Bockman Campground, State Forest State Park. June 12, 2019.
Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off – and they are nearly always doing it.
~
If you’ve got it, flaunt it!
birds
Looking at you, Monday
Limpkin. Kapok Park, May 6, 2019.
Monday, Monday.
Can’t trust that day.
However, it does feel good knowing what day of the week it is, even if it’s the dreaded Monday, after being disoriented for much of last week when every day felt like a weekend day.
It’s good to know where I stand. Hello, Monday. Let’s do this.
Friday Haiku
Wavy reflection
mirroring Wood Duck markings
riot of color.
The Jay formerly known as Gray
I took this photo at our campsite last month and just now when I went to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site to verify my identification (Gray Jay), learned that Gray Jays are a thing of the past. In 2018, the American Ornithological Society voted to change the name from Gray Jay to Canada Jay.
What else did I learn?
“The Canada Jay stores large quantities of food for later use. It uses sticky saliva to glue small food items to tree branches above the height of the eventual snow line.”
Now that’s thinking ahead!
Wordless Wednesday: Limpkin edition
Limpkin (juvenile), Kapok Park. May 6, 2019
Friday Haiku
The scrub jay called out
Marcel ran to the window
much to talk about.
Say what?!
Monday’s almost over?
Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Clearwater, FL. May 6, 2019.
I’ve been buried in a book all day, researching a new subject, and somehow it’s four o’clock. How’d that happen? Guess that’s what’s known as FOCUS.
Eye of the night heron, baby. (Or something like that . . .)
An upside down perspective
White-breasted Nuthatch. Portal, AZ.
Try to see things differently – It’s the only way to get a clearer perspective on the world and on your life. ~ Neal Shusterman
Poetry in motion
The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness.
~ James Gates Percival
Bringing the warmth and color
Right now the view out my window is dreary. Gray skies and patches of snow on the ground next to the tree limbs that broke off under the weight of the late snow. We’re nearing the end of May and Colorado has been atypically gloomy for the past several days. Enough, already. Thank the goddesses for the cheery plumage of this Northern Cardinal I photographed in Cave Creek Canyon.
Maybe I should go find my own festive red cap . . .
Turkey Vulture on clean-up
We had a great birding day today, in large part because we joined up with Friends of Cave Creek Canyon volunteers who know their birds. It was lots of fun and very informative. However, we didn’t need any help identifying this big bird:
Photo by Zippy
Turkey Vulture!
Exploring the Chiricahua Mountains
Zippy and I’ve been traveling since Sunday. We camped at the Valley of Fires Recreation Area In New Mexico that night and yesterday afternoon arrived at Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains of Portal, Arizona:
I had to stop and take this photo when we reached the entrance to the canyon.
We got settled in and then did a short hike. We heard some birds but didn’t see any.
Lots of interesting flora, though:
This morning we got up early for a short hike and on the drive there,
saw a Wild Turkey. This was our hiking destination:
The photo doesn’t do justice to the Cathedral Vista. It’s a truly stunning view as you emerge from wooded trail out into the open. And on the way back to where we’re
staying we located this Whiskered Screech-Owl in a sycamore tree:
Photo by Zippy.
Our hosts had told us where to find the feathered friend. Apparently,
the owl hangs out there all the time, watching the comings and goings in
the canyon.
And now we’re off for more adventures!
Definitely a duck
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
~ Douglas Adams
Wood Duck paddling about in the irrigation ditch.
You put your right foot in ♫
You put your right foot out
You put your right foot in
And you shake it all about.
You do the hokey pokey
And turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about!
Friday Haiku
It’s a Mourning Dove
not a paper cutout, yo.
Flapped its wings and flew.
Ready, set, jump
Sometimes, if you aren’t sure about something, you just have to jump off the bridge and grow your wings on the way down. ~ Danielle Steel
Knock-knock
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Bushtits.
Bushtits who?
Wrong. The correct question is “Bushtits how many?”
And the answer is 8.
Friday Haiku
the Loggerhead Shrike
impales its prey on barbed wire
dapper predator
Blue Jay Way
I’m at the Tampa airport, headed back to Colorado. Yesterday I went to Kapok Park in late afternoon and took so many photos my camera card reached capacity and wouldn’t let me take anymore. That’s what you call satiation!
Here’s a dapper jay I enountered:
It was a typically wonderful time at Kapok Park and I’m looking forward to going through the many photos I took to see what other gems await me.
Watching you watching me
The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I took this photo over two months ago and still feel such a connection to the osprey who patiently endured my presence as I snapped multiple photos and then came back to shoot some more. But the tilt of its head tells me the osprey wasn’t merely the observed, but was also an observer.
However, it’d probably be a stretch to say we formed a mutual admiration society.
Take that, Monday!
It’s the first Monday after Daylight Saving Time and despite not waking up until 9:00 A.M. (!), I handled the rest of the day like this take-no-nonsense Bushtit.
Still, I hope that tomorrow I wake at a more respectable time. I’m not sure I can channel my inner bushtit two days in a row.
Sunday Confessional: I’m living in a glass house
Most every time I see a Eurasion Collared-Dove in my feeder I think about how those doves are an invasive species that spread across the United States via the Bahamas. (And if I don’t think about that, I think about how they EAT SO MUCH and aren’t the brightest doves in the chandelier.) But mostly I think to myself “they’re not even supposed to be here.”
Well, today it hit me that I’m an invasive species, too! So I guess maybe I’m not the brightest dove, either. *urp*
Out my window
The sun’s down and evening is here. How did that happen? What was I doing all day?! Oh yeah, I remember. I watched this scrub jay in the feeder for a while.
Even if I’d accomplished nothing else, I’d call that time well spent.
Wading through the revision muck
When you’re in the muck you can only see muck.
If you somehow manage to float above it,
you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective.
~ David Cronenberg
Today as I work to revise my contemporary young adult novel that’s been in my life for what seems like FOREVER, I send prayers that the goddesses will grant me a different perspective on these pages and pages of muck. While an ibis thrives on muck, this writer does not. I’m ready for wings to help me float above it all and see this manuscript differently.
House (Finch) party!
It’s 21 degrees right now and I’m happy to be inside where it’s warm and dry. Meanwhile, these House Finches are busy outside my window with the task of staying alive, somehow almost making it look like fun.
Party on, Garth.
