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Showing posts with the label animals

Rage in the Sage

Sagebrush-covered flats and hills were my first love as a dispersed-area-camper/mountain biker in the West. It's fun to be back in it. Greater Nevada and Utah are really the place to be if you like sagebrush, but Gunnison (CO) has a lot of it over 8000 feet. It would be more interesting if it was mixed with more grass. Would that be the case if controlled fires were used more? This hillside seemed odd when I first looked at it: You can't appreciate it as a postcard. What matters is what it represents. Presumably the dark (sagebrush) streaks are barely-visible troughs that collect rainwater and snow melt, allowing the sagebrush to survive -- barely. How much strife there is in Nature! Normally this brings up an image of scratching claws and bloody fangs, but that isn't the case here -- unless you see these streaks as the curved talons of a drought-beast, reaching down to rip at the soft flesh of the lower hill.  One way to insult a place is to say that it is

On the (Ungrown) Horns of a (Ovine/Cervine) Dilemma

Normally a dog is quite an asset on a hike or mountain bike ride; the human feeds off the dog's energy; it brings out our Inner Wild Child; it's as if the dog becomes an extension of our own nerve endings. But yesterday my dog turned out to be a nuisance. Although I don't have an inordinate fear of heights and cliffs, I freak out when my kelpie, Coffee Girl, gets too near the edge of vertiginous trails. So I abandoned the Ouray RVing and Hiking Team and descended Bear Creak trail. Most of the way back down I heard crashing through the forest and saw a large brown body through the leaves and needles. I snapped Coffee Girl back on her leash so she wouldn't chase the deer-like animal on still dangerous slopes. A half minute later this creature popped out on the trail: My initial reaction was that this was the ugliest deer fawn that I've ever seen. It was pretty small; maybe hip high or so. It stood above us on the trail and looked right at us. It would

Boonie Meets Bambi

Springerville, AZ. On a sunset walk one night, Coffee Girl and I crossed a large pasture at 9200 feet. Dark forests lined the edge of it. At that edge she went looking for trouble, and you know what dogs usually find when they go looking for trouble... Something was behind the downed dead log. It made a horrendous sound and started moving. Try as I might, no words adequately describe that sound. The creature stood up, as Coffee Girl ran circles around it, and barked her head off. After panicking for a couple seconds I finally got a view of the monster: But where was Momma? Was she just off looking for food while "Bambi" stayed behind and hid next to a log? Or was Bambi a young orphan and about to starve to death or, if she was lucky, get eaten by a predator? OK I might as well admit that I felt an urge to bring Bambi food and water, except that I had no idea of what kind of food would be accepted. But more importantly Bambi is wildlife, not a pet. The predator or sca

Mystery Musicians in a Ponderosa Forest

It's funny how you begin to hear something when somebody else mentions it. My fellow camper pointed out a funny clicking sound in a mostly ponderosa forest. It was pretty subtle. I spent the next half hour trying to figure out its cause, coming up with some pretty absurd explanations. But the sound was concentrated near one bushlike tree that was close to eye level. Here was the culprit (transferred to the animals album of my Picasa album): It's an adult cicada, about an inch long. You gotta love those transparent, veined wings. You expect to hear a loud screech from cicadas, rather than subtle clicking. Wikipedia has an interesting article on them.  Did you know that cicadas are "timpanists" rather than "violinists" such as grasshoppers or crickets? They have thin membranes on their abdomens that buckle to produce their normal screeching sound. So what's wrong with our local timpanists; why don't they make the usual screech? Cicadas are

Camping at Dusk on a Narrow Road

San Lorenzo, New Mexico. And to think that a reader/commenter thought that I was a coward for avoiding hiking, biking, or traveling near sunset! It has always been a good policy. But sometimes a camper has to push the envelope a little. I'm not advertising recklessness. But there's such a thing as going into the Unknown simply because you must . Although risks are unavoidable, they are not being pursued for the sake of themselves. It builds character to get yourself in a bit of trouble, fight to stay calm, and work your way out of the hole by solving one problem at a time. But even more fundamental than that is backing off before it's too late. In general the Benchmark state atlas shows RV-friendly dirt roads as heavy dashed red lines, and they have names. In general there is a big turnaround once you get into a national forest; big enough for pickup trucks pulling horse trailers, or for firefighting trucks. My Ford Econoline van and 7 foot wide X 21 foot long trailer

