Just the right combination

 

 

A warm west-facing wall in a rural setting, lighted at night, with a shade canopy over it during the day.  (Yes, the little church.)  Moths and other critters gather under the light at night and remain at dawn protected from the sun.  A veritable panoply of bug species.

 

I didn’t take the long shot, showing all the little dots on the wall, but I did get some close-ups.

 

 

With a little (okay, a lot of) help from AI, these appear to be lichen moths with an individual webworm moth in the middle.  The caterpillars of lichen moths feed on, you guessed it, lichen.  The chemicals in the digested lichen then make the caterpillars taste bad to some potential predators.

 

I’m going to send out a few more bug pictures from that wall, and with any luck I’ll get corrected if I’m off base with my identifications.  I’m not a bug expert, and as we all know, AI can and does, make the occasional bad assumption or mistake.  For now, anyway.

 

Take a hike

 

 

Conner did.

 

The Manitou Incline outside of Colorado Springs.  The incline was built in the early 1900s, a funicular railway to go up Pikes Peak.  The railway was damaged by a rockslide in 1990 and eventually closed.  Without train cars going up and down it anymore, who could then resist hiking up the roadbed of an incline railway?

 

It’s not a very long hike, slightly less than a mile, but it gains 2,000 vertical feet in one continuous staircase of 2,768 railroad ties.

 

 

A bit of a grind.  How long did it take?  52 minutes.

 

All the little hummingbirds have gone

 

 

Just this one great big one left.

 

 

Not really a hummingbird, of course.  It’s a hooded oriole.

 

 

Orioles are fruit eating birds.  They like the hummingbird sugar water nectar.  When he stands on one side, he can get the reservoir to spill over.

 

 

He gets the treat.

 

 

He won’t be here much longer either.  Also a migrant, it will be off to Mexico and Central America for him soon.

 

One of us has a favorite spot on the couch

 

 

 

 

Can we guess who?

 

 

And a predator

 

 

Harris’s Hawk.

 

Another Southern bird.

 

Unique in that they hunt in packs like wolves.  Some will land and flush prey for others to pounce on, then they share the meal.

 

 

Crested Caracara

 

 

 

 

 

Like the black vulture, a southeastern scavenger, but even more southern.  Southern Arizona, South Texas, and a few in Florida.

 

 

You’re probably asking yourself,

 

 

…again, why isn’t Steve sending out more bird pictures?

 

Okay.  If you insist.

 

Black vulture.

 

 

It’s a lot like the Turkey Vulture, but while the turkey vulture is everywhere, the black vulture is more southeastern.