With the tips of a sage bush just poking above the snow a Raven endures the winter winds and cold while searching for the next meal.
From afar a black and white scene yet bursting with color the closer we got.
Happy Friday and a great weekend to all.
We don’t know about you but we tend to get over ambitious at times with books, especially reading them. Five or six books sitting proudly on the coffee table in living room each with a bookmark placed about 1/3 into the book. Each book calling your name when you plop down on the sofa to relax. You sit and stare back at them silently wondering how you will finish them all before they are due at the library. You get through one or two wonderful books but always feel like your not reading enough as you solemnly remove the bookmarks form the remaining three and whisk them off and into the return slot at the library. So this year it’s only one book at a time- from front to back- all the way though.
We recently came across a wonderful four part series on the best nature books of 2019 written by the Chicago Review of Books
. It is a very diverse list of nature books that will provide us some guidance in choosing and reading our one-book-at-a time in 2020.
Here are links to each of the four posts. The author of the articles Amy Brady stated in the part four of this series that this year has been the best in recent memory for nature writing. Looking though the lists is almost as fun as reading the books listed.
Part Four
Part Three
Part Two
Part One
Anything catch your eye as a first read from these lists. Maybe because it’s winter and darkness comes early the book Dark Skies: a journey into the wild night By Tiffany Francis-Baker sounds like it might be first up this year.
A Red Fox on the prowl on a chilly January morning.
It was an overcast morning and difficult to make out the details but it sure looked like there were a handful birds hanging out in a juniper bush as we speed along a quiet road. We decided to turn around and take a quick look and spotted a beautiful trio of Bohemian Waxwings. These three quickly flew off while we were watching but landed just across a small creek in a juniper loaded with berries and a large flock of Waxwings buzzing about in constant motion picking the berries for their morning meal.
It was a whirlwind of activity with birds coming and going, picking berries, and perhaps, just for a small moment, sitting still.
The beautiful colors of these birds were flashing brightly in the dull overcast light and made for quite a show.
The berries and the birds made for a fine start to the day.
Howdy and a very happy new year to ya’ll!
Cedar Waxwings picking over the same patch of dried berries that the Robins found appealing in yesterdays post. We only see the Waxwings for a week each year and only in the fall. This year they were right on schedule and arrived sometime during the last week of November and had departed by last weekends walk through the woods.
When the fresh fruit runs out it’s a good thing the pantry is stocked with dried.
An American Robin picking over a patch of dried berries on a December afternoon.
Walking the snow covered sagebrush on the Blacktail Plateau looking for the next opportunity. Yellowstone National Park.
More good news stories for 2019 this time from National Geographic in an article titled “Wildlife wins: 7 good-news stories from 2019“. The article begins with an all to often heard hours of
“Optimism can be in short supply when it comes to wildlife and conservation.
Going on describe several events that are disconcerting to those who consider conservation a worthy cause including the following events:
Masai giraffes were declared endangered, fires in the Amazon devastated jaguars, turtles, and other wildlife, and cheetah researchers accused of spying were sentenced to years in prison in Iran. Demand for wildlife and wildlife products—such as pet turtles, lion bone, and shatoosh, scarves made from the fleece of rare Tibetan antelopes—is thought to be on the rise”
Conversely and giving us a bit of hope the main focus of the article presents several key victories in the conservation of species and preservation of wildlife around the globe. Another article that both gives hope yet points that there is still no reason take pause in the fight for conservation of non-human life on the planet.
A Curved Bill Thrasher catching some winter sunlight casts a glance our way to let us know he is aware of our antics.
nature has no boss 
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