How cows stay warm on a cold but sunny day

Walking the red trail, I detoured over to the fence where I could see some of Oscar's cows trying to stay warm. I like the picture! Before I could get off a second shot, half of them were standing up and the picture was gone.

Duck blind

Still working on photographing the Wood Ducks. I've built this blind (near the BOD for those familiar with the area). I can walk up to this from the trail without the ducks seeing me. At first I was trying to photograph over it but that exposed too much and they'd fly away. So I reworked it with a hole to shoot through. I was able to observe them for 5-10 minutes once but did not have the camera with me. So far, not successful! Either no ducks there or they were in an area I can't photograph from here.

From the ducks side it looks like this. Very well concealed!

Supplement to my last post

Here's one of my pictures of one of the Wood Ducks in our pond. There were still some twigs, leaves, etc. that messed up the foreground but the dozen or so of these flew away after this shot. Now I guess I need to go back with a short tripod and a cover to keep me out of sight until I can get a good picture.

A new entry on the Wildernest Property Bird List

It's been awhile since we got to make a new entry on the Wildernest Property Bird List. There are 53 species on the list now and it's very infrequent that we see a bird that we haven't seen before. There have been some ducks on the pond recently but they always see us before we see them and they are gone in a flash. The times I do try to sneak up on them - either I fail or there's been nothing there. This morning I was finally successful and for a minute or two got to observe a small flock of about a dozen birds. At first I thought the males were Mallards (didn't have my glasses on) but then saw the distinctive way the head feathers sweep to the rear - Wood Ducks! Pretty exciting! Then Shadow came bounding up and they all flew away. I wish that was my picture above but it came from the internet. (Yesterday we saw the first Cedar Waxwings and Goldfinch of the season on the birdbath along with 6-8 beautiful Bluebirds - a pretty sight!)

25 Years has changed a lot -

We were doing some closet cleaning yesterday and ended up digging through some old photos. This one was taken in 1984 or 1985 after a fire burned most of the property here. In the trees in the upper center you can see what was the mobile home then. I've studied the picture carefully trying to determine where it was taken and, from the location of the creek and walking the property to determine the angle, have come to the conclusion that I must have been standing very close to where the Treehouse is now - probably a bit more to the east towards the chapel. The trees along the bank of the creek on the right side of the picture are where the east bridge is now.