Hununu

Gophers · 32 days ago

Between rain storms we had a few sunny days. The gophers took advantage of the dry weather to clean house. As you can see in the picture, the fresh diggings are dark moist earth, while the older diggings have dried out.

Gopher runs are one of the most common causes of erosion on this property. Often, during a rain storm, water can be seen pouring out of a gopher hole in the middle of the field. It has entered the hole further up the hill and run underground to the exit, carryiing soil with it.

Next big rain I’ll try to get a picture of this happening.

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Brrrr! · 50 days ago

Earlier this month we had some nice warm weather. This is not at all unusual for February. It’s also not unusual for the weather to change and turn bitterly cold as arctic air rushes in.

Yesterday morning we had a heavy frost.

But when the sun rose, it soon disappeared.

Today, with a cloud cover, it’s warmed up a little. But they are predicting possible snow down to 1500 feet. We’re around 1000 feet but our property rises above us to nearly that altitude.

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Signs of spring · 55 days ago

This afternoon, at an undisclosed location, I heard a familiar reverberating croak. Certain self-watering planters in this area have been a favored residence of frogs in recent years. There was a certain timbre to this one’s voice, amplified by the plastic filler tube of the planter, that made me think of springtime.

A frog in the filler tube of a self watering planter

When I peered down the tube with a flashlight I encountered two sets of froggy eyes looking back at me. By the time I returned with a camera I guess they had finished their socializing. The several flashes it took to get more than a dark tunnel in the picture may have disturbed them, too. You can see the second one as the blur in the bottom right of the photo.

There are plenty of late standing pools of water nearby so I expect a gelatinous mass of frog eggs to appear in one or more of them soon.

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Eagle eyes? · 66 days ago

Not only vultures, but possibly golden eagles inhabit the area. Whatever this bird is, it, a mate and offspring live here all year. (I have seen four at a time.)

The picture pairs are the same shot with one enlarged and very grainy. Sorry!

On a morning I was without a camera, the pair were perching on this same power pole, one facing north, the other facing south! On the lookout for gophers no doubt.

This bird will not let me get close enough for a good photo with my little Olympus Stylus 410.

If these are not eagles they are certainly not the hawks that lived here ten years ago and more. Perhaps I’ll go into their habits further at another time.

I also have more about the vultures but I’m going to wait until I have more pictures. I didn’t bring my camera yesterday and missed another photo op!

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A neighbor · 72 days ago

I’ve seen this guy several mornings on my way to work. Usually he’s perching grumpily on a fence post with his feathers puffed out as if trying to keep warm. But today he was looking mighty fine with his feathers smooth and slick. He even put on a little show for me. (Images will open to full size if you click on them.)

A vulture, back to us, with wings spread

He was perched on an old telephone pole across the county road from our gate. If you look at the header image at the top of the page you’ll see the green field on the ridge top on the right. The white spot about three fourths of the way down is our gate. The vulture would have been off the picture to the right.

Turkey vultures, or as we mistakenly call them, “buzzards” are helpful scavengers. A very important part of our ecosystem, some people think they’re “icky” because they eat dead things. I’ll have more to say on that later. For now, enjoy the pictures.

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