I had to get out my 17mm, super-wideangle lens to get a photo of Beaker impatiently waiting for the waffle that’s in the toaster oven. You can see the tips of his wings are a little blurry because he is fluttering them in anticipation. Guildenstern got up on the table, flopped himself down and waited to see what Laurie was having for breakfast. He wasn’t too sure about either the granola or the coffee.
Waffle Time For Beaker (WTFB). While I was heating up a waffle in the toaster oven, Beaker stood on the edge of his shelf impatiently watching the waffle through the glass door on the oven. When the waffle was done, Beaker tore off a piece and ate it on the edge of his shelf not bothering to take it to his food dish like he usually does. Even though he loves waffles, he will not eat them cold. They either need to be straight off the waffle iron, or toasted.
I finished putting up wire around the new roof on the catio, so now it’s reopened for kitty business. The new roof is lower, covers a 12 X 16 feet area, and is translucent, so even in the late afternoon there is plenty of light under the roof. The top of the kitty jungle gym is now almost three feet higher than the end of the roof, so the kitties now have open space all around, and a full 360º view from the top of their jungle gym.
Rosencrantz and René were both wanting my attention, and neither one cared much for the critter competition they had going on.
We took a walk on the river at sunset on New Year’s day and saw the first pink on the Sandias for 2014. The geese were flying, but the cranes were settling in for the night.
Romeo, Tesla and Guildenstern were classic today. We went over the Lane’s house and played with Tesla and he posed for me. Then we dropped by Laurie’s parent’s house and Romeo was disgusted that we walked in smelling of Tesla. Earlier in the day we put carrot cake outside on the deck to cool, and when Laurie whispered “…don’t tell Guildenstern!” he perked right up and looked around to see what we were whispering his name for.
I took René in for his quarterly beak trim. Classical KHFM was playing an opera during our drive to the vet, and when René heard the woman’s voice he started to hoot and whistle like he does when he’s flirting with women. I found it interesting that he reacted the same way to a beautiful voice as he does to a beautiful woman.
Laurie has to share her cereal and coffee with Beaker most mornings. Guildenstern thinks we have things all wrong — “one should have birds for breakfast, not have breakfast with birds” he meows — but he knows Beaker and René are formidable adversaries and stays clear of both of them. René is slowly getting better at flying and I’m slowly getting better at sneaking in better lighting to catch him in flight.
I walked up on a group of sandhill cranes at dusk. They let me get about 20 feet from them before they decided I was too close for comfort and flew off into the sunset.
Beaker was ringing his bell this morning for some of Laurie’s coffee. He drank the morning brew, closed his eyes, savored the flavor, then went of to his water dish and took a bath.
René will unexpectedly get spooked by everyday things that I wouldn’t expect would freak him out, so when I started scanning sections of the Icelandic Sagas for the Old Norse class Laurie is taking, I expected René would freak out and fly over to the couch. To my surprise, he was fascinated by the scanner. He would look at me expectantly for my approval to check it out, then he looked to see where the noise was coming from, and finally he would stick his head under the lid while I was holding the page flat during the scans to get a closer look. He was very entertained by the whole process of scanning sections of Viking age sagas, and made a game out of it.
As I mentioned yesterday, the Blacksmith Wold Championships was held at the Wildlife West Nature Park and Rescued Wildlife Zoo east of Albuquerque. Today’s photos are of some of the rescued animals they have at the park. These animals have been hit by cars, caught in traps or injured in some way that makes it difficult or impossible for the animal to survive in the wild. Of course, in the rescue zoo, they are well fed and cared for, so all the animals are fat and healthy.
In photographing zoo animals, especially birds, there’s the issue of the wire on their enclosures. When I can, I put my lens up against the wire to reduce the wire’s visibility, so I end up with varying degrees of soft focus, streaks or the visible wire. The challenge is making the wires and habitats work in the composition, and as part of the effects of the photos. I don’t remember the names of all the birds, but the animals (in order) are coyote, raven, bobcat, hawk of some type, coyote with humans, great horned owl, mountain lion, golden eagle, raccoon, vulture, Mexican wolf, roadrunner, gray fox, hawk or falcon of some type, and a peregrine falcon.
Off Center & Not Even 