Tag: Cottonwoods

Mammatus Monday

Timothy Price45 Comments

August is the month for mammatus clouds. I posted similar clouds on August 1, 2018. These mammatocumulus clouds rolled in well after sundown the other night. While I was out photographing the clouds, I ran into a skunk. The skunk was a sassy little guy. He ran up to within a foot of me and stamped his little paws. It was too dark for the wide-angle lens to focus on him. I took a few steps backward, and he ran up to me and stamped is front paws. This happened several more times. He never turned to spray, just kept running up to me like a challenge or maybe he wanted to play. When I shined my phone light on him to try and get a photo, he ran under the car.

Wild Summer Skies

Timothy Price57 Comments

Looking southeast from South Bend

When I was out at Beaver Point just before sunset last night, I could see the clouds were really wild looking to the southeast, and I would get much better photos from the south bend about a quarter-mile downriver. I hightailed it south and along the way heard the owlets peeping in the cottonwoods between 4th of July Point and South Bend, but I could not see them. I got down to South Bend in time for some spectacularly wild clouds with the half-moon hanging behind them. On my way backed I looked for the owlets, but could not find them in the trees. There was still a lot of color in the clouds when I got to the Tangle Heart Tree, but the color had pretty much subsided to the east when I got to Shehanne’s tree on my way back home.

Looking east over the Rio Grande a the Sandias from South Bend.

A half-moon peaking through the Tangle-Heart Tree.

The last of the color looking north from the Tangle Heart Tree. Can you see a face in the clouds?

Shehanne’s Tree in front of a fading eastern sky.

 

Cottonwoods Among The Jetties

Timothy Price18 Comments

The Jetties, also called Jetti Jacks, where placed along the river in the 1930s where the bosque has since grown up. The jettise are one of many flood control projects that have been installed along the Rio Grande. When I was young, there were rows of jettis the ran from the Levee to the river about every 1000 feet or so. Most of the jetties have been removed over the past 30 years, but there are some that have been left tangled up in cottonwoods that grew up along the line of jetties.

Greetings From Little Owl

Timothy Price46 Comments

One the branch staring me down.

We haven’t seen the little owls for a couple of weeks. When the smoke descended upon us the owls seemed to say “¡Hasta la vista! Babies!” and disappeared. Over the past week, we had heard them eeping, but we couldn’t find them in the trees. Various people mentioned hearing the owlets and seeing them fly into the bosque, but sightings, where the owlets are perched on a branch eeping and watching people, had become scarce.

Last night when I was walking to 4th of July Point at sunset, I heard eeping, and I found this little owl on a branch behind the Tangle Heart Tree. Laurie walked up and we could hear the other owlet eeping deeper in the bosque south of the Tangle Heart Tree, but I couldn’t find it.

Taking a closer look at the pesky paparazzo.

Half-moon in the Tangle Heart Tree

The owlet flew back behind other branches.

¡Hola!

Non-Tubular Bells

Timothy Price70 Comments

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.