Birds and road work

This morning visiting Virginia birders, Bruce Cramer and Paul Jordan, were observing the Allen's Hummingbird at the house courtyard when an Anna's tried to come to the feeder. The Allen's instantly chased it off. Way too fast for my camera.

This afternoon my help showed up and we put a concrete patch on the steep part of the big hill. Every little bit helps, in my opinion. Time will tell.

Chilly oasis day

Christmas Mountains

It never quite made it up to 60° today, which is below my comfort level. At least I didn't arrive here to need to do any emergency repairs. So I built a fire and took a long nap. Tomorrow I want to be in as good shape as possible because I've again scheduled a little work on the big hill and optimistic that it'll happen this time.

Since birders are coming tomorrow also, I wanted to confirm if the Allen's Hummingbirds were still here. They are. Not much else of interest though.

Luckily, I had seen that the above juvenile Allen's would not let the below Anna's Hummingbird near the feeder area so I had hung one feeder back in the wooded area for the Anna's. The Allen's can't patrol them all, although the adult male Allen's is able to keep all other hummers out of the courtyard where he's set up his territory.

Things are still pretty green at the oasis. Guess not a real hard freeze yet. That's fine with me.

Cold

I hate cold so I'm experiencing the Chisos Mountains only through other people's photos. You won't run into me up there. The Christmas Mountains are bad enough. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to heading back down there tomorrow.

I never mind the hot summer weather, just get so tired of watering in hot weather when it doesn't rain, like this past summer.

What a difference an hour makes

Up in the Chisos this morning by Bob Wardlow

Yesterday I was at the oasis basking in perfect weather, happily taking photos. Feeling really reluctant to head back to Alpine. In procrastination, I decided to download and process my photos. Then I blogged. Excited to learn what I thought was a Rufous Hummignbird was actually my second Allen's Hummingbird, I posted about that and did an ebird report. Time got away.

Juvenile male Allen's

By about 3 PM, I regrettingly decided I had better start packing up and get going so I'd get to town before dark and possible icy roads. I knew a cold front was forecast.

My house is earth-sheltered, like a cave. Inside I have no idea what it's like outside. What a shock I received when I opened the door! A winter storm had arrived, seemingly in the blink of an eye! Instantly I went from not wanting to leave, to wishing I had headed back to town sooner. Hurriedly packed up my ice chest, and all the stuff I haul with me, in bitter cold wind and rain, did a few last minute tasks, and off I headed.

By the time I got to the big hill south of Alpine freezing rain was accumulating on my windshield. Vegetation was covered in frost.

It was impossible to wrap my mind around that just a couple of hours earlier I had been taking photos in calm 70° weather. Seemed a world away.

Here's a shot I had taken of one of my mulberry trees. Worms had denuded it totally. Oh well, worms, frost, all the same to the tree I guess. The leaves would be gone either way.

A lovely fall day

Photographed the same three hummer species at the oasis today that I photographed the last time I was here. However, today's Anna's Hummingbird seemed to be a more adult male than the last one. Also purplish color to the gorget. Don't know what that's about.

Speaking of color, here's my favorite kind of fall color.

Texas Madrone berries

Big Tooth Maple leaves

Checked my critter cam, but no bears have visited since I installed it. Just lots of doves, and a fox.

It just kills me that I can't get anyone here to work on the road (although I have a good prospect for help next week) so I took my grubbing hoe/pick ax to see how much I could do. I lasted 30 minutes and got high center lowered for about 6-8 feet. Now if I can still move tomorrow, I'll try to do another 6  feet or so. Big IF, of course. If my help shows up we're going to put a concrete patch or two on the big hill.

I'm still trying to get a better tail feather shot of the Allen's Hummingbird but it clouded up this afternoon. I know my only hope is full sun. Maybe tomorrow.

My declining years

It's been very obvious to me that my body is declining. Unfortunately, so is my mind. Case in point:

I've always excelled at math. I can add as fast with pen and paper as I can with an adding machine, with fewer mistakes. Since my husband isn't as good at it and has to use an adding machine and still makes mistakes, for the last 16 years of our marriage I've balanced the checkbook with pen and paper. Occasionally I'm distracted and make an error. In that case, I go back and recheck my figures and catch the mistake. Today, no distractions. I wanted to do it one time only, so I went extra slowly and carefully. At the end, I was way off. Groaned, and redid it. Same results. Again. Same results.

