I’ve written about the peanut-loving scrub jays in our backyard (mjh’s blog — m jay h). This week, I watched a young grackle use a respectable level of ingenuity. Following the lead of the scrub jays, the grackle landed on the patio table and picked up a nut. It pecked at the shell briefly. Then it carried the shell over to a bowl of water and dropped it in. It pulled the shell out, shook it, dropped it in again. The grackle repeated this a few times until the shell began to open. Voila! This may explain the empty shells in the birdbath. mjh

(Two more photos with this one on Flickr.)

I’ve somewhat surprised myself by developing a fondness for photographing bugs. (It is very important to surprise oneself now and then.) Flowers are easy (except in a breeze) and who doesn’t love birds? Bugs are harder to ‘capture’ and, perhaps, love. I’ll provide you with a link to my bugs photos, but be sure to look at Candyflossgirl’s photos, too. mjh

www.flickr.com More of mjhinton’s photos tagged with bugs

Six Legs Or More – a photoset on Flickr

(From either of these links, you can discover various bug groups and tags on Flickr.)

Flickr: Archive of your photos posted to Flickr in June 2007
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/archives/date-posted/2007/06/

Details link shows larger thumbnails spread over several pages (all are clickable, small or large).

And May http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/archives/date-posted/2007/05/
April http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/archives/date-posted/2007/04/
March http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/archives/date-posted/2007/03/
Feb http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/archives/date-posted/2007/02/
Jan http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/archives/date-posted/2007/01/
Or all of 2007 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/archives/date-posted/2007/

From The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media:

Today is Easter Sunday in the Christian Church, the holiday that celebrates Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Easter is one of the few floating holidays in the calendar year, because it’s based on the cycles of the moon. Jesus was said to have risen from the dead on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. For that reason, Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th.

The word “Easter” comes from an ancient pagan goddess worshipped by Anglo Saxons named Eostre. According to legend, Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became our Easter Bunny. [mjh: another pagan belief co-opted by those seeking power for themselves.]

For a few years now, a group of us has been renting a van and driving south of Socorro, New Mexico, for a day at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Bosque is a managed habitat for migrating waterfowl cupped in the hands of distant mountains. Miles of dirt roads weave around several large, shallow lakes. In winter, it is a great spot to see thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese among myriad other birds and some other wildlife.

We had planned to drive down the day the first snowstorm blew in. As it happened, our rescheduled date was after the third storm in as many weeks, but we weren’t going to be stopped this time.

One member of our group is a world traveling ornithologist for the Nature Conservancy, Dr. David Mehlman. Dave has the great eye, ear and encyclopedic mind of a top-notch birder. Along the way, we can’t help but learn something from him. We know our grebes, pintails and coots. We see the Ross’ geese among the larger snow geese.

I’m a lesser birder, which is to say I love seeing birds and even learning more about them, but I’m mostly here to stare open-mouthed at the beauty of the world. My heart would stop for a sandhill crane even if I didn’t know that name. While the others stare through binoculars, I’m taking pictures. As they flip through well-worn bird books (Dave makes us do a little work for ourselves), I sip coffee and marvel.

Our slow drive around the bosque is also a movable feast, a finger-food potluck on wheels. Even after gorging all day on bison empanadas and prosciutto filo triangles, we all look forward to green chile cheeseburgers in Antonito (at the Buckhorn for two years and the Owl Cafe before that).

Every New Mexican and birders from all over owe themselves a pilgrimage to Bosque del Apache for the sunset fly-in or the dawn fly-out. Be sure to lower your camera and be quiet to drink it all in. mjh

I’ve posted a couple of dozen photos, mostly of sandhill cranes at:
Bosque del Apache – a photoset on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/sets/72157594468819628/detail/

mjh’s blog — Bird Man of Albuquerque (no, not me!)

Bird Man of Albuquerque (no, not me!)

In 2006, I took about 3,000 photos. Of those, I posted 271 to Flickr and some others to various websites. The following link will take you to the first of 10 pages featuring those 271 in reverse order (newest first).

Flickr: Archive of mjhinton’s photos posted to Flickr in 2006

From that page, one can jump by page or month; larger thumbnails plus descriptions can be seen using the View: Detail link. Thumbnails are automatically cropped and sometimes differently from the photo.

I would be delighted if you’d look at some of those photos and further delighted if you were to comment there or here. mjh