images as thoughts
As usual the Great Horned Owl chicks spotted us before we spotted them this spring afternoon a year or two ago. Tucked neatly into an old broken cottonwood tree one chick up and one tucked neatly inside with only an eye peeking through. The Owls may have paired up already and soon the eggs will be laid. New chicks are already on the way. How time flies.
At Rivers Edge a Long Billed Curlew passes for a moment to enjoy the view. Although it is several months away I am itching for the return of the curlew to our norther climes and the wonderful song they sing.
Sitting alone in the winter marsh as the cattail melts away.
Female Red winged Blackbird.
Perched safely atop a post a Raven enjoys a little snack. Where their meal came from might just have been a recent wolf kill as Ravens and Wolves have formed a relationship in some places as this paper describes. In fact some Ravens have even learned to follow specific wolf groups as they hunt and may even have learned specific hunting calls of certain wolf packs. They know when the dinner bell is ringing so to speak. Anyway we saw this raven enjoying their little snack in an area in which we have heard wolf calls in the past so you just never know, their meal might have been provided by wolves this day.
Have a great weekend.
As rain moves in the Stilts embrace.
Dowitchers forage.
The sun comes out again.
This Western Meadowlark, which I assumed to be molting, was out in the open foraging last summer. Hunting for insects on open grasslands looking almost like a small new species of vulture with their feathers missing from their neck.
Courtship season has begun for the Goldeneyes on our local pond. Photographed with the last bit of golden light reflecting off the ice, a male goldeneye tilts his head way way back in an attempt to attract the onlooking female while another male sizes up his competition.