In frustration and desperation I went to the bank. I showed them what I had as the balance in the check register. It was the same as they had. We looked closer. My reckoning showed that I had added the outstanding checks to their balance when I should have subtracted them. There is no excuse. I've balanced checkbooks for at least 60 years. Unmistakable conclusion is that my mind is declining. It's scary!

A cool Lajitas afternoon

Today a birding friend and I went to the oasis. Pretty cool weather and nothing much going on there. Thinking Lajitas would be better, we went there.

It was every bit as cool there too. I hadn't been there for ages so was surprised at some of the changes. For starters, we immediately saw the addition of the Robert E Lee statue that had recently been relocated from Dallas. Looks really awesome at Lajitas. It's great art, and now we have it in our corner of the world to enjoy. To me, the statue represents the frontier days when the cavalry rode on horseback. General Pershing and his troops once established a post at Lajitas. If I was told the statue was of Pershing, I wouldn't know any better.

The next surprise was all the vegetation around a little stream and pool, that I loved to look for odes in, was removed and covered with rocks.

Similar area five years ago this week

Another change, which I forgot to photograph, was the construction of about six, or more, cottages on the north side of the "lake" by the golf shop. I actually think that's a good thing. There was nothing there before but bare ground and I assume the cottages will be lovely.

I had never seen the golf course so covered in fire ant hills before. Really had to watch our step.

Glasses for size perspective

More winning!

Yesterday my camera was behaving so badly that I got desperate and did a factory reset on it. Solved the problems. I knew the zoom wouldn't work in Shutter-priority mode if the macro mode was on, but even after reading the advanced manual, it wouldn't let me turn macro off. The option wasn't there. Now it lets me turn it on and off. This Allen's Hummingbird exercise is more about mastering my camera than it is about the bird. You can see on today's photos, and yesterday's, that the R2 lacks the diagnostic notches of a Rufous, and has the real narrow R5, confirming it as an Allen's.

I also discovered I do better in auto-focus in this situation. Normally, that's not the case. While I was working/playing on this project today, a male Anna's Hummingbird visited the courtyard. There was some conflict and vocalization going on as the Allen's defended "his" territory. When it was over and one bird left, I was relieved the Allen's was the winner. I think this Anna's is molting, but it may be a juvenile.

There's also a selasphorus at  the oasis. I think it's a Rufous juvenile or female.

At my happy place

I didn't last very long in town before I just had to come back to the oasis. Watered some, and then played at getting a better photo of the Allen's Hummingbird. I moved the feeder into the sun so I'd get a faster shutter speed, but alas, now my camera won't zoom in Shutter priority mode.

I don't know if I messed up a setting or it malfunctioned. It does malfunction, but to what extent, I don't know, since I'm not good with the technical stuff. I even reread the manual today, but nothing I did helped. The other day it zoomed fine in Shutter mode.

I'll try some more tomorrow. I"m on the verge of buying a Sony Cybershot RX10 III. It's not the latest model and I'd buy it used, so not too big an investment. My Lumix is a very good camera. I just think mine has been dropped too much. Getting it wet when I fell earlier this year probably didn't help. I'm hard on a camera because I have to keep it handy on me while I'm working so I don't miss a once-in-a-lifetime shot.

There were about 2000 vehicles headed toward Alpine this morning after the annual Chili Cookoff. Thank goodness I was going in the opposite direction. I'm told there were anywhere from 20,000-50,000 people at the cookoff, so my estimate was probably low. I arrived at my estimate by calculating that I was on the highway for one hour and the cars were spaced an average of about two per block for 60 miles. I figured it was like that all morning (4-5 hours) but it may have been all day and more.

Looking north

Looking south

More Christmas Mountains presents

I really hated to have to come to town today. Loving all the ducks visiting the tanks. Today I was treated to four Buffleheads.

The last thing I did before leaving was try again on the Allen's Hummingbird. Here's the best one so far showing the tail. Hoping a photographer will visit while it's still present.