A Cliff-Hanging Tail

The sky islands of southern Arizona are great places to camp, hike, and mountain bike; thus we've returned to them, after three years off the road. We had a strange experience here, four winters ago. In fact I am looking out the window at the exact spot on the mountain, as I type.  It was just a couple months after the little poodle had been rescued above Book Cliffs near Grand Junction, CO. I've edited this oldie-but-goodie. Tonopah AZ... Walking right from the RV's front door of our solitary boondocking site, we headed for the nearest mountain. These small mountain ranges can be quite photogenic; even better, they are finite: you can look at them from a variety of angles on one day. It was topped off with a cliff and caprock that almost made it look like a mesa. A large hole in that cliff had attracted my eye for days. It got steeper as we approached the cliff, so much so that I had to scramble on all fours. At the foot of the cliff the little poodle froze in

Bambi Unbothered

Several times my little poodle has made a bad situation worse by not barking when he was in danger, so when I heard him bark outside my trailer today, I was both relieved and alarmed. Sure enough, it was the deer that likes to munch on the suckers of a dead stump on the Johnsons' driveway. She has two half-grown offspring who travel with her. Since the little poodle can barely see, his interaction with mama Bambi was probably accidental. I charged out of the trailer and saw Mama "facing off" with the little poodle. She wasn't particularly afraid of me. Actually, I think it's in the interests of any wildlife to stay frightened of Man; otherwise, they will hang around too much and eventually get run over by a car. So I thought I was doing the deer a favor by sending my 40 pound Australian kelpie, Coffee Girl, to chase the threesome out of the yard. But mama deer was completely fearless. She faced Coffee Girl head on, and wouldn't yield an inch. Coffee Girl

Colorado Outdoor Culture

This driveway in Ouray CO is crawling with milkweed tussock caterpillars. Earlier I tried to photograph how "punk" they look. Today I followed it around for a couple minutes and photographed it showing off its technical climbing skills. And this little bugger was fast! He seemed so intelligent: he'd look (?) at one angle of attack, feint towards it, and then change his mind to an alternative route. I won't be here in winter when the ice climbers show off their death-defying skills in the Uncompahgre gorge, so this caterpillar will have to serve as substitute.

Moth

  You'd think that the caterpillar I showed a couple days ago would turn into a moth like this instead of a boring moth. If there's any justice in the world today's polyphemus moth started off as a plain ugly caterpillar. This photo (click to enlarge) was taken by my nature consultant in the American Midwest who saw the moth out by the mailbox at the street, walked back to the house to get a camera, and returned to the mailbox to find the moth still there. Then the nature consultant tickled the moth with a blade of grass, he/she claimed, to open its wings.

Punked Out

I was laboring in the dirt under the hot sun like a peasant in the fields: shoveling, jerking weeds, carting them away without a burro to help. Geesh, the sort of things a guy has to do to get world class scenery, ideal weather, and eye-popping hiking trails, with free camping and amenities in Ouray CO. But my back-breaking toil and suffering momentarily abated when I saw this little guy in the newly disturbed ground. I've never seen such a spiked, punk caterpillar before. Even more than his interesting appearance was his attitude: he was frisky. It's not exaggerating to say that he was a sentient being, instead of the usual slug-like personality. When I brought the camera in, he seemed to look (?) at it: who the hell are you and what's your problem, the look seemed to say. Then again, maybe it was the other end that was aiming.

Horse Sense

What would my kelpie, Coffee Girl, do if she were free to bother a horseman? Would the horse rear up and kick off the rider? I used to worry about it. One day this fellow was walking this young horse on Gabbie's Ridge. It seemed like a good chance to test Coffee Girl. She ran up and sniffed at the horse a little, while the horse kicked slightly at the dog. No harm done. Both were rather calm about the whole thing. What a relief. I suppose horses grow up with ranch dogs around here. I'm glad to see a horse culture hanging on in the West, although just barely. For the most part, the economy seems based on retirement housing and healthcare.

