Monthly Archives: April 2014

Westbound

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Westbound6538Pelicans Cache La Poudre river            click to enlarge

Many times an image is more about feeling than detail. Such is the case with this picture of a squadron of pelicans heading west to the nights roosting on the Cache La Poudre river or one of the many small ponds and lakes in the area.

The sun is rapidly setting turning the sky a golden-yellow and the silhouette of the birds leaving the frame gives you a sense of days end. These guys are just passing through our area on their way north to places like Yellowstone in Wyoming, and Montana, Idaho, Utah and the great salt lake and other areas you wouldn’t think had pelicans but do.

Usually you’ll see these birds gliding along effortlessly, saving their energy for the long trip ahead but tonight the air is still and they have to do a lot of wing flapping to get where they’re going. In the morning when the sun rises and heats things up they’ll be rested, probably have a belly full of fish, then they will spiral up on a thermal until they’re the barest little black specks in the sky, then head off towards the north in a long slow glide, eating up the miles, their inner compasses pointing them towards journeys end until they are out of sight.

They’re silent fliers and will often coast pass you without notice. Tonight the atmosphere was so still though you could hear the air passing through their wingtips as they worked to get to the evening’s resting place. They had descended from a place up high where it was still partially day and were acclimating to the sudden darkness. The river would still be lit up with the sun’s reflection, a beacon of gold shining through the evening ‘s darkness, the last of the suns rays guiding them in so it will be a safe landing and still leave time for dinner.

Travel is over for today but tomorrow they start again until they reach their destination. Tonight they’re just a silhouette against the glow of the sky, a moment in time remaining in our memory until the image fades. But for now while the image is strong everything is golden.

Leftover Beauty

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Leftover Beauty4307Tropical Flowers                             click to enlarge

Well for all you people who slept through the weekend Easter was yesterday. How do you do that anyway? Sleep through a weekend. Do you like go to bed Friday and wake up this Monday morning and say “Hey, dudes, did I miss anything?” That’s always been a mystery to me. Although I can remember one weekend some time ago where I didn’t get out of bed all weekend but that was a special circumstance and best left in the past.

Like all holidays this one brings together families, friends, social workers and their clients, parole officers and their nicer and less dangerous parolees, people who wait tables and people that are  too lazy to cook, big events where they worship, smaller events where they don’t, they just eat ham, watch parades on TV, and make their kids go out and look for brightly colored Easter eggs so they can drink their beer in peace.

It also generates leftovers. Massive amounts of leftovers. Everything from that extra twenty pound ham you cooked in case some of the neighbors came over to sing Easter carols and you felt like you had to feed them, to Aunt Pheeb’s Squid and Applesauce puree that curiously went untouched. Even Uncle Skid wouldn’t eat that stuff and he has to sleep with that woman.

Another thing that people seem to have a lot of on this holiday is flowers. Every kind of flower you can think of but mostly a lot of lilies. They’re the flower of choice for this holiday and you can’t go to anyone’s house without bringing them a big pot full of lilies. They are such a pain in the wha-toot to travel with. They’re top-heavy and no matter where you put them in the car they fall over, bust the buds off the stalks, scatter dirt all over the back seat of your Maserati, and when you get there the people you are visiting already have a bunch of them. All they could ever want in fact. So many that they’re now sticking out through the cracks in the garage door and lined up and down the front walk and set on the stoop so you can’t even get into the house without tripping over the lilies. But you paid $12.99 for the damn things and by god they’re going in the house.

Even we photographers have the leftover problem. I was going through my images this morning before tackling the blog and I found a bunch of leftover flower pictures, some of them going back years and many holidays. I had completely forgotten about them so in the spirit of sharing leftovers I’m presenting this beauty this morning. Plus I still have the full dish, well a pail actually, of Aunt Pheeb’s Squid and Applesauce puree that I’m more than willing to share. Even if you don’t care for it it’s good for killing slugs in your garden. Just scoop some around the base of your lilies and when the slugs crawl through it that’s all, Hasta la vista, baby.

