What's outside of your picture window today?

Posted by John, Volunteer Mentor @johnbishop, Nov 25, 2020

As we get ready for the real winter to show up and COVID-19 still playing a major part in our lives I like to spend moments of my day de-stressing about what's going on in the world today. All I have to do is look out the window and observe some of natures beautiful creatures, how they interact and ponder how small it makes my troubles seem. Sometimes I may even get the opportunity to take a photo or two. How about you? Anything going on outside of your window(s) that you want to share?

For those members that have the ability to size your photos before you upload them to the discussion, may I suggest using the following sizes:
– 500 x 335 pixels (landscape)
– 210 x 210 pixels (square)

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@vellen

A few more sunsets and the Roan Plateau I find to be beautiful. It's near Grand Junction.

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@vellen Wow, those are more great sunsets and clouds! Love the Roan Plateau too! Good stuff! 🙂

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@californiazebra

@vellen Wow, those are more great sunsets and clouds! Love the Roan Plateau too! Good stuff! 🙂

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Thank you. I love living here but have gotten less active. I did see some pretty pink clouds last night and I will start watching the time and seeing if I can capture more pretties.

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I noticed an an orange light cast on my bedroom
window so went to take a picture with my cell phone.
Sunrise Colorado

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The first fawns on the year have capered through our yard twice, but I wasn't fast enough to grab a camera either time. Because a deer herd lives on and near our acreage, plus elk often come to visit, I train all my dogs when I first get them to never growl, bark at, or chase deer, and the deer have learned that our yard is a safe place for them. Recently, one doe has begun to follow us as we walk down in the afternoon to check our mailbox a quarter-mile west. She's often just a few feet behind us, understands that the big blond dog who doesn't even wear a collar most of the time will never bother her. This fellow takes deer seriously: if one comes into the yard in front of the house when I let him out in the morning, he walks slowly and quietly over to the driveway and up into the back yard. He now does that if the resident heron's in the creek, or if mallards are having breakfast on the grass. Although our yard's not fenced, a huge marsh separates it from the road; Logan knows that he can't walk across the driveway culvert toward the road without permission.

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@alive

Thank you, Lori! I have a teapot collection on top of my cabinets in the kitchen. I love them very much - they have such beautiful shapes and designs! My husband wouldn’t let me use any of my teapots for this project, so I had a fun time shopping at Goodwill stores in Tucson, Phoenix and Green Valley, searching for my pieces. That’s one nice thing about all the retirees and snowbirds in Arizona - they donate some nice china!

The dog is very real. Her name is Willow.

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@alive, @loribmt, @johnbishop, @gingerw, @grammy82, @language5, and all...My goodness, what a plethora of lovely, wonderful pictures from all of you folks and more! I'm enjoying them all. You are each blessed to live in such interesting and beautiful areas. Send more and more, please. I'll look for sunsets, too. We get some pretty good ones here, I'm just rarely out at sunset to get pics. I'll make the effort.
Blessings to all. Elizabeth

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@ess77

@alive, @loribmt, @johnbishop, @gingerw, @grammy82, @language5, and all...My goodness, what a plethora of lovely, wonderful pictures from all of you folks and more! I'm enjoying them all. You are each blessed to live in such interesting and beautiful areas. Send more and more, please. I'll look for sunsets, too. We get some pretty good ones here, I'm just rarely out at sunset to get pics. I'll make the effort.
Blessings to all. Elizabeth

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More pics from my walk tonight. The coyote was resting in a garden and then stretching without a care in the world so I think he already had dinner. The squawking crows and chattering squirrel in a tree both let me know he was there. I was rushing the pic so the garden pic is a little fuzzy. He decided to take off when I got about 20 feet away. I've seen some coyotes with gorgeous markings in here. This one was smaller and a bit plain looking.

Does anyone know what kind of bird this adorable brown and white one is? It likes to land near me on my walk at night. I love when they flirt.

Love all the photo sharing with fellow nature lovers! Zebra

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I know ducks are a dime a dozen, but I liked these pics of them.

Yesterday I captured 9 young squirrels on video just having the time of their lives running and chasing in and out of gardens and across the path as I walked near the creek. They didn't pay any attention to me at all. They were soooo adorable!

Zebra

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@californiazebra

More pics from my walk tonight. The coyote was resting in a garden and then stretching without a care in the world so I think he already had dinner. The squawking crows and chattering squirrel in a tree both let me know he was there. I was rushing the pic so the garden pic is a little fuzzy. He decided to take off when I got about 20 feet away. I've seen some coyotes with gorgeous markings in here. This one was smaller and a bit plain looking.

Does anyone know what kind of bird this adorable brown and white one is? It likes to land near me on my walk at night. I love when they flirt.

Love all the photo sharing with fellow nature lovers! Zebra

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Nice photos! Though I'm not liking coyotes in my neighborhood due to the small dogs and cats around 🙃 The bird looks kind of like a Junco. I see them once in awhile around my feeder.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/

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John, remember that coyotes gotta eat, too. Unfortunately, they find cats and small dogs, which never should be allowed to wander away from home, easy prey. For years, there was a coyote who carried his right rear leg; I thought of him was Wiley the Coyote. Every morning, very early, he trotted along our gravel road toward the ocean, only far enough to confirm that it was still there. Then, he came back along the road and used our driveway culvert to cross the big marsh so that he could hunt pine squirrels along the edge of the marsh.

One day, a doe followed by two very young fawns came racing along the road, with Wiley in pursuit. The doe crossed the marsh using our culvert, and I feared that I'd see something dreadful. About a hundred feet up our driveway, the doe ducked into thick woods, followed by both little fawns. Wiley stopped in the driveway for a moment, then turned and sauntered back out to the road. His coat was always good, and I often saw piles of cat hair where some unfortunate cat who'd been dumped along our road met a bad end. It was obvious that the effort of chasing those little fawns just wasn't worth it for Wiley. I could only blame bad people for all the cats that are dumped or allowed to wander through the woods...remember, I have no close neighbors.

A year ago last fall, I failed to see Wiley. Since he'd been here for years, I assume that he may have died from some problem of aging. Although I hear the coyote pack tune up whenever there's an accident on Hwy 101 and all the emergency vehicles race out of town, I haven't seen Wiley since the fall of 2021, and I've never seen another coyote in our yard or along this section of road. It is possible to see some of the coyotes when I hike back into the hundreds of acres of woods, but they never appear to be threatening to either me or my large dog.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to teach those coyotes to dig out pocket gophers, my yard would look far nicer and be easier to mow!

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@johnbishop

Nice photos! Though I'm not liking coyotes in my neighborhood due to the small dogs and cats around 🙃 The bird looks kind of like a Junco. I see them once in awhile around my feeder.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/

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Hi John @johnbishop

Siri was able to tell me the bird is a Phoebe. There are more that are black and white and I guess those are called Black Phoebes. Such fun birds. I've always called them flirty bird.

Junco was a good guess. I have Juncos here and they are one of my faves! They are pretty small. They are very brave and friendly. They fly up and land right in front of me all the time hoping for some crushed walnuts. They live in my garden hedges.

As for coyotes, I'm with you. We have way too many right now living by the creek and they cruise around the condos every day. They have taken many small dogs right off the leash around here and knocked seniors down doing it. They also grab the squirrels that I am friends with by my condo. The crows always warn me when coyotes are near and saved my small dogs many times. Now that my dogs are gone, I do enjoy getting good pix of coyotes. We have a bunny shortage this year probably because there are too many coyotes so they have expanded their menu. I understand coyotes have to eat, but I'm on team squirrel. They don't have to eat other creatures to survive. Pure love! 🙂

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