31/01/20. Sandhill Cranes at Whitewater Draw.
Whitewater draw is a special place. I last visited almost two years ago and it was there I heard my first cow bird.; what a miraculous sound that bird makes. At that time it was March/April and the lake areas of Whitewater were all dried up/emptied; with only the central pond (photo above) holding ...
30 01 20. Cochise Lake, Willcox. Sandhill Cranes.
Tens of thousands of sandhill cranes spend their winters in Cochise county, Arizona (and neighbouring areas). Many congregate at Whitewater Draw. I was staying at a hotel in Willcox and had been advised that a visit to Cochise Lake (just a short drive outside of Willcox) would be worthwhile. Since I was planning ...
31/01/20. Kuykendall Cutoff power lines
I was driving from Chiricahua Monument to Rucker Canyon and the route took me down several “primitive roads”. These roads seem to be quite well maintained, but mostly dusty; in this case very red dust. They don’t seem to be frequently travelled, so it’s easy to stop the car every now and then ...
31/01/20. Bonita Creek, Chiricahua Monument.
Chiricahua is an amazing place full of eerie stacked rocks, called “hoodoos”. They are formed when the lower rock layers are softer than the higher layers; wind and water erosion eats away at the lower rock and this results in the appearance of large balancing structures. I went to Bonita Canyon before sunrise and sat ...
31/01/20. Birds along E Rucker Canyon Road, Cochise County, Arizona.
I had spent the earliest part of the day sitting in a wash at Bonita Creek, Chiricahua and listening to the local birds. I left shortly after sunrise as the park was suddenly awash in the sounds of a distant leaf blower. I headed for Rucker Canyon, and my journey took me down ...
27/10/19. Leighton Moss: Grisedale hide very early in the morning.
I went back to the hide for about 5am when I knew there would probably be no people there, and perhaps I could capture the sounds of the deer out of the hide window. The hide faces the pool, the reed beds, and the fields beyond. To get the deer, I really needed to be ...
26/10/19. Leighton Moss: Grisedale hide at dusk.
October is red deer rutting time at Leighton Moss, and so I spent some time on this late afternoon sitting outside Grisedale hide listening to them bellow. Unfortunately, even late in the day the traffic noise by the reserve is unrelenting. The sound of bellowing red deer sits right in the midst of ...