There it is then, leftover beauty. Enjoy.

Happy Easter

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BPSunrise9853xmasSunrise at Bonner Peak                    click to enlarge

Happy Easter

PasqueFlower

Out West

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OutWest-6088click to enlarge

This is out west. Wyoming to be exact and even more specifically if you’re that kind of person, Laramie, Wyoming. You can get physically further out west but you will be hard pressed to get any further out west emotionally. This is a small lake on the Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge where migratory waterfowl and other birds stop over on their way North or South depending on the time of year and their inclination. You can see just as far as you want to in any direction but you may have to climb a small rise next to the lake to see to the ends of the earth.

What you will see mostly is fairly flat land that is the color of a dusty old dun horse, the sleepy one leaning against the side of the barn because that’s where its warmest right now. Slap it on its haunches and the dust that rises from his coat is the color I’m talking about. At this time of year it is just barely spring and the green hasn’t started yet. The brush that is left over from last year, the stuff that didn’t blow away in the cold winter winds, is covered with the same dust that you can see for two lifetimes. It sets the mood for the place now. One that is slumbering but gently stirring, straining to wake and begin the new season. The roots are beginning to pulse with the need for spring rains and some of the buds on the low growing brush are trying mightily to break out into the new leaves that will signal the frenzy of spring’s beginning.

To get there you turn into the entrance of the city’s premier cement plant then head west for about three miles or so along a dirt road that pulls you steadily forward through sage and cactus and barbed wire fences towards the distant mountains way off, even more west than you are now. When you reach the gate with the small sign saying Hutton Lake National Wildlife  Refuge, cross the cattle guard and you’re pretty much there. To those unused to driving along the back roads out here, where you don’t see the constant panorama of strip malls, gas stations, houses, street lights, stop signs, motorcycle cops and all the other visual cues that tell you, you are safely at home and the worse that can befall you is a long wait at the drive up window, this can be a little intimidating. What happens if you get a flat tire? Or you get hungry. Or even scared. Many times your cell phone won’t work because you’re too far from the towers. There aren’t enough people out here to make it worth while to put some up. You will definitely feel alone but then that’s what a lot folks say they want.

Actually you just deal with it. Kind of like people did for the last couple of hundred years. Most of the time you find out that you can live through it. Out here you are exposed and vulnerable to the conditions at hand. When a storm blows up like the one above, you have several choices. Find shelter, always a good choice. Stay where you are and get wet and probably blown over too if the wind is strong enough. This is a marginal choice. Or a combination of the two where you stay out and experience the full effects of the wind and rain and the overwhelming power of one of these Prairie storms until the very last moment where you run back to the truck and sit inside listening to the thunder of the rain on the roof and the sound of windblown dust hitting the side of your truck rocking it back and forth. This is my personal favorite. Yours may vary on your tolerance levels.

One thing for certain you will know you’re out west. And alive.

Fast Food

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FastFood6825Osprey Yellowstone                       click to enlarge

For the Osprey in Yellowstone fast food doesn’t mean ordering the quarter trouter or the Flopper from one of the fast food joints along the river. It means once you have your meal you better eat it as fast as you can get your little beak moving because everybody and their uncle is off camera just waiting to take it a way from you. Possession is no guarantee of a finished lunch.

Osprey like this one are renowned fish catchers. It’s what they do. They invented the fish sandwich. But that doesn’t stop some of the bigger kids in the neighborhood from swooping in and taking it away from him. A bald eagle will charge an osprey causing it to abandon his meal to the feathered bully. When hungry, other raptors may take advantage and try for his fish, even other osprey will attempt to steal a meal when they get a chance. The only real defense is to get the meal that’s outside inside as quickly as possible. Hence Fast Food.

