Nature Photography by Ike Austin
Michigan Birds by Ike Austin
Giant Winged Creature in the Forest of jimme'
As I stood leaning on a railing made of twisted old tree branches on a wooden bridge one morning, I was always vigilant as usual and on full alert just waiting for something, the slightest small movement to catch my eye.
On this particular morning I had ventured into a section of Jimme' that I had never entered in my over thirty years of roaming about the forest. I was making my usual 180 degree visual sweeps of the brush filled thicket of landscape in front of me. From one side... and after a precise six second count, My eyes sweep back to the opposite direction, so from left to right and then right to left for over a couple hours. This method of surveillance drastically reduce the chance of something sneaking pass my field of view. I catch every movement and nothing escapes my observation technique.
After the sweep to the left and starting to turn to my right, I was startled by a totally silent, gigantic winged creature that somehow evaded my scanning maneuver. In a split second, the being had already traveled at least a hundred and fifty degrees from right to left. The being was jumping to a rather high elevated tree stump. His body was like a human with a muscular physique, the only difference was the body of this being was fully covered in rustic, brownish plumage from tips of his toe to the top of his ears. The adornment of tightly packed feathers was breath taking to say the least.
This being looked to be about ten feet tall. After his landing he turned and looked directly at me. I could see his amazement as I was quite sure he detected my astonishment as well.
I realized that the branch upon which the being landed did not respond in proportion to his massive weight. The narrow branch should have snapped like a thin twig, but it did not.
The being had huge golden big round eyes, now starring intently in my direction, suddenly propelled himself into the air like being shoot from a circus cannon. He performed a perfect series of four revolution tightly tucked cannon balls that propelled him across the small ravine of water before landing directly in front of me. I felt like a grasshopper standing next to him. What should have ended in a loud thump when he landed sounded more like a ball of cotton had fallen.
Well now... ThirdSon! ThirdSon in the northern territories of the mystical Forest of Jimme'?
Before I could start inquiring, he continued...
The reason I did not make the ground tremble is because I reduced the size of gravity in my mind. You see, by default each situation is assigned a high degree of weight. It is up to the trained mind to quickly, almost instantaneously readjust the gravity of all situations so that it does not create an over exaggerated amount.
The same is true of a large portion of life's problems and burdens. They can be reduced by mind matter adjustments--it is not the situation, but your reaction to it.
The mind is the filter of all external inputs from the eyes and ears, before they reach the heart. Without this process, the heart instantly reacts to a wrongful gesture or a string of words, passing hurt and weight to the physical body.
Mind Management will keep the heart light as a feather. Just then the being began to sink into the earth, I felt the whole area me included, began to sink down with him. Then, just as quick, the earth leveled off back to it's original state. He was demonstrating how his mind manage all circumstances, not how circumstance control his feelings.
Further, he continued, if one conducts a deep reflection, only then will they reach the root cause of the current situation. They will conclude that it was an individual seemingly harmless decision that led them to their current burdens and problematic maze of life in the first place.
Decisions should only be made after careful and meticulous observation and analysis of thorough research, even if it takes several months or years.
Even without nDakle, most persons are they themselves creators, creators of self-burdens and troublesome situations they find themselves in at certain points in life.
The first phase is to mentally lighten the burden(readjust the gravity) this process took me some years to master, but you can achieve a limited effect by taking long walks among nature.
Just as quick as he arrived, he backward flipped up into the sky, during the brief upside down position he looking down at me said his name is Budo.
His wings that were up to this point had remained folded, now slowly expanded as he hung weightless and suspended upside down in mid-air. Then Budo slowly continued the reverse rotation until he was right side up and flew off far down ravine into the forest.
Beforebursting into full flight, he revered his position now flying backwards and looking at me, in a most prophetic and most serious of tone, he said... "remember the DayStar."
— ThirdSon and the River's Sky
Nature Photography - Michigan Bird Identification
Photo Taken: Lake Erie MetroPark, Michigan
Owls
Name: Great Horned Owl
Bubo Virginianus
About the Great Horned Owl
Appearance: The Great Egret is a stout and husky bird, short subby legs, and short black beak, yellow eyes. The owls can swivel his head 180 degrees. Wing span can can extend to five feet.
Adult: Color is rustic and brownish plumage.
Flight Characteristics: Stiff and strong wings in flight and typically flap traveling from tree to tree flapping their wings. Owls prefers open wooded marshes, wetlands and forests.
Mating Habits: The Great Egret start courtship as early as January, listenf for their mating hoots.
Migration: No migration, native year round.
Nesting: The Great Horn Owl will construct a rather large mounded nest inside the empty cavities of tree trunks. Incubates 3-5 eggs for appx 28-35 days. Young owelettes go in flight in about 50 days from days of birth.
Off Spring: (Called Owletes)
Feeding: Nocturnal hunter. Small mammals-rodent, birds, snakes lizards, amphibians(frogs) and fish.
Call: Very low muffuled hoot, hoot hoo sound.