Find and reconnect with friends, old and new.
Enjoy playtime and exercise.
Ponder new recipes.
Try new dishes.
Go with grace and beauty.
Enjoy life.
New adventures? Dive right in.
Soar to new heights.
Keep alert for danger.
Greet each day in a positive way.
Could be a good year, don’t you think?
I think I see him. I hope he’s got my bag of grubs.
Yes, you’re right! And I see the big sack full of hazelnuts for me.
Er, ah, HERE I AM, Santa. OVER HERE!
Where? I don’t see anything.
When he does come, I hope he brings me a lot of rosehips. Wonder what they’d taste like. In the winter I get tired of these holly berries and mountain ash berries. But maybe the rosehips are too fuzzy inside. They look good though.
Oooooh! Look! He’s got sleigh troubles. His reindeer are conking out. Should’ve got a Tesla Sleigh. With inflation, the price of reindeer food today is high, even for Santa. But even so, the cost of the Tesla Sleigh itself is enough to break the bank.
Yeah, he’s in trouble all right. Look! He’s turning around. Sniff… there goes that box of dog biscuits I asked for.
I see that. Hmm … I think I hear them complaining about being hitched up so close. Something about social distancing.
Sigh! No herring for supper tonight. Not by special delivery, anyway.
Well, I never! He’s going back to the North Pole. There goes that bunch of tree bugs I asked for.
I’ll go round up some recr-hoots.
Hey, you. Santa’s looking to hire you, Al and the Paca, to be his reindeer substitutes.
What’s that you say? You don’t play second fiddle? Huh! You’d think that in the spirit of Christmas, you’d oblige an old man. I see you are related to those llamas next door with all their llammering. You’re just lazy, the All Packa ya. Well, see if I give a hoot.
Here’s a likely crew.
Say, would you pronghorns like to save Santa’s bacon tonight?
But we’re in Montana.
That’s okay. He’ll have to go by there when he limps home with his rainydeer crew and drops them off. Maybe you can hop on and help get them home before the nightshift begins. Thanks a lot.
I’ve been watching and I don’t see him coming back yet. Must be in the workshop, adjusting the harnesses to the new team.
I think I see him now, with his fresh crew of pronghorns. Funny-looking reindeer. Better than nothing, I guess.
Oh, this is so exciting. We just can’t sit still.
Let’s go meet him.
Now settle down or Santa will think you’re all quackers.
Look how well behaved we are; black and white, eating at the same table together. One big happy flock. We’re a “blended flock.”
Oh, listen to you guys. You think it’s easy being the black swan of the family?
Whaddaya mean? You think you’ve got it bad? You try being a rat. All I did was chew on a few of those lovely black licorice cords in the truck and WHAM! They lifted the trunk and exposed me to the elements. But they won’t see me hiding in the corner. Bet you can’t see me either. I’ve got a really good hiding place in the door well too. I’ll just wait there until Santa brings new wiring for me to nibble on.
One thing we all got for Christmas – not sure if Santa had anything to do with it – was darn cold weather. So when Santa had to fly back to change his Rainydeer tires for the more heavy-duty Pronghorn brand, he asked the North Wind to provide some Puddle Puzzles for us to play with while we await his return.
Actually, I thought the puzzles were more like A-maze-ing. You just try it. See if you can find a path out of this maze.
I hope your Christmas holiday time is amazing too.
Did you find the rat in the truck? Look on the far back right-hand corner of the picture (actually the left side of the truck).
“Junior! What are you looking at down there?”
“Nothing interesting, Ma. I’m just wondering who’s going to clean up all the mess those seagulls are making. After eating all those herring and the herring roe, I bet it’s pretty slick and hummy on that roof.”
“The squawking and shrieking is ear piercing. They have no pride. Slithering around on that roof as they digest their shreds of herring. But I guess they do a good job of cleaning up the beaches. If only they’d clean up the roof after they … you know …. But wait! What’s that I hear the seagulls saying?”
The seiners wait in the harbour for the signal that the herring are fat enough, with a high enough roe count, to allow the roe herring fishery to proceed.
