Silver Linings

It's good to discover silver linings in difficult situations. When I was recovering from my kidney infection, I spent a wonderful day watching the goings on in my own backyard.

After that micro burst that blew the blinds straight into the room, Faith, who is a cautious dog, was worried, keeping an eye on the blinds while still staying with me in the bed. I felt bad for her so I pulled the blinds up. 

And a whole new world opened up in front of me. I was resting in bed that day, feeling better, but not well. With nothing much else to do, I decided to watch through the window. 

One day and one evening as darkness fell:

It was easy to watch the sky and there I saw only one raven the entire day, which is strange since there are so many of them here. 

From Images

Instead I saw a red-tailed hawk fly by overhead, four times. Either one hawk or two maybe, probably not four different ones. I also saw another, smaller hawk that I had seen before. It has a distinct almost square pattern on its belly and chest. Looking it up in my bird books, I realized that the next time I see it, I have to watch the tail. It will help me put it in the right hawk category at least. 

An old picture, but the coyote had a similar reddish coat, usually they are gray here.

Later, a large coyote, with a beautiful red tint to its coat, came strolling down the hill on one of the coyote trails. I know their trails well, they are so straight, nothing at all like the way dogs move around. 

Hearing the warning signals from their lookout squirrel, the ground squirrels dove into their holes as the coyote approached. I had kept an eye on one squirrel and he came back up soon thereafter and sat down in the shade of his juniper tree. I'm sure it was an old grandfather squirrel. He sat there for a long time, straight up, paws at his chest, and seemed to just enjoy his life, taking in the scenery the same way I was. I felt he kept me company that day. Yes, I know, it's so easy to project our feelings on what animals do, but still, it was lovely.

Some day I will get all I need to take better pictures and learn how to do it. I know I have a good eye, but I need the technical knowledge and the camera to go with it. I counted twelve little chicks here, there were many more in the covey behind this family.

Early evening, sun still high in the sky, I heard a clucking sound, and had to stretch my neck to see a covey of California quail move across my backyard. There were at least thirty small, small chickens in this covey. So adorable, I had to get up and try to get a picture. It didn't work very well as you can see. 

Same thing here, this Jack rabbit is just too far away. 

Then at dusk, the rabbits appeared. This has been a grand year for rabbits. I imagine all the rain we had made it so. At dawn and dusk, my road is covered in rabbits, darting from one side of the road to the other. Here in the canyon, we have two kinds: Audubon's cottontail rabbit, the small cute ones with the white round tail. And the much larger and not quite so cute black-tailed Jack rabbits. 

Cottontail Rabbit

Faith loves to go out in the dog yard at dusk to scare them and make them run. Usually, this only works with the tiny young ones. They soon learn that the dogs are fenced in and cannot harm them. When she is loose, she chases them up into the hills, but she never catches one. I bet she would have no idea what to do if she did. Samson is the hunter in the family.

As night came, I was looking forward to seeing stars. My bedroom faces north and there are no lights there, just wilderness. But there was a full moon that first night, so I got to see something else instead: Bats! I had forgotton how many bats live in the canyon. 

It was a fabulous day, a silver lining day, a day, where I once again found myself so grateful for the healing powers of nature.