Yesterday I was telling Dylan how hot it was during our walk and that we should have walked earlier in the day. He replied, “Too bad we don’t have time travel.” So playing along with the idea, I said, “Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? I could go back a few hours, walk when it’s cooler and then come back to the correct time so I wouldn’t be so hot right now.” Dylan deadpanned, “Yeah…but you know it doesn’t exist, right Gramma?” like he had nothing to do with that little flight of fancy.
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Taking a cue from the heat of yesterday we got out walking a bit earlier
today. And by doing so we were out at
just the right time to catch Sam Elliott on his bike riding to wherever he
goes. He stopped and said, “I’ve met you
before, haven’t I?” Last time I saw him
he was carrying a dog in his shirt on a homemade motorized bicycle. This time he was pedaling a 3-wheeler, no dog
aboard. It wasn’t motorized because none of his motors will fit properly on
this bike. We chatted a bit then we
continued on our walk and he continued riding. In a world that’s ever changing it made me
feel good that Sam Elliott riding down the road on his bike and stopping to talk
to us is one thing that hasn’t changed yet.
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They
are nesting just down the road. How do I
know that? Well, at different times both
of them flew over to a nearby saguaro cactus at which point I zoomed in with my
camera and saw sticks nestled in the interior of the cactus arms. That says nest to me. And by the map of their territory, this part
of Arizona appears to be in its northern range.
This is what I found on allaboutbirds.org:
*The Crested
Caracara looks like a hawk with its sharp beak and talons, behaves like a
vulture, and is technically a large tropical black-and-white falcon. It is
instantly recognizable standing tall on long yellow-orange legs with a sharp
black cap set against a white neck and yellow-orange face. The Crested Caracara
is a bird of open country and reaches only a few states in the southern U.S. It
flies low on flat wings, and routinely walks on the ground.
*A common subject of
folklore and legends throughout Central and South America, the Crested Caracara
is sometimes called the "Mexican eagle."
Someone made me chuckle with this response to my inquiry: Always
thought they looked like a bald Eagle wearing a bad toupee.
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The other day I told Kim that if I had the time to properly devote to the
hobby I could be a ‘birder’. To which he
replied, “Girl, you are a birder
whether you realize it or not.” And
based on how geeked I am about getting the Crested Caracara identified I guess
that statement is probably true.
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I checked the limb whenever I went
outside today and witnessed this behavior stretching out over several
hours. Guess the feeders won’t be getting
too much attention with Hum-zilla on duty.
Yes, I have to acknowledge, as I write about
pulling up a chair to watch a hummingbird sit on a limb for a full 15 minutes, that
I am indeed a birder. Not so skilled at identifying birds but I’ve got a good
grasp on the watching part.
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Something
both of us remembered from last year was discovering that a Vermillion
Flycatcher also liked this same park. It was eye-catching not only for its
color but also for it flight pattern…I’d never seen a bird fly in such an erratic
manner before. Very difficult to
adequately describe it. Anyway, today I
was tickled to see one again today. The
locals may call it Oracle Park but I think of it as Vermillion Park.
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Stopped
to swap out the cell cam cards…only 432 pictures/videos on it for 3 days. A couple of days ago there was a video
recorded of a crow doing a fly-by of the nest and being noisy…today I found
another video of two crows flying at the nest harassing the owl. “Hmmm…what’s
up with that?” On an impulse I googled “why do crows harass owls” and found lots of interesting articles. Seems this is a real thing in the bird world.
Many
sites contained the same basic information but I found the carleton.edu
site
had the most succinct version: During
the day, the crows will bother the owls that are perched somewhere sleeping,
and at night the tables turn when the owls come out to hunt. Generally, owls do
not predate crows. However, some of the larger breeds of owl (such as the
Great-Horned Owl) will opportunistically hunt young crows if they come upon
them. While there does not appear to be a definitive answer among the
scientific community about why crows expend energy mobbing owls, at any time
other than during the breeding season when they are protecting their young, the
prevailing theory is that crows have an innate dislike of owls and use their
daylight advantage to torment their largest predator. Numerous studies have
shown that crows are able to identify things that have attempted to harm them
and have the ability to share that knowledge with the rest of the flock. Thus,
if an owl has taken a pass at, or successfully killed a crow, the rest of the
flock will likely learn about it and take the next opportunity to exact
revenge, even if the attack did not happen recently. Some studies suggest that
this mobbing behavior may reduce the likelihood of an owl killing a crow the
next time it comes across one, which is a potential benefit to mobbing any owl
a crow sees.
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Got back to camp in time to play Bingo at the clubhouse. I won four of the 10 games and recouped the
money we lost last week. The crowd was
small but we had fun. And Ozias, Ryan and Felicia’s son, was there tonight
with Roxanne, his pet Bearded Dragon. He added a bit of little boy fun to the evening.
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Today’s
40 Days of Lent challenge was to pray 3 separate times. A bigger challenge for me might have
been to actually finish three prayers.
Starting is the easy part…remembering to bring it to a close instead of
leaving it hanging out there is the hard part for me. It’s a focus thing. Short and sweet prayers work best for me.
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Kim is imaging tonight despite the moonlight issue. The full moon isn’t official
until tomorrow night but that’s just splitting hairs because that moon sure looks
round tonight.
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