Gwendolyn: “Did you say critters? I see!”
Black-chinned Hummingbird
The Rio Grande is running high.
Canadian Geese on the fly
First Dragonfly photo of the season.
New Mexico Whiptail Lizard. “Whip it. Whip it good!”
A slightly battered butterfly
Fire in the sky
Big-J Geese. They would make a good brand.
Daddy Owl (left) and Mama Owl came together over me tonight.
The geese were really cranky this evening. They did take a break from cranking to do synchronized preening.
Mama Owl
Late afternoon to sunset.
Daddy Owl looking at Mama Owl who’s giving the Paparazzo the squint like Clint.
On her blue gessoed canvas
She brushes swaths of red
Splashes on the yellow
Orange from the mix
A lavender wash hosts
White stripes of clouds from trails
Her colors silhouetting trees
Geese and cranes flying free
How many ways are there to skin an onion with a cat?
Goose balls?
Flight paths.
Spunk mad dogging the dog.
The dog
Tonight’s sunset
I buried a raccoon pup at dawn
Found him by the steps
Heartless and emptied
Secretly sacrificed
Under half-moon? Rose at two
Such a mystery
With last rites fitting any innocent soul
Tucked in under spadefuls of sandy soil
Laid to rest, secured for eternity
A spark of life lit
Snuffed, sacrificed
So much misery
The poem above was inspired by a poor baby raccoon, gutted and left near our doorstep. I don’t know what killed it, but it seemed very sacrificial. I’m packing several day’s worths of photos into this post because of the possibility that other things will come up, and many of the photos not get posted.
Click on the galleries below to see a slideshow of the photos in their correct aspect ratios.
Grosbeaks, Hummer, and Towhee the Line
I am Wood Duck hear me roar!
Got Your Goose and Goslings with Cormorant
Cooper’s Hawks’ Hanky Panky
Fuzzette, Major Tom Peppers out of the nest with Mona Lisa and Sleeping still in the nest, Mama Owl, Daddy Owl, Daddy Owl, Mama Owl, Daddy Owl
Daddy Owl was in the bosque.
The owls were out hooting back and forth to each other at twilight.
He flew onto the trunk of a cottonwood before flying over to cottonwoods by the clearwater ditch
Mama Owl was on the tip-top of Mia’s Tree.
Getting a good hoot in. I pushed this photo 2 stops to get a little bit of detail.
Otherwise, Mama Owl was a silhouette.
Cranes and Canadian Geese flew by Mama Owl on their way to roost.
Cranes’ Law: Cranes will double in number every few minutes from 2 to 4 to 8 and then there will be a crowd of cranes in the shallows.
If you take a left past Holly’s Tangle-Heart Tree, followed by a few hops, a dozen skips and a great big jump, you will be on the west bank of Rio Grande where, especially at sunset, you will see a magical view of the Sandias with the river flowing by in the foreground. In the shallows of the river, this time of year, you will see Sandhill Cranes. There were two cranes in the shallows when made the final jump as the sun slipped behind the horizon. I photographed cranes circling and landing south of me, and the last of the red blaze on the Sandias. I turned to look at what the two carnes were doing and there were four cranes. A few minutes later more cranes flew in, then more flew in until there was a crowd of cranes in standing in front of me in the shallows of the river.
Six, Seven
Twelve
As many as 28.
Sparing match.
