Category: Nature

General observations, generally during dog walks

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.

Puppy plates?

puppy-plates

I spotted a pile of cut-up license plates at the back of the intendencia (town office) in nearby Salinas. Went to take a photo and realized, wait, there’s a tiny black-and-white puppy in the middle of them, licking up water dripping from an air conditioner overhead. I saw nobody around, but knew there must be. It’s where all the equipment is stored, busy place.

After waiting a long time inside (I cleaned almost all the leaves of the office ficus plant to pass the time), I was able to ask about getting wood chips from their cleanup ops.  No estamos chipeando (we are not chipping) was the answer, because it’s too dry, but they took my number and … this is Latin America … I won’t hold my breath for a call from them.

After which I went back by the pile of license plates. No puppy to be seen.