Mixed messages

stop

Beach hieroglyphics

tread

Santa Rosa

santa-rosa

Closed ports, sunken boats. The annual few days of very windy.

Foreboding

foreboding

The end of the veranillo, or little summer, rolling in from the west ahead of Nostalgia Night. Which is really just an excuse to party in the middle of winter, since much of the pop music played on the radio in Uruguay is at least twenty years old already.

Water dog

My dog wanders near the dunes. A couple approaches her with a large black Labrador Retriever. My dog slinks away. The big dog starts toward me, as if to say hello, then walks into the water and plops down.

Because it’s there, I guess.

The mirage ships

boat-mirage-1

Weeks away from being here five years, walking most days with dogs to the beach, and I’ve never seen this. We’ve had a couple lovely days in the mid to high 70s (°F), but wet and colder weather is due to return presently.

boat-mirage-2

Mont Saint-Michel

mt-st-michel

Well, sort of. Not my doing. I like the little posts lining the entrance.

Shadow

shadow-dog

Planter logs

Since I had both dogs on leashes, I walked the way I used to, before. It has been a while. The big eucalyptus tree has finally been cut up, and some of the logs turned into planters. Interesting idea.

Green-barred woodpecker

After shooting the short video, I closed the door and the bird flew away from the car …

… only to settle on a chair outside my office window (also a favorite of the cat).

Green-barred Woodpecker (Colaptes melanochloros)

French: Pic vert et noir
German: Grünbindenspecht
Spanish: Carpintero Real or Carpintero Nuca Roja (Red-naped Woodpecker)
Other common names: Green-barred Flicker; Golden-breasted Woodpecker (melanolaimus group)

(Thanks to Jim Wiemann for the identification)