Another one of those days where it felt like we had walked into a old western movie set. Sunny, dry dusty and Turkey Vultures warming their wings in the morning light.
Tag: desert
Common Side-blotched Lizard
Loggerhead Shrike
Somewhat hidden away we heard this Loggerhead Shrike singing away while enjoying lunch at a campsite last fall. This Shrike had a wonderful song that was similar yet more melodic than the example on the Cornell website. This bird was quite content and let us photograph it for quite some time. A wonderful experience indeed.
hello sunshine
You can just feel it.
Like a breath of fresh air.
Hello Sunshine.
Greased lightning
Greased lightning is the nickname we gave to these little rodents as they shot across the desert landscape foiling many of our attempts at photographing them. The White-tailed Antelope Ground Squirrel is a common to abundant desert dweller across the southwestern United States.
Right at home in this desert landscape the White-tailed Antelope is a diurnal mammal that feeds on a fairly omnivorous diet including seed, plants, arthropods and other insects as well as carrion.
They nest in underground burrows dug into the soft desert soil and use the burrow both as protection from predators and too keep cool during periods of extreme heat and cold.
Take a look at those little critters scurrying around the desert and you may just notice some greased lightning aka the White-tailed Antelope Ground Squirrel.
In sand and sky.
Rabbit brush blooming in a sea of sage and sandstone.
On a trail free of footprints.
Solitude found in sand and sky.
Just one thing…
There are days when the distinctions between between plants and rock, rock and animals and earth and sky seemingly disappear and all become just one thing. Lizards take on the colors and textures of the rocks in which they make their homes.
The song of a Canyon Wren fills the air along a canyon rim where bird stone and sky meld into one.
The stone of the landscapes waves as if water and becomes one with sky.
Textures, colors and shapes all just patterns in the landscape becoming a single thing.
Happy Friday and wishing you a wonderful weekend.
Queen of the wash
Time laid bare as layers of rock on the mountain behind and an old skeleton of Juniper lies on the rocks below.
Earth and sky.
Earth and sky and earth and sky as far as the eye can see.
The Old West
It felt like walking into an old western movie. High noon, a parched landscape, junipers, tumbleweed and a herd of wild burro roaming a landscape of bluffs, buttes and canyons.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend and happy wandering.
