Greetings From Little Owl

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

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.

Owl Update

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Do I want to fly over to the bosque with Little Baby?

Big Baby Owl has been in a cottonwood tree between the irrigation ditch and the clearwater ditch for over a week now. Little Baby Owl flew over both ditches into a tree on the edge of the bosque next to Holly’s Tangle Heart Tree. I expected Big Baby to fly over to be with Little Baby last night, but she didn’t. She seems happy in the tree she’s in at the moment.

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Nah. I really like this tree.

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Little Baby Owl is on the tree on the left edge of the photo. He’s very difficult to see.

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Hey Big Baby! Are you going to fly over here?

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Are you talking to me?

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I’m certainly not talking to the stupid paparazzo on the ditch bank below.

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Oh! I don’t know. I really like this tree.

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Or you’re a chicken! He he he!

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Can you see my “mad dogs” you little runt?

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Talk to the paw!

Right after sundown, Mama Owl and Daddy Owl flew up into a tree just north of the owlets. They were perched like they were posing for portraits. Mama is behind Daddy.

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I went out at 6:00 am this morning to see if Big Baby Owl had flown over to the bosque with Little Baby Owl. I found Mama Owl perched next to Little Baby and Big Baby Owl nowhere to be found.

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Isn’t it a little early for you to be out Paparazzo?

Below is an aerial photo showing where the nest is and where the owls were last night. The owlets are still in the trees indicated on the aerial photo.

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The blockheads at Word Press have introduced a block editor. I was stupid enough to try it. After an hour of attempting to put the post together, I could not get it to come out right at all. I finally trashed it and started from scratch in the standard editor, which took only 15 minutes to complete. I was so disgusted I walked out and talked to Big Baby Owl who is still in her favorite tree before I came back and redid the post. Blocks are for desktop publishing not browsers. If the block editor becomes the default editor, I’ll consider leaving Word Press again.

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Big Baby Owl sympathizing as best she can over me having to deal with WP blockheads.

Beaver Dam Breaker

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The beaver dam breaker lurking around the corner.

The Conservancy has been at it again, breaking up and pulling the beaver dams out of the clearwater ditch with their evil Beaver Dam Breaker.

Below is a short video a did last night of a beaver sliding into the Rio Grande after cutting some willows to snack on along the river bank. We saw four beavers last night and six beavers the night before last.

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Not a pretty sight.