Marcus is Walking

The Peru Theater Company's production of Marcus is Walking delighted those lucky enough to attend from Thursday through Sunday.

I attended on Wednesday night the dress rehearsal and took quite a few photograph of the eleven sequences that make up the play.

Everyone connected with this effort did an excellent job, and the audiences appreciated their efforts.

To see the names of all those involved in Marcus is Walking, just click on the images at the conclusion of this post.

I also went to the play Friday night (before heading to Cotty's for Soul Specimen) and recorded video sequences from all eleven parts of the play. As with the photographs, I wanted to get some footage of all the actors.

You can watch in High-Density scenes from the play on You Tube: Marcus is Walking Part One and Marcus is Walking Part Two.


Enjoy the pictures and the video and congratulate when you see them everyone who played a role in this further evidence of drama's presence on the Campus of a Thousand Oaks.

PSC Field Ornithology and Brownville White Pelicans

Dr. John Hnida and the Field Ornithology Group

White Pelicans Near Brownville

Every two years, John Hnida invites me to his Field Ornithology class to show bird pictures and to accompany him and his students on short field trips.

As we did two years ago, the class and I walked for a couple hours on the Trace Trail--and on a stunner of a morning.

Bird sightings started out at a less-than-exciting pace, but the birds made a pretty impressive showing that included Wood Duck, Broad-winged Hawk (possible), Bald Eagle, Osprey, Great-horned Owl, Belted Kingfisher, Northern Cardinal, Cliff Swallow, Vulture, Red-winged Black Bird, Mourning Dove, Crow, American Goldfinch, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Great Blue Herons, Great Egret, and a Yellow-shafted Flicker, and numerous "brown things."

I will add to the photographs from yesterday whenever I get a chance to join the class
for their field work. Oh, you will see on the photographs a couple shots of the Women's Basketball team before they took off for a two-mile run.


Friday evening, I drove to Brownville and crossed the bridge into Missouri to view the White Pelicans about which Ellie Kunkel told me that morning.



Thousands of them beautify the waters on the north side of the highway just east of the Missouri River--along with an impressive number of Great Blue Herons and Cormorant. An American Bittern or a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron surprised me, and I wish I could have gotten a clearer shot, but what fun to have one fly by after seeing it along the shore in the distance.

I posted some photographs of the White Pelicans and also some film footage; see, too, the HD video of the pelicans on You Tube.

I hope that you get a chance to see this beautiful display before the bird leave the area.

PSC Student Senate Along the Road

Wednesday evening of September 22, Students from Peggy Groff's Pilot Program joined with Micki Willis and members of the Peru State College Student Senate to clean up a strip of Highway 67 as part of preparations for the upcoming Homecoming Game on October 2.

A pleasant breeze that and at times turned into a mischievous wind, kept everyone cool and alert during the 90 or so minutes the group devoted to the task.

I followed the Bobcat Bus along the rout, as students got out and began their coordinated efforts to clean up the trash along the highway.

As the collection of photographs indicates, everyone worked hard and enjoyed the activity...as Cartman might say, "mostly," for the aroma from a not-so-fresh road kill at times punctuated the group's efforts.

The soybean fields in the evening sunlight look stunning--I look forward to when Daryl Long harvests.

Twilight on the Prairie 2010

A Prairie Celebration for the Entire Family

Despite rather bracing weather, parents and children enjoyed beautiful Spring Creek Prairie, site of Audubon's annual Twilight on the Tallgrass Prairie festival.


In addition to music and other entertainment, numerous stations dotted the prairie trails where youngsters and adults watched bird banding and captured bug; made kites; and learned about the history of the prairie trails.

At last year's celebration, my station focused on birds and poems. This time around, I called the station "Feathers and Petals on the Prairie" and offered folks photographs of birds and wild flowers, images to color, and slide shows.


As the photographs from the evening suggest, everyone enjoyed the beautiful prairie on a chilly but warm-spirited evening at Spring Creek Prairie, a stunning area you can visit pretty much every day of the year.

Irena Ravitskaya at Peru State College

On Tuesday evening, September 14, Dr. Irena Ravitskaya offered the lucky members of the audience an inspiring recital.

For your enjoyment, I uploaded a few photographs from Irena Ravitskaya's performances of works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Modest Mussorgsky.

In addition, you can watch on You Tube and in High Density, a couple videos from the delightful evening.

For the first half of the recital, Ravitskaya offered the audience movements from Beethoven's Sonata in F Minor, Op. 57 ("Appassionata"), and I recorded around eight minutes of her work.

You will also enjoy, I think, the video of selections from Pictures at an Exhibition.

I look forward to the next event.

Trace Trail Flooding and Indian Cave Pictoraphs

TRACE TRAIL FLOODING

Since my return from the summer in Ripon, Wisconsin, I have ridden a few time to the south on the Trace Trail from the Peru Depot--and gone on a couple walks as well.

I will add to the photographs from these excursions.


I managed to ride south to Honey Creek Bridge and will try


to push further south as the waters recede. The overgrown quality of the bridge area and the lack of crops underscore the extent of the flood damage, obvious from the levee dam to the bridge.

INDIAN CAVE PICTOGRAPHS

On Saturday, 4 September, I went early in the morning to Indian Cave State Park where as part of the Labor Day Weekend festivities, I gave a presentation of my bird photography in the one-room schoolhouse there.


PSC Wildlife Management graduate Kristen Boos and a member of the PSC Pep Band (I will get her name) helped me set up for the sparse audience.

I drove around the park Saturday morning and visited for the first time in eighteen years--since the last nasty floods afflicted this part of the state--the area near the Missouri River that features Indian Pictographs such as the following two I photographed Saturday:



As pictures posted from yesterday's excursion suggest, Indian Cave SP has a lot to offer, from a relaxing drive near the Missouri River to a interesting look at candle making and metal working.


When you have the time, visit Indian Cave State Park.