Trees at Sunset

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Holly’s Tangle-Heart Tree
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Cool clouds over the levee and bosque.
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Susan’s Tree, Teagan’s Trees, Robin’s Tree, and the unclaimed Tree. There’s an owl in Teagan’s Tree.
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Teagan’s Tree with an owl perched in it.

Below is a closer shot of the owl in Teagan’s Tree. The owl flying over us as we walked towards it on the ditch bank. The owl landed in a tree behind me along the ditch bank. Two closeups of the owl.

Two Owls, A Pterodactyl in the Tangle-Heart Tree

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Pterodactyl (Great Blue Heron) perched on the Tangle-Heart Tree.

While I was out in the bosque at sunset, I saw two owls in a cottonwood, and a pterodactyl (Great Blue Heron) in the Tangle-Heart Tree. I also photographed cranes against a colored sky, and two ducks in the dark.

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Great Horned Owl in a cottonwood.
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Pterodactyl flying, framed by the end of the Tangle-Heart tree.
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Cranes against the colored sky.
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Great Horned Owl on a branch above the first owl.
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Male Mallard. Mr. Duck in the dark.
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Female Mallard. Mrs. Duck in the dark.

Night Clouds

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From left to right: Resa’s tree, Robin’s tree, unclaimed trees and Susan’s tree.

As Suzette was leaving after having black eyed peas for new year’s, she texted me that the clouds looked really cool behind the trees. I ran out and took photos. A third moon was hanging in the western sky.

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Orion’s Belt at that top of the photo.

Cold & Cranes

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The temperature never rose above freezing today. I walked out to Beaver Point right before sunset, and a group of cranes were hanging out in the Rio Grande, wading around fluffed up to keep warm. There was a lone Canadian goose hanging with the cranes, and a duck floated by and then took off.

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Trees for Lyn

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Young cottonwood

Lyn Wilderdean would like to join the tree club with Mia, Resa, Robin and Holly, and have her own tree. I have posted four available trees that photograph fairly well for Lyn to choose from.

The first two photos are of a young, volunteer cottonwood that propagated in the irrigation water. Laurie raised it from a sapling after it sprang forth around 2002. It’s rare to get volunteer cottonwoods.

The third photo (taken today) and fourth photo (during summer, in bloom) are of our Chitalpa that Tristan gave to Laurie for Mother’s Day in 2002. It was heavily damaged from a late hard frost in 2005. We thought we might lose it, but it has come back in a unique shape.

The fifth photo is a gnarly old cottonwood on the eastern edge of our property. The six photo is a big old cottonwood on the southern edge of the property.

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Chitalpa
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Chitalpa in bloom
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Gnarly old cottonwood
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Big old cottonwood

Sunset & Hawk

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Below is a Red-Tailed Hawk that was in an apple tree in Wagner’s orchard nextdoor. The first two photos were taken this morning, and remaining photos where taken this evening after sunset. The mud had dried a little in the evening, so I walked across the field to get closer photos. The hawk flew which allowed me to get backlit photos of it flying.

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Sandhill Cranes missiling over the orchard on their way to the river.
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Resa’s tree from the ditch bank.

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Silly Goose
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Robin’s Tree from the backside.