watching

“Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance."

    Douglas Adams

Many people put up relaxing pictures of their pets to put out positive vibes into the connected world. Here is my contribution. Chonki-boi waves hello. He's pretty judgmental, but it's okay because no-one listens.

Sunsets are quite gorgeous right now. I guess it doesn't work so well for those who see them everyday, but for those readers who are not local...you are missing out.

some other creatures have a very different picture of happiness. Here is a bird that died on the road near our house, likely from some sort of bird virus, there are a lot of those.

The next day, there was nothing but feathers. Something last night was very happy with dinner...

Most humans, of course, prefer sunsets, reflections in still pools, and nature. But humans are a contrary lot, and there are always exceptions in the multitude.

Here are some members of the birding clan. They have the right outfits; (equipment that is worth more than my car). They might not be, as the man is breaking the cardinal birding rule of pointing to his object of interest. They are likely looking for the rare (for New Mexico) timberdoodle (yup, its real name). I have not seen it, but rest assured, if I had seen it first I would divulge that information about six months later to avoid this weird social phenomena of people driving miles down country roads, tramping over each other through the undergrowth to compare lists of birds that they may or may not have seen but they won't say where. I actually like birders, they are one of the nature few groups who are willing to put their money where there mouth is. it's just that I am not of that clan.

I can understand their zeal though. Here is my personal project, another flicker, badly posed. I hate birds that cannot hold still, and flickers are my nemesis. When it comes to birding, I have low standards

no one would ever call ducks placid, but at least they can pose for a good picture. This is a green winged teal. There are at least 7 species of duck on the ditch right now. The birders probably know of more.

being easily distracted means while looking for the woodcock, I wondered why it was here. The answer was a short way up the clear ditch where there is a series of 3-4 beaver dams across the ditch near thickets of Russian olive. The water above the dam is a pond of still water. Below the dams is an area of exposed mud, which is prime woodcock feeding grounds.

this picture shows the most southern of the dams and has been partially dug out by an excavator for some reason. No matter, the beavers will just rebuild. Just upstream of the dam is a hole what will be underwater once the water back fills. That is the entrance to the burrow that is currently a birthing den. You can see how the dam was built; an earthen mound was overlaid with branches all laid the same way, then more earth from the upstream side was placed on top and the process repeated. 

this other dam is in active use. You can tell because the pond is full of branches, which is the beaver's winter larder. That beaver would have preferred a covering of ice, but you know, global warming in New Mexico.

one of the themes I keep coming back to is that there is always more going on than we realize. Take this pumpkin. It looks like it was floating in the water and is now stuck in the ice. But we have watched it over the last three weeks and not only is it perfectly preserved, but it was thrown on the top of the ice. This part of the ditch does not melt in the midday, but each day a tiny layer of ice melts under the pumpkin and the pumpkin is slowly moving down through the ice bit by bit just by its own weight.

this kingfisher sees this, but likely doesn't care about anything other than finding small fish before other kingfishers do. I try most days to not be like this kingfisher.