Servile to a Cervine

A camper friend and I were walking our dogs in the "south 40" when we spotted a herd of six deer trying to jump a chain link fence, 5-6 feet high. They didn't use a perpendicular approach as I might have guessed, but approached it at a glancing angle. I was surprised at how interesting it was to watch them try and fail, several times. Their bodies ricocheted off the fence ungracefully, yet they still managed to land gracefully. 'The deer as problem-solver' certainly doesn't fit the sentimental postcard of Bambi munching on a pretty flower, next to a cute witto stream. Perhaps it's an under-rated pleasure to watch animals solving problems, rather than standing around like dumbshits, trying to look pretty. But not everybody sees it like that. Bicycling up near the Continental Divide the other day, I saw a couple deer crossing the road. Yawn. A top-end SUV slowed down and then stopped, right out in the lane of traffic. At first I thought that the SUV had h

Playing Hard to Get

It's natural for a beautiful girl dog's thoughts to turn to Love with the spring weather we've been having lately. My kelpie, Coffee Girl, has a new playmate in the morning: a French Brittany spaniel, named Jake. (How declasse'.) I've never seen her act so silly before; she runs alongside him, licking his face. When he stops, she pushes the side of her body against his. A lot of good it does her. Jake is a (hunting) workaholic who has no time to waste on romantic nonsense. He has another quirk besides this: he picked up a cholla thorn the other day. His owner had to hold him down, while I pulled the two thorns out. They barely required any pulling, yet he howled bloody murder about it. I couldn't resist giggling. On our bike ride to town we saw an impressive, medium-sized, brown hawk that flew only five feet off the ground. A half dozen times I almost got my camera out, but he wouldn't cooperate. What a tease! It had a conspicuous transverse white stripe

Dancing with Wolves, part 3

This morning my dog, Coffee Girl, and I got off to an early start, riding down to a grassy ridge which features a 360 degree view. Following that I planned to drop her off back at the RV and then to finish the bicycle ride on my own. Halfway down the field I lost track of her. I stopped and turned around. Where the heck was she? Then I saw her streaking down the trail towards me, and at maximum speed. It was impressive and beautiful, but something was wrong. Two coyotes were in hot pursuit. The leader got within 50 meters of me before he noticed me charging him on the mountain bike. He quickly turned away from the trail. In the tall grass I couldn't chase him down. He did the usual: he ran to the back side of a juniper bush until he could just see me through the branches. How wary and observant they are!  I am really getting to hate coyotes but until I think of a way to vanquish them, I must settle for fantasies: imagine dragging its carcass behind my mountain bike and riding

Creepie Crawlie

This creepie-crawlie was on the pavement one cold morning recently. If you count those two spindly forelegs, there are eight total. But scorpions have high tails and a pair of front pincers. Perhaps this is an immature scorpion in one of its numerous manifestations (molts). (The photos on the internet never show immature critters.) I gave icy glares to passing motorists. Somehow the creepie-crawlie made it through the car tires without being squished. Forgive me for not carrying it to the other side of the road.

The Raven Wrangler

Every morning these days the ravens gather and wait for Coffee Girl to enter the field. Neither they nor the dog disappoint each other. This photo shows only one raven flying low to taunt "poor" Coffee Girl, but in fact there's usually a dozen of the naughty scoundrels. She gets noisy about it. Although she is in the cattle dog family, she has a lot more fun promoting biological diversity.

Dancing with Wolves, part 2

My little poodle has recovered wonderfully from his wounds after the coyote attack of 12 days ago. He even insisted on returning to the evil field today, with the leash on, of course. In the aftermath of that attack I was amazed by the generous care of a woman in my RV park who used to be a veterinary technician. Then it got better: another woman who used to live here heard the news of the attack. She is only five feet tall and weighs about a hundred pounds; but if I had blocked the door, I think she would have knocked me out of the way on her way to cooing over the little poodle. When she lived here, we barely acknowledged each other's existence. This recalled the opening of Arthur Schopenhauer's dreadful essay On Women , which nonetheless started well with a quote from Jouy: " Without women, the beginning of our life would be helpless; the middle, devoid of pleasure; and the end, of consolation." Nature was certainly erupting that day, if you are willing to see ho

Moth

I didn't notice the fine structure on the edge of the wing or the "mustache" until the photo was blown up.

Dancing with Wolves, part 1

The coolness during our morning walks is really enjoyable. If only there were some place that had ten months of autumn, and two months of suffering, just to remind you how lucky you are most of the time. The autumn patterns with flowers, seedheads, and migrational birds seem a little different from last year. One yellow flower has taken over the field, so I stopped to photograph it: But I never really finished the photo-op. There was a "hurt animal" sound nearby that sounded like my little poodle. I charged off in that direction, while yelling as loud as possible. I saw what looked like the back end of a coyote run off toward the main arroyo. I didn't see his head, but assumed that he was carrying off my little poodle to kill and eat in a minute.   The worst thing was knowing that my actions in the first few seconds might have life-or-death consequences, but I could only guess what to do. If only the little poodle wasn't such a non-barker! I looked for him in the di