boolie

Are You a Tasty Bee: Gila Woodpecker Edition

Do Gila woodpeckers eat honeybees? With the sun starting to rise this honeybee hovered over the saguaro blossom for so long that this male craned his neck out and started watching it. If he was thinking about jumping out and snaring it he never did, he stayed at the nest entrance until his mate returned. Which didn’t take long, the pair was pretty amazing to watch, even before sunup they were constantly bringing food back to the nest. I don’t know if they eat honeybees or not but there is an ample supply nearby when the saguaros are blooming.

Love You Portland

Stay strong.

You Go, I’ll Stay

The car goes in for its first scheduled maintenance tomorrow, in Portland courtesy of the light rail it would have taken me two years to drive 5000 miles rather than six months, and only then if I took a road trip. I tend to keep my cars for a while so I haven’t bought many over the years, and strangely enough I don’t photograph them very often. Usually at trailheads like this one, taken before sunrise with smoke from a distant fire rising over the mountains, a faithful companion waiting for me to return while I hike into the places I love. I was rather nervous buying it as it had big shoes to fill but I rather love the little thing. It’s a much more relaxing cabin on the commute, is fun to drive slow and yet gets great mileage, and during the brutal summer temperatures thanks to the ventilated seats I no longer arrive at my destination with freezing hands and a back drenched in sweat. Still in the honeymoon phase but so far it’s been a joy.

Two-tailed Thrasher

The curve-billed thrasher is common here but not so the two-tailed thrasher, this is the only one I’ve seen. To my eyes it looks like a failure in design, one tail in front and one behind, but perhaps I’m not the best judge since one of us soars above the desert and one of us gets dizzy standing on a ladder.

Time for a Snooze

Ellie in 2009, she came into the living room while I was playing with Scout to let me know she was available for hedgehogging, a minute later she was making music with her favorite toy, then a minute later was ready for a snooze. She’d sometimes have soft little snores, sometimes she’d make little whoops as her legs made running motions.

Surly Bonds

On June 20, 2020, to little fanfare, Flight 10 became the first commercial airplane to rise above our blue planet into the inky blackness of space, before easing back down and fighting fires in central Arizona. I believe it was fighting the Bush Fire which ended up burning about 200,000 acres. A helicopter pilot recently died in a crash while fighting a different blaze. Here’s to those who put themselves in harm’s way, and to the animals and plants who couldn’t get out of it.

(Here the inky reaches of space are played by the edge of our house in shadow)

Beach Party

Must’ve been quite the party, hope it was worth it!

Taken in the fading light at the end of a lovely fall day in 2017 at Heceta Head on the Oregon coast.

Large Mercies

Even with a relatively long beak, come springtime curve-billed thrashers end up with faces covered in pollen courtesy of the massive flowers of the saguaro. Saguaros are many things, subtle is not one of them. I’m thankful for the mercy of these large flowers, because if they were carnivorous they could easily eat their fill of desert birds who thrust their entire heads into the blossoms (and later, fruit) to feed.

OCCUPIED! OCCUPIED!

A white-winged dove looks up from feeding from a saguaro blossom as another is about to land. The incoming bird landed on the leftmost blossom so they were able share the perch for a while. I haven’t seen so many white-wings this year, to be fair I haven’t hiked as much this spring and summer and when I do it’s often on different trails, but we also aren’t seeing so many in the yard as last year. Which works out well for the mourning doves as in numbers the larger white-wings can push the smaller doves around but this year the white-wings are fairly subdued and it’s only the quail parents with babies whose wrath the doves have to avoid.

New Arrivals

I was delighted when an antelope squirrel dug a burrow in the front yard, but its time with us was rather short as I’m fairly certain a bobcat got it. A pair of spiny lizards moved in shortly after, although I didn’t see the female for long. A roadrunner made several attempts at this one on different days and I don’t know if it was eventually successful, as while I didn’t see the lizard for a while there is one around occasionally now, so perhaps it moved on to a better location. Hard to say as there are multiple lizards in the area as some came over to sample the flowers on the bush above this rock. The only way I could tell they weren’t all the same lizard is one was regrowing its tail and one had a missing front leg (it looked like it had learned to live without it just fine).