A Variety of Birds, and a Couple of Moose

The past week has just flown by. We were only going to stay here for a few days, but here it is the end of the week and we still haven’t gone anywhere. I love being able to have jello plans, rather than rushing from one spot to the next.

We’ve been searching for wildlife early mornings, and late evenings and have been semi successful. There has been a Variety of Birds, and a Couple of Moose, which is always nice. These two nice bull moose have made appearances down the road, one bull is pretty impressive already and they still have lots of growing to do. I can’t wait to see what he looks like in the fall.

The birds of course are always fun, and usually they are easy to find. I came across these two young mountain bluebirds the other night. They seemed like they were squabbling, perhaps they couldn’t share the one branch.

One morning we took a drive and found this guy that was hunting bugs. He would sit on something high up, then swoop down when he saw something.

The mergansers and I scared each other one morning as I walked the river. Mom starts quacking, the little ones start paddling. So funny to see. They can’t fly yet, so this is as fast they can go.

I saw this raven strutting on a log that morning too. I love these guys.

“Yep….I AM all that and a bag of chips.”

Wednesday evening we went to the Plein Air for the Park exhibit. We have a friend who paints for the event, and we wanted to see his work, and all the other paintings too. Plus, it’s free wine and hors d’oeuvres. On the way there we saw this Swainson’s hawk looking for some dinner.

We didn’t see him catch anything, but I’m sure he was successful.

That evening the sunset was so beautiful. The colors were a soft pastel over the mountains, it was amazing. I had my camera, but only me telephoto lens, which is not what you need when shooting a sunset. I was still able to frame a fairly good shot though.

The next morning we found a swainson’s hawk again. He was perched on an old barn, and sadly I had to shoot into the sun to get him. Not ideal, but still OK. This shot is for my 2 Lil Owls prompt of “on a shelf.” It’s about as close as I will get to something on a shelf.

Then….take off.

This was a weird thing, I have never seen before. These two young ravens were squabbling with each other, and one of them kept laying on the ground belly up, like a submissive dog position.

This went on for about 5 minutes, then they finally flew off. Animals are always so interesting.

And finally, the swans are back with cygnets again. Last year they had 6, then 5 and ended up with only 3. They are starting with 3 this year, but these guys are growing fast and are hopefully all going to make it.

These images are for Frank and Ann.

We are thinking of leaving here on Monday to head to Idaho near West Yellowstone. We don’t have to be in Bozeman until August 1st, so we still have a little time.

We heard back from our insurance company already. They have the estimate, and what they will pay all ready to go. I think the check may already be in the mail. It’s crazy, we sent pictures through a cell phone app and they do the whole thing that way. If we find more damage when we take it in….we are pretty sure the roof is damaged too, then we file another claim at that time. Pretty easy I would say.

Well, have a great weekend everyone. Get out there and enjoy something.