Landscapes, Sliver Moon, Tangle Heart Tree
Category: Birds
Non-Tubular Bells
John at Las Vegas Photo Blog posted a video of church bells ringing in Banff, Canada, which reminded me that I had recorded the bells ringing while on the bell towers at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, in 2018. I found the video and decided it was boring by itself because the bells at Notre Dame were very loud standing in the bell tower, and they didn’t have any variation other than a bunch of bells ringing at once. Therefore, I wrote a piece of music to go with the bells and put together a rather strange music video called Non-Tubular Bells. I include photos from Notre Dame in 2018 before the fire, pictures of Paris taken from the bell towers, video of the American Flag at our neighbor’s house, video of our neighbor’s dogs playing in the Rio Grande, and video of the Owlets flapping their wings and flying a little.
Beauties and the Trees
Resa posted Art Gowns ~ Femme Finale at https://wp.me/p3qQOA-2qQ yesterday. She has used her tree, Holly’s tree, and Marina’s tree in her Princess Blue Holly (PDH) series set in Paris, France. PBH battles Evilomlap to save the Art Gown models from his dastardly evil plans. Resa’s drawings are delightful, and her stories lots of fun. Her Art Gowns are fabulous works of art. The celebrates Resa, Princess Blue Holly, and all the Art Gown models, I’ve posted an aerial photograph that shows where all the trees all the women bloggers have claimed are on our property and the surrounding area. I also included the location of the tree that both owlets are in. Big Baby Owl flew over last night and the two owlets where so happy to be reunited after being apart for almost two weeks.
The mosaic below shows all the trees that are in the above aerial image. Mouse over the photos of the trees to match them to the aerial map:
1) Resa’s Tree
2) Holly’s Tangle Heart Tree
3) Marina’s Incognito Pear Tree behind Dr Huey
4) Dale’s Peach Tree & Nancy’s Nectarine to the right.
5) Owlets hugging after getting back together in the bosque.
6, 7, 8) Right to left: Lavinia’s, Susan’s and Teagan’s Trees
6, 7, 8) Left to right: Lavinia’s, Susan’s and Teagan’s Trees
9) Gabriela’s Tree
10) Tiffany’s Tree
11) Robin’s Tree
12) Lyn’s Tree
13) Gloria’s Tree
14) Mia’s Tree
Below are a series of roses from our garden. I did not identify the roses.
Owl Update
Big Baby Owl has been in a cottonwood tree between the irrigation ditch and the clearwater ditch for over a week now. Little Baby Owl flew over both ditches into a tree on the edge of the bosque next to Holly’s Tangle Heart Tree. I expected Big Baby to fly over to be with Little Baby last night, but she didn’t. She seems happy in the tree she’s in at the moment.
Right after sundown, Mama Owl and Daddy Owl flew up into a tree just north of the owlets. They were perched like they were posing for portraits. Mama is behind Daddy.
I went out at 6:00 am this morning to see if Big Baby Owl had flown over to the bosque with Little Baby Owl. I found Mama Owl perched next to Little Baby and Big Baby Owl nowhere to be found.
Below is an aerial photo showing where the nest is and where the owls were last night. The owlets are still in the trees indicated on the aerial photo.
The blockheads at Word Press have introduced a block editor. I was stupid enough to try it. After an hour of attempting to put the post together, I could not get it to come out right at all. I finally trashed it and started from scratch in the standard editor, which took only 15 minutes to complete. I was so disgusted I walked out and talked to Big Baby Owl who is still in her favorite tree before I came back and redid the post. Blocks are for desktop publishing not browsers. If the block editor becomes the default editor, I’ll consider leaving Word Press again.
A Hop, A Skip, and A Jump
Little Baby Owl working on getting his wings last night.
Night Heron
Dinnertime
The owlets are starting to get out of the nest. Last night I was checked on the owls well after sunset. Daddy Owl was hooting way up at the top of a cottonwood above the owlets. Soon Mama Owl brought home the bacon in what looked like a gopher. She perched with Daddy Owl for a few minutes before she flew down and gave the owlets the gopher for dinner. The three-minute video below is edited down to two minutes forty-five seconds of owl video from Daddy Owl hooting to Big Baby Owl hopping back into the nest with dinner followed by 15 seconds of credits.
Being well past sunset, I could only see outlines of the owls with my bare eyes. I increased the exposure on the video by two stops which let me at least see when the edges of things looked sharp when I focused on the owls. I had to focus manually and hope for the best. Daddy and Mama Owl were backlit, so the increased exposure was able to get their details pretty well. Once Mama Owl flew down to the owlets, the background became dark. I didn’t increase the exposure further, because the picture probably would have become very pixilated in the darkness. As it is I got the video pretty well focused and you can see some details in the owlets in full-screen.
On the Water’s Edge
A Cooper’s Hawk standing on the edge of the water in the clear ditch. I don’t know whether he was meditating, fishing, our thinking about taking a bath. After we spotted him, he looked like he was trying to decide whether to carry on with what he was doing or fly away. He finally few.
Hello! Is Anobody in There?
Our power went out while we were working on our computers this afternoon. Laurie stood up, looked into the sunroom, and said: “There’s the Peacock!” I got up, looked and sure enough, the Peacock was standing on the landing looking through the sunroom door as if he wanted in. After taking a few photos, I opened the door and asked him if he wanted to come inside, but he decided he didn’t want to come inside and ran off. I followed him around the property, talked to him, and got a few photos. Our traipse through the grasses, irrigation ditches, over the shed and through some bamboo, along with our rather one-sided conversation, was interrupted by a gas company tech needing access to our gas meeter that is nestled under a large rosebush.
We both said, “the Peacock” when he was at the sunroom door because the cats woke me up at dawn scrambling over me and jumping off of me to look at the peacock as he walked by the bedroom window. I went out and got a couple of early morning photos of him before he disappeared into the thick underbrush along the south side of the property.
I don’t know who he belongs to. I called a neighbor who called people she knew who had peacocks in the past, but none of them have peacocks these days. Where he came from and how long he will stay is a mystery.
But Mama…
Off Center & Not Even 