Flowers and shadows

Flowers in the afternoon sun, on the dog walk.

Tero babies

I spent an hour and a half in the park yesterday watering thirsty young trees. And yet today I see for the first time that the teros have two babies – checking out the main path that crosses from one side to the other. We stopped here, before mama and papa decided to make a fuss!

Dead possum-how?

A dead comedreja (possum) in an area on the side of the house fenced against dog entrance, except that Bandido the Shi Tzuh gets in through an opening I left for the cat (now long gone). The compost bins are on the other side of the fence, so what this one was doing here is a mystery, as is, once again, how it died. I don’t think the little dog would have done it in.

Springing to life again

I cut open a squash, itself from a volunteer plant, to discover it starting all over again.

The next day, an equally enthusiastic onion.

Must be spring.

A hawk lost its lunch?

On the dog walk yesterday, there was suddenly a flurry of interest by the dogs, but no grabbing, chewing, or rolling. Just a fresh, disemboweled chicken carcass in the middle of nowhere. Syd thought I should show its location with a map photo, but no, trust me. Middle. Of. Nowhere.

Best guess is that it became a raptor feast.

What is the correct thing to do…

…when you find a large dead seal on the beach?

Bark at it. Because of course.

Cutter ants harvesting acacia flowers

Busy little ants harvesting acacia flowers, with a brief interruption from Jordan.

Hornero nests

The other day I saw a hornero nest, broken, on the railing of a walkway through the dunes to the beach. You can see pieces on the ground. Probably broken by a human being of the juvenile variety, it begs a question: how could the hornero birds who built it think this was a good location?

Today I saw this: two hornero nests, side by side. Years ago I was told that horneros used to build their nests with the opening facing east for the morning sun, but with the increase in electromagnetic pollution, they had lost that sense of direction. I don’t know if it’s true, but the opening of the upper nest is pointing north.

Mystery visitor(s)

When you come out in the morning and realize that *something* has been wandering around on your glass table.

Because orders.

Time has told. Despite the tree now posing no threat, they arrived early this morning to destroy it. Why, I asked. Because orders.

And so, just like that, the end of a tree that sprouted around 1936.