After howling winds blew most of the night from 9:30 pm to 4:00 am, the sky was full of smoke in the morning. The winds had fanned the fires burning in New Mexico. If you are feeling the burn it could be because Uranus is “very close to Sun…” Uranus rises at 5:28 am on May 17th, and it’s “just 10 degrees from the Sun in the sky, so it is difficult or impossible to see it.”
Paul (lower left) and Mary (upper right) were still in the big cottonwood that the nest is in.
When I first walked up to the tree where I could see Mama Owl and Peter, Mama Owl looked like she was chewing on her paw. Then she started nuzzling Peter. I could not tell if she was trying to feed him something or groom him. She finally noticed the clicks of my shutter and looked back with a look of “Who’s that clickity clacking a camera behind my back?” She had a squint like Clint, with her ear tufts back, and looked rather mean and bothered. I said, “It is only I the lowly paparazzo!” She seemed to recognize me and put her ear tufts up giving me a little happier look.
Mary stretched her wing trying to wake up. Daddy was getting a little shuteye. Mary couldn’t get up so Paul decided to snooze as well.
Mary finally woke up enough to peek out over the edge of the nest and say hello.
Mama Owl giving a hoot at sunset.
Mary and Paul made flew to the big trunk on the tree.
Mary on the side of the truck above Paul in the crotch of the tree.
May Flower Moon Rising through the clouds.
As the old adage of Murphy’s law states: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” While we have had clear night skies for weeks out here, the night we the super bloody May flower moon rise, and go through a bloody eclipse, clouds blow in. I really can’t complain, I got the full eclipse and bloody moon, but then I felt a warm wind on my shoulder and clouds blew in a covered the moon. Therefore, I did not get the second half of the eclipse. However, the clouds added some interest before the covered up the moon completely. At least the clouds could do is rain on us, but so far only a lot of hot wind.
I started photographing the moon at the river, but once it was in the clouds, I photographed the rest of what I was able to get of the eclipse from our property.
The May Flower moon rising with the eclipse just starting.
Photos for the night sky and eclipse taken with my iPhone.
The clouds added interest to the eclipse.
The total eclipse before the thick clouds blew in and covered up the moon.
Mama got in the nest and started feeding the owlets bits of gopher.
The biggest owlet climbed out of the nest while Mama still fed gopher bits to the other owlets.
Buddy is Wowled out. But there is still more to go, Buddy!
The next owlet got out of the nest, Mama fed the littlest owlet a few more gopher bits then she got out of the nest.
All three watched the smallest owlet gnaw on the gopher before Mama flew off to look for another gopher.
The two older owlets hung out on the edge for a while before one jumped back into the nest. The third owlet pondered the nest. It was getting dark when the feeding frenzy started, is was dark while the third owlet pondered, so we left it looking at its sibling.
Spunk eyes me at bedtime. A nurse asked me if I feel safe at home during a pre-doctor visit screening yesterday. I told her “Yes!” I might have lied to her coming to think about it.
Sunset
Owlets after sunset. The second photo is of Mama Owl blinking a moment before she took flight. As you can see there are three little faces.
While Mama Owl was up in the tree shootin’ the breeze, the little wowls were bobbing around in the nest. One of the wowlets tried to peek over the edge of the nest giving us a little beak peek.
Flowers are blooming despite the drought and freezing mornings.
Off Center & Not Even 