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Along the Natchez Trace

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Some Wildlife Here....

No...  not OUR life...  it's pretty tame.  But there really are some neat critters around...
We saw this prairie dog village near Hogback
It was fun to watch the critters run in and out of their dens.  We didn't see any little ones this time.... it's probably too late in the year to see them.


There are Black-chinned and Broad Tail Hummingbirds here, and this time of year should be seeing the Rufous Hummingbirds.  I'm having a devil of a time trying to get a clear enough photo to make a positive ID.  The female Broad-tail and the female Rufous are quite similar.
 Trying to get a good look at the size and shape of the tail isn't easy either...

 This one looks more like the female Broad-tailed Hummingbird...  it has the buffy undercoat.
I feel like I'm looking at one of the flycatchers and trying to decide exactly what I'm seeing.... exasperating!
Oh well...  the males are more colorful anyway, maybe one of those will show up.

Around here there are lots of lizards... 

 I have no idea what species this guy is...  don't think I even have a reptile field guide with me.  I only know we see lots of them running around.

And... here's a species I've never seen before...
I told Bill it looks like a cross between an airplane and a helicopter.  He told me that's exactly what it is.  It's a VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) Aircraft.  Alberta's house isn't far from the airport and we saw this plane several times this afternoon.  Alberta told us it comes out of Flagstaff, AZ about once a month to practice ....  what else?  taking off and landing!  It's quite a noisy plane, but even with the sound alerting me to get my camera ready, I still had a hard time getting a good photo.

On Thursday we'll be taking our rig in to a local RV shop.  We've had some problems with the lighting system...  time to get it checked out.

If you happen to be a geocacher, maybe you, too, are finding a cache each day to earn that souvenir.  I didn't do well the first 2 weeks of the month, but since we left Texas, I've had better luck.  Truth is, I'll be kind of glad when August is over and the "bonus" time is over.

That's All For Today!


11 comments:

  1. Love those Hummer! We had a couple show up around the middle of August, and none since. Strange year. That's an interesting plane too.

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  2. I've spent hours trying to photograph the hummingbirds...isn't it fun? They are fascinating little creatures!

    Hope the lighting issues are no big deal and an easy fix!

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  3. Your animal and bird photography is fantastic!!

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  4. Once again - fabulous pictures.

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  5. Great pics of all those critters - including the airplane!

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  6. I can spend a lot of time watching those prairie dogs:)

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  7. Haha, maybe the local wildlife think that ya'll are the real wildlife! ;-)
    Nice pics, it looks wonderful there. I also like the header of the turquoise jewelry.

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  8. You seem to have all the kinds of hummers there are. Our ruby throats say "Hummph, show off!"

    Actually, they're too busy fending each other off the feeders to have any opinion.

    Lovely birds.

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  9. I enjoyed your photos of the Hogback Trading post in the last post. I'm glad there are prairie dogs living around there.

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  10. I love your wildlife photos!! The prairie dogs are cute, even though they can cause a lot of damage. But I really like the hummingbird with the wings up like angel wings.

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