POTD

Spent Beauty #21
Bozeman, Montana
2017

Spent Beauty #20
Bozeman, Montana
2017

Spent Beauty #19
Bozeman, Montana
2017

Empty Nest #10
Bozeman, Montana
2017

A wide shot, showing the entire structure of the nest from the last two photos. That it came from inside a bird house is evident in its tall, square shape. The bird house was originally built to attract mountain bluebirds but I do not think it has served anything but house wrens. The house wrens build this incredible tower of rough twigs to bring the floor up to the desired level relative to the opening in the bird house before building the final nest out of soft grass and feathers.

The wrens are also very tenacious builders. If they start building a nest somewhere we don’t want one, we will pull the starter twigs out and get rid of them but the wrens often just come back and start over. Last year they started building nests in the end of the loader frame on my tractor. I removed twigs several times in a couple of hours and finally had to stuff the opening with rags to make it unsuitable for a nest. They just moved to the other side of the frame and started there. Finally, on stuffing that opening with rags as well, they moved on somewhere else.

Note the third unhatched egg on the edge of the nest. There was actually a fourth egg right next to it, but it rolled off and broke on the driveway when I was carrying the nest to my shop to photograph it.

Empty Nest #9
Bozeman, Montana
2017

A similar shot to yesterday’s, this one emphasizing the delicate feather lining of the nest.

Empty Nest #8
Bozeman, Montana
2017

This is the time of year we start cleaning out our birdhouses as well as bird nests we find in various impromptu places around the house. Mostly we come across robin’s nests and those of house wrens. I don’t recall ever finding an old robin’s nest still with eggs still in it, but for whatever reason it is quite common with the house wrens even though they nest in more protected spaces. Although the breakage in the egg on the right in the photo appears to have occurred from the outside, on first glance it gives the impression that a chick was pecking its way out but never made it to freedom for whatever reason.

Bits and Pieces
Goldfield, Nevada
2017

Not From Around Here
Goldfield, Nevada
2017

Where’s the Fire?
Goldfield, Nevada
2017

Battling Elk
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
2017

I wish I could say I took this photo of two back-lit elk bulls just as the sun was going down when I was out in the woods the other day. But in reality it was taken mid-day on the lawn between some administrative buildings at Mammoth Hot Springs. The low back light? That was courtesy of the early afternoon sun reflecting off of a car windshield.