Backyard Bird

Cooper's Hawk came by and posed for a couple of photos yesterday..

Smoggy Sunday

You know it's bad and getting worse when you cannot see the Kennecott stack - from anywhere on the east or even at the refuge. Yuk!
Nevertheless, the intrepid explorers headed out and we had a good time. There's just so much beauty to capture and not enough time - or patience!

Looking southeast from the top of Goose Egg Hill -

I love the grasses..

Little cutie didn't fly away..

The Western Screech Owl is still hanging out in their place..

Goose on ice - sounds like a menu item...

part of our walkway..

GBH sunning itself ...

Refuge fun

Here's a couple of shots from the refuge last time that I found interesting. The first is frost on the dark grasses - they seemed to stretch for miles. Secondly this Red-tailed hawk flew between the sun and I and I caught this one just after he left the sun. A little color saturation to pick up the rainbow caused by the lens, and voila - a heavenly hawk!

Backyard visitors - again

Stellar's Jays are back in the mix in the backyard again. They've been absent (or so it seems) for a few weeks, but made themselves at home today. Their mix of black and blue and the splotches of white are always startling and beautiful.

Refuge Wednesday

Molly and I enjoyed the sunshine and cool breezes was well as the abundant wildlife at the refuge. Kestrels, Harriers and Rough-legged hawks were to be seen all over the place along with a couple of juvenile Red-tailed hawks. Molly raced down a trail and flushed a Bald Eagle, much to our surprise!
And Pheasants, the Dandies of the desert! Season must be over because the males were found quite readily.
Here's some shots from today...

On the wing...

Rough-legged - love their stare..

Hard to hide these beautiful colors...

Beauty in death as well as life...

Juvenile Red-tailed

Here's Molly's Bald Eagle...

Classic Rough-legged hanging out on top of Goose Egg Hill..

Vikings..

Lisa treated me to an early birthday gift by taking me to see the Vikings show at the Natural History Museum. What a treat that was! Thanks Lisa!
Learning about my ancestors - ancient though they may be - was quite educational and it raised a number of questions for me that I will explore. I was also struck by how little knowledge we have of these folks. And no, there were no helmets with horns!!
I looked through the exhibit for something a bit different to photograph - here's what I found..

Two very different views of the same thing - a demonstration of a Viking boat - first the nails that were used and then the polyethylene line that they used to string the nails.

Rune stones - seem very Celtic in design.

Refuge Sunday

It was a chance call - to go to the refuge or not at 7:30 this morning. The wind was gusting from the south and there was still a darkness mostly due to the cloud cover. But since I wanted to give Molly and myself a good walk, plus I was curious about what was happening at the refuge in the supposed pre=storm time.
As expected, the duck-goose hunters were blasting away. A low cloud cover plus the strong south wind kept the flying birds low, just what the hunters wanted. Where we walked the sound of the guns came occasionally but didn't impede us. When Molly flushed 4 pheasant 5 feet in front of us, that's when we got excited!
Kestrels, Harriers, Rough-legged were all out today, and the ones I saw were successful in their hunt. The low visibility meant shooting at a very high ISO to get any shutter speed, so not too many good photos of wildlife, but some fun ones of Mother Nature creations.

Kestrel and Vole

Teasel in it's winter dress

Goose egg hill and the savanna

These last two are paintings by Mother Nature. Ever-changing, what you see is only a moment in time that will not ever be repeated.