Winter changes many patterns. The herons spend less time hunting in the now-icy ponds, where frogs and fish seldom surface. Instead the heron and other feathered predators often head for the meadows, where they can catch voles (large field mice) and other tiny prey, even worms. The meadow may not look like prime habitat, but sometimes I see the big birds duke it out in the sky, fighting each other to hold the high ground there.
The Backyard Science group regularly publishes The Daily Bucket, which features observations of the world around us. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds, flowers and anything natural or unusual are worthy additions to the Bucket and its comments. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to as we try to understand the patterns that are unwinding around us.
Below the amorous orange snakes, I struggle to illustrate these winter battles, with my new camera.
It's not breathtaking habitat like old growth forest, or a surging river. It's level acres of unkempt fescue grass, a foot or two long. A handful of 20-foot pines that would be modest elsewhere, dominate this grassland. If your eyesight is good, you can see a (pre-zoom-lense) itty bitty image of a 3-foot-tall white egret hunting voles in the center of the following picture. All pics are in Lighthouse mode, so clicken to embiggen and sharpen.
If you got down on your hands and knees, or if you had a hawk's eyesight, it would look like the following older photo, with little vole freeways carpeting the understory. The winter's rains have knocked away the grass and exposed the voles' passages, and also flooded out some of the voles' burrows, leaving them vulnerable.
I haven't seen the egret there for awhile. It was there every day for a week. Sometimes I see, from a distance, a heron and a hawk or two grappling in the sky here, battling for the high ground; a perch at the very top of one of those pines.
Thanks to my new camera and zoom lens, I finally got a good look at the hawks who badgered away their competition, and are currently at the literal top of this food chain.
As KenBee often says, they are probably redtails. They've been a devoted couple for a few years now.
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" will be posted every Saturday at 1pm and Wednesday at 3:30 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.
Now It's Your Turn What's interesting to you? Please post your own observations and your general location in the comments.
Thank you for reading. I'll work this morning so I'll respond to comments before lunchtime,