How Many Days???

Raccoon napping in the crotch of a tree 
photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

It's February and I guess that's a good thing right?  Closer to Spring!!!  I don't mind February so much...its the shortest month of the winter and still looks like winter.  Now March looks like a mixed up month!  Sometimes like winter...sometimes like spring - usually all goofed up and a sloppy mess!

Had a Big old Raccoon in the gate tree this a.m. When Georgie first spotted it, it was rolled up in a ball on a fork in the tree but with the snow turning to a freezing mist it decided to try a nearby hole. The hole it tried hiding in was apparently too small as it kept coming back out to reposition itself...kept hiding when I'd take the camera outside but later showed up napping in another crotch outside.

I know it knows I'm there trying to take its picture, but I just settle for a nap shot and head back inside...hoping it'll stir for the camera yet...

 

Red-tailed Hawk pair hunting in tandem

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

February is a time when many birds of prey begin getting serious...seems early but the Great Horned Owls already have eggs they're sitting on and the Bald Eagles are setting up shop too.  Another local favorite of ours - the Red-tailed Hawks, have been known to set up nesting late in the winter...we had a pair here hunting together behind the barn.  Sometimes one bird would sit and watch while the other dipped around in the pasture trying to stir something up and other times they'd fly together and swoop into the grasses...don't know what they had going there?   Maybe a rabbit sitting tight or a mouse...who knows?

Red-tailed Hawk - close fly-by

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

Its fun watching things begin to stir since the frigid air has left its mark everywhere...kind of has me stirring myself!

How many days till spring??!!!!!

A Circus

"Grumpy Hummer"

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

Its been a regular circus around here lately....a circus because of how busy and preoccupied we've been.  But also because of the critters.

Love this male Ruby-throated Hummingbird from a couple days back - just a great expression!

And yesterday I was working in the studio and noticed out the window that I was being robbed in broad daylight!  Good grief, what's this world coming to?!!

"Masked Bandit"

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

OK, so it was just a Raccoon, but geeze...I'd been putting all the hanging bird feeders away at night so I guess they decided to hit us during daylight when we'd least expect it!

Later in the evening yesterday I heard a familiar sound and hoped I was wrong but ya...we had a lost baby looking for momma.

"Where's Momma?!"

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

The noise I was hearing was a bleating White-tailed Deer fawn.  This has happened before and I was holding my breath that this little guy's mother would find it again.  Some mowing had been taking place in a field just to our northwest and I'm thinking this fawn was in there and ran out from the disturbance...also there was a lot of field spraying going on just down the road from us, and a lot of vehicle noise and traffic on this normally quiet road.

But so far so good, we haven't been paid another visit yet nor have we been hearing any commotion, so maybe things are all good once again.

The rest of the circus for the month has been the process of putting together 56 pieces of work for the Neal Smith NWR down by Prairie City, east of Des Moines for July and August!  Man it takes a lot of time getting work put together, framed, printed, labeled, and you name it!  This solo exhibit is "prairie themed" and owns the same title as my last solo exibit in 2012 - "From the Tallgrass"...it is not a repeat of that same show however, so more work to get it ready!

Also I am in a new exhibit down in Storm Lake, Iowa right now - the 2014 Artisans Road Trip is having an exhibit at the Witter Gallery in Storm Lake.  This show began last week on June 5th and runs through June 27th.  Be sure and stop in to see the show (either one!) if you have time!

Back to the circus!

 

 

Count Down!

Least Bittern at Dewey's Pasture - Lost Island Marsh

I'm going to countdown over the next 4 weeks, at least once a week, to celebrate the return of Spring! We need something positive to look forward to here, and even though this has been one of the "prettiest" looking winters I can remember...it's been a lot of work!

I'm going to post an image (drawing, photograph or painting) each week to celebrate something I'm looking forward to this spring and when the weather warms. The top image I've posted is of a Least Bittern I photographed from my floating blind at Dewey's Pasture at Lost Island Marsh in Palo Alto County, Iowa.

Photographing from a blind is full of surprises and uncertainty. The morning I photographed this Bittern was mid spring; the cat-tails and rushes were just up and piercing through the layer of last year's dead vegetation. A wonderful and pungent time of the year to be on a marsh or slough! The sounds and smells are something I will never lose to memory...I love it!

Raccoon under the kitchen window bird feeder

Right into the first sentence of this blog entry a Raccoon sauntered past the studio window, and on up the kitchen path to a comfortable seat under the kitchen window! It has spring fever too! The little critter sat right under the sunflower feeder hanging above the window and started shoveling in the seed...think someone's hungry!

So I got the camera out and walked outside and over to the side yard fence and took a few pictures...it didn't seem to mind (or was too hungry to), but ran when the outside unit of the studio's air to air exchanger kicked on. Not too pretty of a setting but a fun diversion this afternoon.

4 weeks to go! see you at the Winter Thaw workshop!