I didn’t hear the Dawn Chorus
this morning. I’m sure they were out there trying to prove to the ladies how
worthy of a mate they’d be, but for once their chatter/singing didn’t wake me.
Went to bed late, which means in the wee hours of the morning. Of course, that
meant a slightly later start to the morning but that’s what getaways are for,
right?
Once the sun cleared the bushes and trees this morning, it didn’t take
long to realize “Ugh! It’s gonna be a hot one again”. Doesn’t take much for the camper to feel
stuffy…opening the windows early helps with prolonging the inevitable. A fan helps, also. Air conditioner is a last
resort for me. I’ll sit outside in the shade hoping for a breeze before I turn
to the air conditioner.
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Kim and Gabe had plans on going to the petroglyph with the drone today;
since the laundry didn’t get done yesterday, today was the day. I didn’t mind
skipping a walk through the desert under a blazing sun with the thermometer
edging up to 80o at 10 o’clock. It wasn’t a hardship at all to stay behind and
let machinery do the work for me. I enjoyed the time sitting outside in the
shade of the camper, watching the birds.
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Cleaned and refilled the hummingbird feeders and topped off the solar
fountain, too. I put the platform feeder on the tree, but the birds seem to
like it better on the table. Is that because it feels too exposed? Birds at
home just swoop to the feeder and eat. I noticed the birds around here
(swallows, woodpeckers, thrashers, etc.) don’t do that; they take a roundabout
way, almost sneaking up on it.
For the suet cake hanging from the tree, they start on the branches
above the feeder, then hop from branch to branch until finally they hop on the
suet cake holder. The picnic table where I had the feeder is near the bushes,
so they hop from the bush to the ground, then up to the bench and finally to
the top of the table where the feeder was located. Maybe the non-direct route
has to do with staying protected.
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Watched one Anna’s Hummingbird flit to all three feeders without the
Rufous chasing it away. Sat outside for about 40 minutes and didn’t see it.
Maybe it moved on to cause chaos at other feeders along its migratory journey. But
there’s still a male hummer laying claim to these feeders. Can’t tell if it’s a
black-chinned or Anna’s, but it alternates between watching from the bushes or
on the tree. I know male hummers are territorial, but you’d think letting the
ladies in to eat would give ‘em an edge in the mating game.
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Out at the
petroglyphs, Gabe climbed the rocks and Kim tracked him with the drone. Gabe
made the climb up look easy…the climb down was a little trickier. Kim and I climbed
those rocks a couple of years ago, but we approached it from the back, and I can
guarantee that our ascent was not nearly as fast as Gabe’s.
We’ve
accumulated a lot of drone footage over the past week from just learning its
capabilities. Don’t have a clue what we’ll do with all of it, though. Leave it
to our kids in our wills?
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Last year, when
Gabe floated the idea of coming out this way, a big part of it was that he was
interested in going to Big Bend National Park on Feb. 28th to see six
planets in alignment (Mercury,
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