The three owlets from two doors down were playing on the ditch bank and in the bosque last night, while mama owl watched from a perch along the clearwater ditch.
Two owlets sparring over a perch.
They noticed the paparazzo,
The three owlets and Mama owl.
I thought Albuquerque might miss the scooter craze and rage. No such luck! The sidewalks are a-Spin.
A beaver has been sitting like a bear on the riverbank across from Beaver Point grooming itself in the evenings after sunset. I took the video above last night. During the first part of the video the beaver was about 300 feet south of where I was standing, so when I zoomed in with the video processing software, there’s a soft focus on the beaver. I walked down through the brush and got almost directly across from the beaver, so the video has better focus for the last part. After moving across from the beaver it noticed me, got into the river, and slapped its tail against the water a couple of times. The tail slaps are a little week because when the beaver pauses to splash, the current interrupts the power of the splash. Tail slaps are much loader and more forceful in calmer water. The audio is of the river rushing by, traffic from I-25 to the east, and jets flying overhead.
The photos below were from the June 1st. The beaver was about 200 feet north of me, but it was later, and much darker. I was not able to get the camera to focus for video that night, but I was able to enhance the stills so they are bright with fairly good detail.
I found this Western Ornate Box Turtle lying and the road where he would have been smashed by a driver not paying attention. I stopped in the middle of the road, jumped out of the car, grabbed him and brought him home. I took a couple of photos of him on our counter before I let him go on our property under the giant Dr. Huey.
If you were thinking the AWB started collaborating on a new rock band, you are half right. You might just hear a tune or two from Jeremiah & The Lizards at some point in the future.
Laurie: Do these binoculars need to be cleaned?
Me: Can you see through them?
Laurie: I see a colorful Bird through his dirty windshield.
Me: They don’t need to me cleaned then.
We haven’t seen the badgers the last two nights. Either they were foraging farther away from their den, not coming out as early, or they got tired of the attention and moved their den. Their den is roughly 50 feet from the main trail in the bosque that gets a lot of foot, dog, bike and horse traffic. For the couple of times we have seen the badgers they were very cooperative. If you missed the video of the badgers I posted last week, you can watch it at https://wp.me/p1yQyy-4iU.