Rafts of sea lions are waiting too. They will take advantage of the herring being “rounded up” in the purse seines of the big boats. Many herring “escape,” right into the waiting jaws of these huge mammals.
Some of them like the fishy smell coming from small power boats and are trying to investigate up close.
Seagulls wheel around the seiners trying to grab any herring that swims too close to the surface.
This immature eagle is about to find out that the beach will be full of bounty as roe and herring and bycatch float ashore. These foods provide much-needed calories for the eagles especially at their nesting time, which happens very soon after the herring fishery. Healthy eagles will have healthy chicks.
And let’s not forget that as much as we scoff at seagulls and their shrieking habits, they are the janitors of the beaches, cleaning up every bit of mess.
Once the carnage has been cleaned up, the animals have to scrounge what food they can until next year’s feast.
Then I zoomed in on it and got a close up of it, but had no place to steady the camera and just took my chances.
In a second closeup, I saw that he had his beak open and I could see its tongue, but I see that the photo is quite small on the blog, so if you want to see the eagle’s tongue, you’ll have to click on the photo to make it bigger. Even so, it will be hard to see.
These birds are much bigger than they look. If you had one sitting beside you with its wings spread out, tip to tip those wings could span 8 feet. The bird might weigh about 14 lbs., the size of a small turkey.
Anyone walking a small dog or worse yet, letting it run around in their backyard in eagle territory, had better watch out for it. They make a nice snack. Although eagles are not water birds, they will do what they have to do to procure food. I have seen an eagle with a loon in its beak, dragging it across the surface of the water as the eagle swims with one wing paddling like a lifeguard saving a drowning person, until it got to shore where it cold devour the bird. I have seen it do the same after swooping down to pick up a coho salmon just below the surface of the water. They are incredibly strong birds.
At this time of year, the herring come close to shore to spawn. This means a bounty of food for the eagles. You can see these birds showing up in the tall trees near the beaches in greater numbers to await the arrival of the herring.
Eagles are not totally scavengers, but they are like a cleanup crew of a different kind. They are opportunists and will eat what is already dead, but they pick off sick or injured animals, whether they be land- or sea-birds, small mammals, or fish. A crippled duck won’t suffer long with eagles around.
This is why you will often see eagles high up in a tree. They observe a large area, watching for stragglers in a flock of birds, or any weakness in animals small enough for them to pick up.
This raccoon may have been sick, injured, or dead, and became an eagle’s meal.
“Hmm…. There must be a little morsel left.”
“He’s messed up my nice white head feathers, but it’s worth it. What’s a bit of blood when you can fill your boots like this?”
“Just a few tidbits left. I hope I can still fly up into that tree with my stomach so full.”
Once when I was playing with Ruby, our late springer spaniel (then a small puppy), in the backyard, two eagles had been sitting unnoticed by me, in a nearby fir tree. They swooped down low across the yard, heading for tiny Ruby. I ran for Ruby and spread out my arms to provide an “umbrella” over her, and the eagles lifted up like two jets making an aborted landing. If I hadn’t been out there with her, she would have been eagle food that day.
So take care if you live in eagle country and have small dogs or cats.
People are all different. If you think about it though, they fall into two main categories: loners, and groupies.
Are you a loner? Do you like your own company better than that of others? Are you independent, happy to spend time alone, thinking and musing, or doing solitary activities? Do you like the quietness of nature? Do you easily amuse yourself with thoughts and puzzles, hiking, fishing, or walking alone?
A lot of well adjusted people are solitary types and love to be that way.
But some hate spending time alone. I’ve heard them say, “It’s too quiet. I’m lonely. I’m bored. I’m afraid to be alone, especially at night.”
Nothing makes them happier than when company is coming.
And then there are those who HAVE to be with a lot of “friends” or even just in a crowd. They say it makes them feel good when they’re surrounded by people. Life is one big party, and when the band goes home for the night, the groupies still want to continue being together, seeking each other’s approval in almost everything they think or do. “Wait for me! I just have to check how many ‘Likes’ I have on my blog.”
Photo: Courtesy of Paul Knettig.
Whichever category we lean towards, loners or groupies, maybe we’re just like the rest of the animals on this planet.
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