Birds and Buds

This and the next:  contrail sky

Took a much longer hike than I planned to this morning, much of it bushwhacking through arroyos and along a distant ridge line I like to explore, close to a spot where Becca and I discovered a small herd of Javelinas a few years ago.  Didn't see any today, though.  In fact I saw no large mammals at all, unless I count my buddy, Jimmy, who I ran into on the upper foothills trail.  I did see many different kinds of birds and several Desert Cottontails and Black-tailed Jackrabbits.

Jimmy and I gabbed for a while before I had to get going; I needed to go home and finish winterizing the evaporative cooler and switch over to the furnace in order to deal with the cold nights we've been having of late.  Fortunately I finally figured out how to install the damper on our Mastercool evap; it turned out to be fairly easy despite having found no guidance from the owner's manual nor extensive internet research on the subject.  Honestly, the whole process could be made so understandable with a simple, one-paragraph description of how to do it.  I guess I'm expecting too much in this age of information we now live in.

This and the next 2:  same Loggerhead Shrike

This and the next:  following the single-track west

This and the next:  a sun dog (parhelion)?

The real sun is a bit to the left

Same Loggerhead Shrike giving me the stinkeye

Single-track west

Large arroyo

Trying to ID this old auto part

This and the next 3:  ballooning over the Mesilla Valley

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

This and the next:  Tortugas and the Organs

Same Ladder-backed Woodpecker

Last 2:  hard to believe this Ocotillo is budding in November

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