This is my favorite row of apricot trees.
They were well pruned in their youth and have lived to a very great age.
These are private apricots. But there are a lot of public apricot trees on the county road right-of-way.
Here’s a nice duo with a deer path in between
and the tree to the right is a public tree.
This is everyone’s favorite stop: a steep hillside with a row of apricots that were watered and pruned in their youth, and ended up belonging to the county.
I have a very minor mental map of unowned trees, and some of my friends know the feral fruit trees for miles.
Birds, though, are the masters at mentally mapping food sources. The Clark’s Nutcracker hides around 5,000 caches of pinyon nuts for the winter, and recovers most of them.
Can you imagine remembering that many secret stashes?
Published on April 18, 2008
in birds.
Here’s a little beaver pond at 8,300 feet. See the beaver lodge?
This gander’s mate is sitting a nest of eggs nearby, and he’s keeping watch over the pond.
At first he keeps a close eye on my dog and me, but after a while he’s back to
preening and
doing very fancy flexibility tricks with his neck.
Meanwhile, two great blue herons across the pond did neck tricks as well.
here’s the short version,
and here’s the tall version.
This heron made me wonder who else was watching us, but I’ll never know.
Published on April 5, 2008
in birds.
The geese were not a bit happy to see me.
In fact, Yampa started making a federal case out of me being there at all.
He started getting really aggressive.
He said, I’d really prefer it if you’d leave.
He said, now would be a good time.
and he puffed up his chest and said, I have good reason.
I really do.
And he really did. It turns out Yampa the gander is a goose after all.
I’m crushed. When the snow melted, the turkeys left. I was excited about the possibilities of photographing turkey mating dance (they strut in a figure eight with their snood almost reaching the ground); I thought I had a good chance of photographing turkey sex; and now I have no turkeys at all.
So I’m getting a flock from Murray McMurray Hatchery. At first I thought we could have Guinea fowl, adventuresome birds who forage widely. Bob pointed out that the flock would probably really like the neighbor’s yard too, and we should ask them if they want 30 Guinea fowl visiting before I put in my order. Good point.
I don’t want turkeys because they’d be bound to escape and mess up the wild turkey’s gene pool. Does anyone know about chickens? I’d like a flock of meat birds that are independent foragers
I thought the Lakenvelders looked nice–this is an old Dutch variety that are independent with very competent roosters.
The silver grey Dorkens are an old breed–known to the Romans, says Murray McMurray–with a long body and short legs. They’re supposed to be calm.
And finally, I liked the looks of this bird: a white laced red cornish hen. 
The catalogue said that these have the blocky body type of the true cornish hen, and are slow to mature.
If there’s a better foraging type, please let me know.
And if you have an opinion on which kind of flock I should get, please leave a comment.
Yampa the gander came to Suzy’s household through friends who took a raft trip down the Yampa River in Utah. During the first days of the trip, a domesticated goose joined their party or, as it turned out, a gander. He’s a gander with gusto. He stood on the bow of their kayak through the rapids. He bedded down on the beach near them every night and made friends with everyone. By the time their 148 mile run was done, no one wanted to leave him at the take-out in the desert, so they put him in the car and drove him to Suzy’s.
Suzy didn’t want Yampa to be lonely, so she got two goslings, Berna and Lillo from Bernalillo, New Mexico. Berna died, but all summer Lillo and Yampa swam happily in the stream in front of Suzy’s house, and were carried upstairs to sleep on the deck every night, where it was safe.
Everyone knew that winter would be a problem, so Christy built them a goose house.
and that worked out fine until the stream froze.
There was a little patch of open water left, but that was not Yampa and Lillo’s idea of reasonable winter accommodations. So they ran away down the road to the hot springs half a mile away.
And that’s where they’re spending the winter.
Published on January 18, 2008
in birds.
To make up for those unfortunate shots of crows as carrion eaters, here’s a crow cawing with all his heart.
Two days later, there is so little is left of the mule deer that there aren’t any crows around it.
The body cavity is empty
and the antlers are sawn off.
Scavengers are the original recyclers.
In the winter, the animals killed by traffic are covered with snow. You’d never see them at all except for the crows, which are a telltale flag. Whenever you see a group of crows jumping up and down by the side of the road, they’re sure to be tearing apart a big hunk of meat. I stopped for this group of crows, but as soon as I got out of the car
they got nervous and started to leave.
They all marched up to the railroad tracks
and took off.
This is what they left behind.
I’d heard of a storytelling of crows, and a murder of crows, but it turns out the list of collective nouns for crows goes on and on: a cauldron of crows, a caucus of crows, a congress, cowardice, hover, muster and parcel of crows.
After seeing them seething over the deer by the side of the road, I’m partial to a murder of crows for now.
It has been snowing all day, and these magpies perched on the top of the tallest tree beside the stream.
Count ‘em–six!–and one flew away.
I’ve noticed that when men look at a landscape, they want to climb to the highest point. They don’t want to walk along a stream; they want to be at the top of the mountain. Women are content to hike through a valley, but men want a different vantage point. Them and the magpies in the storm.
I was trying to get a decent shot of the stream when I realized I was on top of new ice.
It’s my dog’s job to rescue me if I get in trouble in the wilderness. But she’s an old dog now, and is lying around in the snow.
People with old dogs shouldn’t walk on thin ice.
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