I was trying to get Beaker to pose for me when Spunk made it very clear that photographing a stinking bird in his presence is completely unacceptable behavior for me to be engaged in. Then Beaker got all ruffled over having me with a camera and Spunk in his face.
Mallards getting up to speed flying along the Rio Grande.
This is the first hammock I made for the kitties. I added a second hammock not too long after hanging this one so the kitties didn’t have to wait so long the do their hammocking. The second hammock also cut down on the cat fights for the hammock. Now both hammocks end up in use at the same time, so the kitties will still line up to wait their turns, and they still fight over the hammocks when hammock hogs spend too much time in them. Sadly, though, the first hammock is wearing out and it won’t be long before it’s mostly bare threads and I’ll have to replace it.
I didn’t think Great Horned Owls used the same nesting spot two years in a row, but this pair of owls proved me wrong.
A couple we often see in the bosque, told me they had just discovered the nesting place of a pair of owls last night. When I got to the nesting area a few minutes later, there were two owls to be seen — a larger owl in a cottonwood, and another, smaller owl, in an elm tree next to the cottonwood. The larger female was out taking a break, I presumed. She was hooting up a storm on her perch in the cottonwood. The smaller owl was perched on a limb, a silent sentry, very alert, guarding the area. The sun had been down for fifteen minutes or so, forcing me to bump up my ISO to 3200 to get a somewhat sensible shutter speed. As I was photographing the owls, a chorus of coyotes started howling from the undergrowth all around where I was standing beneath the owls. The scene became surreal as I was standing in a small clearing, darkness falling all around, the owl hooting from above, and coyotes yipping and howling in surround sound.
…Box.
This tiny spider was hanging on in the wind at the area we call “the beach” along the Rio Grande. Other than parts of her web glistening in the sunshine as they were whipped by the wind, the spider didn’t seem to have anything to hold on to.
