I went down to Tingley Beach several times this past fall to see which birds might be hanging around.1 One day I ran into the roadrunner below, who was much friendlier than most. Or at least, that’s what I thought at first. It actually kept walking toward me instead of running away, as most roadrunners do. After a while, I realized it was hunting French fries and perhaps thought I had some.2
One of the challenges of taking photos of something that lives close to the ground is my height. If I continue to stand, walk, and/or run, my shots are from a perspective much higher than my subject’s. Yet if I get down on the ground, I lose nearly all mobility. So I was thrilled when the same friendly roadrunner hopped up onto a series of logs for about 10 seconds. We were at eye level with one another and I was still mobile. That the color of the background matched the roadrunner’s feathers was the proverbial icing on the cake.3
I woke up on the winter solstice to a dense fog. I need only a single hand to count the number of times we get fog each year, so I shook myself out of my customary morning stupor and began walking through the foothills.
The photo above proved to be one of my favorites from that morning. At one point, I was idly wondering why I liked it so much and realized it was because there was a fair amount of green in it.4 And then I did a double-take: chamisa stems usually don’t start getting green until February or March.
Around the same time, I realized I was seeing a lot of trees with buds on them. That was noticeable as well — I don’t usually begin to see tree buds until near the end of January. The photo above shows buds on a sycamore tree, along with a few seed pods and leaves, dotted with last week’s snow.5
The day before it snowed, I went up to Carlito Springs for a change of scenery. I peered into each of the little pools and was surprised to see numerous water striders in one of them. After a few initial photos, I realized they were darting around so quickly that my shots weren’t very clear. So I waited until they were still so I could capture greater clarity (especially of their beady little eyes). I love the way you can see the dents in the water from their legs (above). Those absolutely were not visible to me until I later looked at my photos.
I also didn’t notice the beautiful little ripples their movements made. The photo above is one of the earlier ones I took, before I realized I couldn’t get much detail while they were moving. I’m so glad I got one of the moving shots after all.6
Tingley Beach, run by the City of Albuquerque, is most definitely not a beach. It’s composed of a number of fishing ponds which are quite attractive to migrating birds and, by extension, bird watchers and photographers.
This footnote concerns roadrunners’ hunting behaviors, which, shall we say, aren’t exactly humane. Please skip the paragraph below if you don’t want to learn too much.
I’ve watched roadrunners catch smaller birds and pound them against rocks on the ground, over and over, until they were completely subdued (possibly dead). That’s exactly what this roadrunner was doing to its French fry prey — pounding each fry against a rock, even though the fries weren’t exactly resisting.
I think their feathers are so beautiful. And their eyelashes! Roadrunners have the most gorgeous eyelashes.
The absence of green is why I take many fewer photos in the winter than during the rest of the year. A photo without green in it often seems incomplete to me.
It’s a cold, snowy winter here. I don’t love it, but it’s hard to complain since a) most of the country has it so much worse than we do and b) I feel ridiculously grateful for any and all moisture we get, regardless of the temperature.
The green color is due to all the algae growing in that particular little pool.
The water strider photos were wonderful! And the footnotes! I so enjoy the photos and the commentary.
I especially enjoyed the fog picture, Albuquerque??? Fog in the high desert, trike a rarity & you captured it Lisa👍