildflower season in Austin!

Carpeting the grassy slopes on the sides of the road is the Texas state flower - the blue bonnet. Dotting the fresh green foliage everywhere are its striking blue petals with pearl-like white tips. To add to the splash of color, there is the bright orange Texas paintbrush - its flower is actually small and yellow, but more prominent are its flame-orange bracts.

This highway runs outside our subdivision and I've been seeing this vision along the roadside all week as I've driven by. Today, finally, I took my camera, got off the road and took some pictures.

Sitting amongst the flowers, I noticed hundreds of tinier flowers, in yellow, magenta and pink, in addition to the blue bonnets and paintbrush that are visible from a distance. The fragrance there was out of this world. I really didn't want to leave.

Spring is so fleeting in Austin ... all this will melt away soon and the dreaded Texas heat will soon be in place. I guess such is life ... But for now, I am breathing deeply and savoring this beautiful season in Austin.

The Best Walk in Austin

I do believe I live in one of the prettiest parts of Texas. For just a street away from ours is a greenbelt that extends for miles and miles into the center of Austin. This greenbelt was the main attraction that convinced us that we were choosing the correct house to live in. And it has certainly not disappointed.

A short walk from home brings us to a little stream that often completely dries up during hot summer months. So most of the time we can skip over the rocks and cross over into the greenbelt and start our hike. It has been raining heavily in Austin this winter though, and so the little stream is now a swelling river! We could still have waded across, but we took a longer, drier route into the greenbelt some days ago.



A short distance down the trail there is a "waterfall". There is never much water here, and though the pool below the fall has always had at least a little water, it's usually dry enough to sit on the rocks above and watch the pool. So imagine our surprise when we saw this pretty waterfall that completely stopped us from crossing!



This beautiful greenbelt has a network of trails where one can easily get lost. So there is always another route that we can take if there's a problem with one of them. Instead of crossing over the fall as we usually do, we continued on this side of the stream and followed the trail further.

We were in the shade, but the setting sun lit up the trees across the stream from us, and their reflection in the still water was breathtaking.



We soon came to a second, more shallow waterfall where the water going over the smooth rock sheets was transparent as glass, then exploded like crystal as it fell on the rocks below.



We continued on the trail, and followed the sound of the water falling as it tripped over gnarled tree roots exposed by the force of the stream.



Further along, the setting sun lit up the foliage and its reflection marked the water like liquid gold.


We had by then walked for an hour and a half, following the stream, and the sound of the water falling.


It was getting dark, and so we stopped at this point where there was a deep, clear pool of water beneath us, and flat rocks along the stream. A perfect campsite ... and so close to home! Much as we wanted to continue along this endless trail, we decided to stop since it was rapidly getting dark. As we headed back home, we decided we would be back here to camp.

Three hours of walking in the crisp, cool air, listening to the gurgling sounds of water ... could there be anything more serene?



As this year ends and a new one begins, I wish for you (and for me) a world filled with peace, and serene, quiet moments of delightful contemplation. Happy New Year!

The Texas Capitol

Back to the blog world after more than a month ... thanks to those who sent me notes over this time asking if I was ok and saying I was missed. It was nice to know I have you as blog-friends. :)

It's just been very busy here with various activities. I'm back for now, and am looking forward to visiting my favourite blogs and seeing what you have been up to.

The photo club that I'm a member of is putting together an exhibit for the Austin Airport, which will go up in January. The theme for this exhibit is "Looking Up." For this I wanted to photograph the dome of the State Capitol from below, and so went over to the Capitol building several times. Once I got there I realized what an interesting place it is to photograph. I wandered around taking lots of pictures.

The dome is so beautiful seen from below! It took a lot of tries to get a perfectly symmetric picture of it, and this one was selected for the Airport exhibit.



Here is another angle - not symmetric, but with more depth.



The House of Representatives has a beautiful ceiling, with ornate carvings. This picture was also selected for the Airport exhibit.



Even the stairway is a great subject to photograph!



Walking outside, I turned around for one last shot, looking up, at the building against the blue sky.


In case I'm not able to post again before Thanksgiving, have a wonderful holiday, with your family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

Cactus Flowers

In Austin, soft spring days are lengthening into the warmer days of summer. The purple sheen of bluebonnets along the roads in the hill country are slowly fading. Golden yellow wildflowers still nod cheerfully along the roads, sprinkled with reds and pinks here and there.

It's a beautiful time here. Red-headed cardinals sing sweet songs from their perch in our backyard trees. The cats laze in the sun and the squirrels in the trees scold them incessantly. Woodpeckers and hummingbirds too visit, on occasion.



Above all, these early days of summer are when the cacti are in bloom. How bright and showy their flowers are! Here are some pictures from around where we live and from near my university.


Have a colorful week!

