Category: Nature

General observations, generally during dog walks

Another rare Glove Fish sighted!

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Oh, OK, can’t fool you. Obviously it’s the same Glove Fish, a hundred meters further west on the beach.

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However, I did see red and white carnations and candles washed up over several hundred meters. No point letting those go to waste.

When I light them, I will say a silent blessing for whatever their original intended use.

DTOTB double header—two mysteries

I saw two raptors ahead on the beach. They took off, and flew over me. Large, with a most unusual wing pattern: white on the inside, black on the outside. Not just the flight feathers: a clean line in the middle of the wing. Stranger still, what they dining on appears to be another of the same species. Note the beak (head is bent under).

dogs investigate dead bird on beach

I have looked through hundreds of birds online and found nothing resembling these, which I would have guessed to be eagles.

Then this:

dog with dead river dolphin

dead river dolphin on beach

I’ve seen this DTOTB before — any idea what it is?

 Update: river dolphin.

 

Birds and fruit

A year ago, our neighbor in the campo’s flock of guineas was down to two, from six.

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And they were both males. So they got six more, expecting similar attrition (which hasn’t happened). And they’re more sociable than ever. As I was leaning on the gate talking to the neighbor, one, then another, then two more fluttered up next to me.

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Then they all followed us back to our place, where one of these days I’ll get back to making kitchen cabinets. (Found a stainless steel 20-tube 150 liter solar hot water heater the other day for USD 675 🙂

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Then we got back to town, wondering if we had really left a bag of garbage on a chair with the gate open? Last time we did that wandering dogs left a mess. But no, simply several kilos of oranges left for us by another Uruguayan friend.

Nice.

The strangest volunteer

It has been a strange summer, and horrible for gardening.Nonetheless, things I didn’t plant emerge, like this tomato plant

growing out of a hole in the lid to a plumbing junction box.

It’s right below an outdoor shower, so I watered it for a few minutes today. I put the fireplace tool holder to support it several weeks ago,  since it had grown beyond its ability to support itself.