SCENIC TULSA: OXLEY NATURE CENTER
WHITE TAIL DEER (LEAST BLURRED SHOT)
Oxley Nature Center is one of the pockets of semi-demi-wilderness, like Turkey Mountain and Redbud Valley, that have been preserved from assimilation into the metastasizing McSuburb that is greater metropolitan Tulsa, by the donation of land by (in this case) a Oil Boom grease baron and/or his heirs and assignees—for which egregious souls such as I are duly and mightily thankful. Next slide.
"FLOWLINE TRAIL"
There is wooded lowland interspersed with small lakes, ponds, marsh, and open land bordered by Bird and Coal Creeks. An abandoned section of old two-lane highway runs through it on the Bird Creek side. It isn't very big—truly a little pocket of land within Mohawk Park, which also contains the Tulsa Zoo, a golf course, the city waterworks, and Yahola Lake, from whence much of Tulsa's drinking water comes.
COTTONWOOD SAVANNAH (NO SAND TRAPS)
HOLLOW TREE WAITING FOR A DRUID
THE REAR END OF AN ARMADILLO
THE ARMDILLO REARS UP ON ITS HIND LEGS (CAN I SAY IT HAPPENED IN A BLUR?)
On my latest sanity stroll at Oxley, going where "the wild things go," I took my camera and not my beagle (no dogs allowed in the Nature Center), and snapped dpics with abandon. The lack of a dog at the end of a lead and the magic of digital technology compensate for my incompetence and my shaky hands, and I come away with some fine images:
MONARCH BUTTERFLY PERCHED ON A THISTLE BLOSSOM.
BUMBLEBEE ON A THISTLE
HOGWEED AND DEAD THISTLES, AMONG OTHER THINGS
HOGWEED BLOSSOMS AND HOGWEED BONKING BEETLES
These yellow and black beetles were swarming on these plants with the clusters of small white flowers, doing what comes naturally to them. I did a little research and discovered that the plant was most likely Hogweed, and the bugs having the orgy were a variety of 'army' beetle, Rhagonycha fulva, commonly known as Hogweed Bonking Beetles.
A WHOLE LOTTA BONKING GOIN' ON
BONKING ON A THISTLE, WITH THE MONARCH LOOKING ON
TIGER SWALLOWTAIL
The Butterflies were thick on the ground—Literally:
BLACK SWALLOWTAILS DOGFIGHTING IN THE LEAF LITTER UNDER THE TREES
A HERON (NOT READY FOR ITS CLOSE-UP) LEAVES FOR OTHER WATERS
4:03:50 PM 
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