Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Another in my series exploring light as it arrives or departs the desert. If it looks like the towhee puffed out its feathers to protect against the cold, it hadn’t, this was mid-September when cool hasn’t yet entered the desert’s vocabulary, much less cold. I was watching it preen before sunrise and luckily it was still at it as the light peeked over the mountains, the hills behind it still in shadow.
Sam strikes a pose almost like Rodin’s The Thinker but he’s bathing in front of one of the back windows, with an excellent view of the quail feeding by the fence.
I don’t know who her opponent is but I feel for them, I’ve seen the movie and know what comes next. I suspect this is the same kestrel as the previous post, I’ve seen a female a few times this month in the same general area of the park. Taken two days ago in the late afternoon as heavy clouds rolled into the desert, the next day they brought a steady rain.
“To be, or not to be, that is the question”
“Now let me think. Did I leave the stove on? Probably not as I don’t own a stove. Still, you can’t be too careful.”
“O say can you see …”
On-again, off-again rain showers left this phainopepla feeling a little bedraggled as she preened her damp feathers to get them back into their normal glorious shape, here gently rubbing her crest on the branch. She was her normal chipper self even if the wet weather seemed to have thrown her a little off her game. I wonder how she felt the next day when it snowed.
A young red-tailed hawk pauses while preening its front feathers on a winter afternoon at Ridgefield in 2008. Although birds of this age have long since lost the the extreme nervousness they had after fledging, I like that its expression portrays some of the goofiness they retain as they experience new things in their first year. Not that they should be underestimated, they are already formidable predators as the blood around its mouth and beak suggest. The signposts near the auto tour were favored perches of the young hawks and provided opportunities to watch them at length, especially on rainy days if traffic was sparse.
We close on our house in a couple of days. We have a walkthrough around lunchtime with the owners then take possession on Thursday and move in a couple of weeks. The white-winged doves will be home soon too, at least their summer home, although I’m not exactly sure when they’ll arrive. This one was feeding on saguaro fruit in July, I felt so much sympathy for them as their faces were matted with juice as they stuck their heads into the fruit to feed. As much as they like to be clean, they were going to be migrating soon and had to strike while the iron was hot.
This pose is known as “no bones antelope squirrel”.
An American crow pauses while preening before moss-covered rocks on the beach at Heceta Head on the Oregon coast. It’s a bit bittersweet looking back at the pictures I took a year ago on this wonderful trip as it turned out to be my last visit to the coast, a few weeks later my team got laid off and the wheels were set in motion that led us from Oregon. Someday I’d love to go back, the Oregon coast is so wonderful even I’d consider getting on a plane to visit, but for now my interest is in exploring my new home.
I did warn him that at his age he’d regret partying all night.
Boolie 