September 2015

POTD: Make Like a Tree

POTD: Make Like a TreeMake Like a Tree
Cliff Lake, Montana
2015

It’s surprising how well a wet river otter blends in with the texture of a dead tree. There were actually seven otters swimming along the lake shore and climbing in and out of the water, playing but also looking for and eating food. We were about 20 feet from them and followed them for quite a way along the shore. They paid us no mind at all. It’s surprisingly hard to photograph moving otters from a moving canoe, so I didn’t get any good group shots.

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POTD: Blue Meanie

POTD: Blue MeanieBlue Meanie
Cliff Lake, Montana
2015

A camp robber of a different type, this Stellar’s jay (also a corvid) was pretty good at chasing the gray jays around and making sure he had first choice of treats. This was the only decent photo I got of him as he was very skittish and barely landed long enough to snatch a cracker before flying off again. In contrast the gray jays were much more comfortable at hanging around with us at the picnic table.

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POTD: Camp Robber in Training

FJ5933Camp Robber in Training
Cliff Lake, Montana
2015

This juvenile gray jay (a.k.a. camp robber) and his friends were practicing their skills on our picnic table in the campground we were staying in at Cliff Lake. Although young, they were already pretty good at their vocation. Along with crows, ravens, and magpies, gray jays belong to the family corvidae so should fit in well with my ongoing collection of corvid images.

 

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Summer Project Addendum

20150914_163317

While cleaning up after finishing my rock retaining wall summer project I realized I had a lot of small but serviceable rocks left over. Having spent quite a bit of effort “mining” the rocks out of the hillside and getting them stockpiled up by the house, I didn’t just want to just discard them. So I built another smaller wall along the hillside cut next to our deck. No leftovers this time so I think I really am done with rocks, for this summer anyway.

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