Coyotes on the Run

July 12, 2019 Timothy Price38 Comments

I was walking back from Beaver Point, when I almost got sideswiped by a coyote that came flying out of the bushes, and ran across the trail about a foot in front of me, before it quickly disappeared in the bushes on the other side of the trail. It came by too fast and too close for me to photograph it. However, another coyote soon followed at break neck speed, but it was farther away, so I was able to get one shot of it as it crossed the trail and leaped into the brush leaving a puff of dust behind on take off. A third coyote ran out of the brush onto the edge of the levee on its way across the trail into the weeds. I was able to get three shots of the third coyote before it got swallowed up by the brush. I don’t know what they were running from, but they were running at full speed.

Virginia & Two Coyotes

July 9, 2019July 9, 2019 Timothy Price31 Comments

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I went for a walk in the bosque at sunset, and caught the pink on the Sandias — there was not a cloud in the sky. I headed north after sunset and ran into two coyotes on the trail. They perked up when they saw me, then high-tailed it in the opposite direction. Then I saw Virginia perched on a branch. It was nice to see Virginia, I hadn’t seen her in months.

Male Queen

June 15, 2019 Timothy Price31 Comments

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This is a male Queen Butterfly feeding on purple wildflowers in the bosque. You can tell he’s a male by the black, teardrop shaped spots on the lower inside of his wings that are pheromone scales. Unlike Monarch butterflies that don’t use pheromones to attract mates, the Queens do.

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Owl Update

June 8, 2019June 8, 2019 Timothy Price30 Comments

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The three owlets from two doors down were playing on the ditch bank and in the bosque last night, while mama owl watched from a perch along the clearwater ditch.

Two owlets sparring over a perch.

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They noticed the paparazzo,

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The three owlets and Mama owl.

Badgers

May 30, 2019 Timothy Price28 Comments

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We haven’t seen the badgers the last two nights. Either they were foraging farther away from their den, not coming out as early, or they got tired of the attention and moved their den. Their den is roughly 50 feet from the main trail in the bosque that gets a lot of foot, dog, bike and horse traffic. For the couple of times we have seen the badgers they were very cooperative. If you missed the video of the badgers I posted last week, you can watch it at https://wp.me/p1yQyy-4iU.

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Badgers in the Bosque

May 26, 2019May 26, 2019 Timothy Price19 Comments

Leslie, one of our bosque buddies, walked towards me on the ditch bank holding her camera in such a way I knew she got something special. “I got a first for the bosque!” she called out. “A badger” as she showed me a photo of a badger looking over a pile of sand on her camera’s screen. I said “Wow! I didn’t know we had badgers in the bosque.” On Friday afternoon I walked through the bosque and found the badger’s burrow, but the sun was still fairly high, and I didn’t see any badgers.

Last night I went out at sunset, and found a mama badger and two large badger cubs playing and foraging around the entrance to their den. I started shooting video with a 320mm lens. I was about 50 to 75 feet from the badgers. One cub at the entrance of the den saw me and watched me while its sibling romped and tugged at it. I moved to a better position, because the camera kept trying to focus on the foliage in the foreground. While one cub watched me, its sibling hadn’t noticed I was there, and started foraging on the edge of the sandhill. Likewise, mama badger was oblivious while I filmed her and her cubs. The cub playing on the edge of the mound suddenly noticed me, stopped, stared at me for an instance, and then ran to the den and dived in the hole. The mama ran up the the entrance of the den at the cub’s sudden activity, and acting slightly confused, she put her head down toward the hole. All of a sudden she shifted her position and looked at me as if the cubs said “Mama! There’s a paparazzo filming us.” She looked at me for a second, and then dove in the hole herself.

I started calling them and I believe the cub that was looking at me from the beginning, popped its head up and stared at me. I talked to it, told it I was okay. It ducked back into the hole, only to pop it’s head up again a few seconds later. It seemed fascinated by the paparazzo in black talking to it. It started getting dark, so I said my goodbyes and the cub stared at me halfway in the entrance to the den as I walked away.

I wrote and recorded the music accompanying the video this afternoon. The Badgers seemed worthy of their own song.

Collage Before The Storm

April 22, 2019 Timothy Price34 Comments

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I didn’t have my wide-angle lens while the storm clouds were building up. I took nine photos and merged them together to get a wide-ange collage.

Now For The Rest Of The Story

April 16, 2019April 16, 2019 Timothy Price28 Comments

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If you are old enough to remember Paul Harvey, you will know where the title comes from. While I was waiting for Virginia to come out on Sunday afternoon, I heard Daddy owl hooting in a cottonwood about 100 feet from the tree with the nest. Instead of the hoots we normally hear, that sound something like “whoooo whoo whoo whoooo” in the same volume, tone and intensity, he was doing three or four hoots cut short, followed by three longer more intense hoots — “wht wht wht whoooo whoo whoo”.

When I walked over to see what Daddy owl was up to, he was chewing on something, but I couldn’t see what it was. I walked around the tree trying to see if I could get in a position where I could see what he held in his claws, but I couldn’t see what he had because of how he was perched on the cottonwood. Finally I called out to him “Hey owl, what do you have?” He then proceeded to show me that he had a bird, and made the silliest faces in the process.

I also took a short video of him hooting and gnawing on the bird. I named it Great Horned Owl with Dinner. The video is posted after the last photo. You can hear him hoot, and watch him gnaw on his dinner. I assume he shared his bird with Virginia and Mama Owl, but I can’t say for sure, since I couldn’t stay around long enough to see the rest of that story.

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