This sight greeted me the other morning. A red shouldered hawk squatting on my trailcam in our backyard. I think he was looking for a mouse. We have bird feeders in the backyard which attracts a few birds and a whole bunch of squirrels and a few mice.
The trailcam captured this cat in our backyard a while back. I’m thinking he might be carrying a mouse in his mouth.
I went to Philbrook Museum of Art the other day. I saw this squirrel resting for the intense midday heat.
And this big ole hippo sculpture made out of car bumpers.
I rode my bike on the Arkansas River the other day and found this egret fishing in the Arkansas River.
And this group of geese hanging out.
And this cross species collection of egrets and great blue herons sharing their fishing grounds.
After years of construction Tulsa is opening up the new pedestrian bridge and putting the new Zink Lake Dam into service this weekend. I’m going to wait until the hubbub has died down a little bit before I go check it out.
First up our puppy Kodi and cat Lizzy. They love to play and seem to enjoy each others company. Kodi is getting bigger and stronger versus Lizzy getting better at wrestling. She has developed a takedown that she uses on him sometimes. It is fun watching them.
Kodi is getting bigger and stronger all the time. We start him at puppy school in a couple weeks. We all know that they should rename dog school as owner school right?
Kodi is still very small. The smallest dog we have ever had. We found out that we can just park him in a laundry basket if we need to confine him a short while and his crate is not available.
Still got my trailcam going in the backyard. I think this is a downy woodpecker.
This looks like a squirrel but cannot be a squirrel because it is feeding from a squirrelproof bird feeder.
We are getting lots of robins scratching around for food under the feeders.
And we get rabbits at night.
I captured a red shouldered hawk on our neighbors roof. They like rabbits. I’ve seen them this year land in our front yard and walk into the hedges and come out with baby rabbits and mice. Hawks have to eat to I guess.
I saw a goose in the parking lot earlier this week. It proceeded to wander on the main avenue nearby and somehow did not get run over.
I went on a hike the other day and spotted this pair of geese. I think they must be nesting or something because they didn’t move much and were giving me the stinkeye from clear across the pond.
And a fuzzy photo of a mallard paddling around the same pond.
The same hike, I came across robins. This one blended into the tree it was perched on.
I love the time between Christmas and New Years Day. The days leading up to Christmas are all in a rush especially if somebody in the family gets ill. Afterwards you can relax a little bit hopefully. I took advantage of one bright, sunny, day and went on a bike ride.
One of my favorite trails is alongside a turnpike on one side and fields and farms on the other. I ran into a mutt and jeff combination of horses.
You got the little one, all cute and fuzzy.
And the older one, both looking for something better to eat than the dry grass on offer.
I got to the end and rested a bit in the shadow of a billboard.
When I came home, this guy was waiting for me. iNaturalist tells me that this is a Coopers Hawk. He was using our mailbox as an observation perch. We have lots of squirrels and bunnies in the neighborhood and he was looking to eat one of those cute little critters.
Hey you know, cute little critters don’t live forever and hawks have to eat to right?
Are you on instagram? If so, are we following each other? My handle is @yogiab. These are my top nine posts for the year. I love instagram.
Do you live close to Tulsa? Come join in the First Day Hike and Scavenger Hunt on Turkey Mountain. It was supposed to be New Year’s Day but we postponed it until Saturday, January 8th from 8 am to 5 pm. Check out this facebook post for the details. We are hiding the above repurposed jewel boxes for people to find. They are going to have various Turkey Mountain stickers and key rings to find. There are also going to be a bunch of tee shirts hidden on the trails for people to find.
Do you like the cd cases. I repurposed them and designed and printed new covers and the liner notes are the Leave No Trace seven principles. I hope that I am not spoiling the surprise. The RiverParks Authority posted the photo on their website so I figured I can post my own photo on my site.
That’s about it for now. I wish everybody a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2022. Take Care!
I am linking with the following memes. They are all fun so check them out!!
This year we have lots of rabbits and squirrels in the neighborhood and now we have a predator. It likes to get on roof gables and powerlines and screech and then swoop. I took a partial differential equations class back in college and one of the problems they had us work on is the mathematical relationship between the numbers of prey and predators. Turns out there there is no happy equilibrium. It cycles, the number of prey increases which after a delay increases the number of predators, and then they gobble up all the little cute prey animals and then the predators starve and the cycle starts anew.
I think it is a red shouldered hawk but I am in no way a birder so if somebody has a better id then please let me know. I submitted the pics to inaturalist dot org and they are waiting for more community ids. So it saw something, screeched and went swooping into a neighbor’s yard for something.