This fellow made quick work of this trout a la carte but had to keep a wary eye in the sky as there was another pair of osprey flying above, watching him watch them, just waiting for a chance to get a freebie. It helped that he was a pretty big fella for an osprey and his belligerent pose kept the other two at bay until he finished his meal. There aren’t many quiet, slow dining experiences in the park unless maybe you’re a grizzly who happens to be alone on an elk carcass. But then, even he has to watch out for another bigger grizzly, or a pack of wolves that will harass him until he leaves out of sheer frustration, kind of like when you get seated next to a family with nine children under the age of five at your favorite restaurant. No happy meals for anybody then.

Fun With Badgers

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Badger3041Badger Yellowstone                            click to enlarge

Badgers are an enigma. On one hand they are cute, furry, friendly looking creatures that would seem to make great house pets but once you get to know them you see that they are fierce, predatory, angry animals that will tackle just about any thing, wrestle it to the ground and eat it. They do not make good house pets. Especially if there are other pets in the home. So if the kids have been after you with ” Can we have a Badger, please, Can we ?” Just say no.

It has long been thought that badgers should have gotten an Oscar nod for their role in “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” where they were instrumental in moving the story along. When the Mexican bandit leader named “Gold Hat”[4] (portrayed by Alfonso Bedoya) tries to convince Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart)[2] that he and his company are Federales: (courtesy Wikipedia) so they could kill them and take their stuff yelled “Badges! We don’t need no stinking badges!” when Bogey asked them to prove they were really federales by showing them those famous badges, movie history was being made.

The real story is the sound guy on the picture had been hitting the tequila pretty hard with Bedoya the night before and during the filming of that scene stumbled and stuck the mike in the dirt just as “Gold Hat” is saying “Badgers! We don’t need no stinking badgers!” When they fixed it in editing the editor mistakenly thought he was saying badges and the rest is history. Badges was in and badgers were out. Why Bedoya was saying badgers is unknown, perhaps it was a private joke between he and the sound guy. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the tequila. Maybe it was a language thing where the Mexican words for badges and badgers sound so much alike that Bedoya got confused. History doesn’t relate. Regardless of how it happened that line has been quoted by everybody and their duck since the movie first came out. Badgers made that movie. That line is the only reason that anyone even remembers that movie. It was in black and white anyway. Did the badgers get any thing out of it. Are you kidding? About the only thing they got was they were named the state animal in Wisconsin. Big Whoop.

A little badger lore may be in order here. Badgers live all over the place, especially in Wisconsin as noted above and all over the west. Contrary to what you may have heard badgers do not live in New York. They hate New York. I don’t why, it’s one of those enigmatic things. They eat almost anything, wait, I take that back, they will eat anything. Car batteries have been found in their digestive system, but what they really like, and I mean really like, are Ground Squirrels. Ground squirrels are like deep dish lasagna to them. They’re like a hot bowl of chili with beans and spaghetti on a freezing cold day after watching the Packers beat the Bears. If you’re a female just think of anything with chocolate in it. They really, really like them. If you want to find a badger just go to where ground squirrels hang out and follow the trail of pellets on the ground to their dens. Ground squirrels lose all control when a badger is in the area and embarrass themselves as they haul their little squirrel butts to their den. They rarely make it if the badger sees them. That’s why you see trails of pellets. Ground squirrels are very frightened of badgers.

Badgers have been immortalized in literature too, where Badger is a central character along with Mole, Rat and of course the amazing Mr. Toad in “Wind in the Willows”. It’s a rollicking good tale of four animal friends that have amazing adventures together. If it were a movie Badger would be played by Brian Keith when he was younger but would sound like James Earl Jones. There have been lots of other books and movies too like, A Badger also Rises, From Here to a Badger, I was a Teenage Badger, and many more that I don’t recall right now.

So as you can see, badgers aren’t just another pretty face. They’re full of contradictions, inconsistencies, Para-consistencies, ( I don’t even know what the hell that is but I’m sure Badgers have it) paradoxes, and traditional family values. But don’t be fooled, they will still eat your cat if you try and make them a house pet.