Austin's downtown

A big thank you to Pink Dogwood of Wandering Mind for giving me an award. Thanks, Pink Dogwood - your comments have always been encouraging and I'm glad to have found you in blog land!

Today's post has a few pictures and some history from Austin's downtown area. The best thing about Austin (I think), is Ladybird Lake, which lies in the middle of downtown and offers greenery and pleasant walks in the midst of chaos.

As a result, high-rise condos and apartment buildings are sprouting up all over, offering views of the lake, and proximity to the trails around it. I don't know the name of this building, but it's a new one, and gave me a good sunset picture one evening.



There is constant construction in Austin, as in most metro areas, and taller and taller buildings are coming up everywhere, with gleaming glass panels and geometrically precise shapes.

The Frost Bank Tower is one of the most recognizable buildings in Austin today. It was completed in 2003, and stands 515 feet tall.



This one is the Bank of America Center, a 26-story office building that was built in 1975.



What was more interesting to me about the Bank of America Center, was this lovely little building from across the street that was reflected on its polished glass exterior!



This is the 8-story tall Scarbrough Building, which was built in 1910. This building was Austin's first steel and concrete structure. It was originally the Emerson Monroe Scarbrough's dry goods store. Locally known then as Scarbrough's, it was the finest department store in central Texas. It is now dwarfed by tall sky scrapers all around, but still holds its place in Austin's downtown.

Many such beautiful, ornate buildings stand literally buried among the tall matchbox-like newer structures all around. One has to look carefully to see these fine buildings, but they are still there.

The picture below is of a statue of Mrs. Angelina Eberly (1798 - 1860) on Congress Avenue. She was an inn keeper and is remembered as a hero of Austin.

The story goes that Sam Houston, the President of the Republic of Texas in the mid-1800s, thought that Austin was an inappropriate location for the capital, and campaigned to have it moved to Houston instead. When the congress disagreed, Houston sent a delegation of Texas Rangers to steal the government archives.

In December 1842, when the rangers were loading their wagons in the middle of the night with the documents, Mrs. Eberly, an innkeeper, heard the sounds and ran down the road to fire off the town cannon to alert everyone. She missed the Rangers but blasted a hole in the General Land Office building a few blocks away!



The cannon fire woke everyone up, and they stopped the Rangers from stealing the documents. Houston would now be the capital of Texas, if Angelina Eberly hadn't fired the cannon! This statue by Pat Oliphant stands on the sidewalk near where Eberly helped preserve Austin as Texas' capital city.

I took these pictures on a downtown field trip that our photography class took a few months ago. I am usually not too interested in taking photos of buildings, but was pleasantly surprised at how interesting this trip was.

I had to wake up early in the morning for this (which I don't usually do :)), and as a result, got to capture the early morning light and shadows that all disappear by the time I usually am up and about!


Have a good week.

The Bluebonnets are here!

It is Holi today in India, the Festival of Colours! This festival is celebrated by throwing coloured powder and coloured water over others, lots of dancing, and good food as always.

In the south of India where I grew up, Holi wasn't celebrated with as much fervor as it is in the northern parts of India. Several stories exist for the origin of this festival, and each one is very interesting. They all have one ending in common though, that it is the celebration of the victory of good over evil.

Traditionally, natural colours and powders were used for the festivities; the bright yellow of turmeric, the brilliant red of kumkum, the healing green of neem, and so on.

Since the change of seasons in the spring usually brings with it colds and other viral infections, this was possibly a way by which people invoked the protective powers of these Ayurvedic herbs to arm them against the germs.

The synthetic powders that have replaced the natural ones to some extent these days are toxic, so it might be wise to go back to the old ways of celebrating Holi!

To celebrate this Festival of Colours, I give you some bright natural colours from Austin. :)




Spring is here! Though spring in Austin is definitely not as much of an explosion of colour as spring in other cities, it does have its own fleeting charm, which I am slowly beginning to appreciate. We lived in Atlanta before moving here, and I loved spring there. I think that part of the country has the most vibrant spring ever, and will do a separate post on that. But in Austin, though one has to look more closely, the beauty is definitely there.

The redbuds were the first to bloom. Their bright pink petals contrasting beautifully with the silver grey bark. This tree in my neighbor's yard was at its peak last week when I took the picture, but is already fading.

Cactus flowers have started to appear.

And so have other small flowers in my front yard - not sure what kind these are.

The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas and grows in small bunches close to the ground. Their little heads are already nodding along the highways on the grass, and the open spaces are starting to shimmer with a blue haze. Soon we will see them everwhere. It's such a pity that they don't last very long.




More colour is yet to come, before the heat of summer really sets in. I'll leave you with a sample of pictures I took last year, during late spring. This is what we can look forward to.








Happy Holi, everyone!