Mr. Big's 14th Birthday!

Someone turns 14 today; that's about 88 in human years. He is my sweet palooka, my Biggie, my Mikusiek, and I love him dearly.

Feathered Thursday

Winged Wednesday

Monarch butterflies

Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus)

Arizona red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis arizonensis)

Feathered Tuesday

Feathered Monday

Birds in motion.

One of my favorite photos of the year.

Quail can really move.

Believe it or not, this is our state bird, the cactus wren.

Super-fast cleaning

The usual quail photograph looks like this.

Or this, as babies learn quickly not to cooperate with cameras.

Weekend Birding

Some impromptu birding while walking with the dog this weekend resulted in a new bird for my list and 4 miles walked--win, win!

Cooper's hawk
vermillion flycatcher
Gila woodpecker
house finch
hepatic tanager
verdin (new to me)
dark-eyed junco
wigeon
ring-necked duck
common coot
mallard
egret
black-crowned night heron
Canada goose
Ross' goose hybrid

Plus two possibles, but when I went back on Sunday to confirm, they were nowhere to be found.
pine grosbeak
ladder-backed woodpecker

A merganser has been spotted at a pond here in town, and another at a pond south of town, so I went searching for it where I saw it last winter. It's not there yet, but hopefully soon.

Feathered Friday

Look at the colors of these hummingbird feathers. Glorious!

Feathered Thursday

For the next few days, I'm going to post some recent bird photos that I like for various reasons--they're quirky, or I like the construction of the photo, or the light on the feathers is amazing, or they just make me smile despite not having any artistic merit.

Today's little bird looks like it's about to burst into song, so I include it here, because I'd like to think
that birds and nature can just be happy.

.

October Hike in Sabino Canyon

October is a lovely time to go hiking in the desert, although it was still quite warm the first two weeks of the month this year. I'd forgotten how wonderful it is to go hiking during the week, when the hiking trails are empty. I'm going to have to take the occasional mid-week day off in 2014 to go hiking, like I used to in graduate school, when M and I would go hiking every Friday.

Halloween in the Mossy Nest

A moment of calm with my three tricksters.

Devil eyes mesmerize the human into giving the dogs cookies.

My boys.

Note the skull bandanas they are all wearing.

Keeping one eye on me, one eye on the chocolate

"I'm going to sleep through most of it."

365 days old.