I know I just did a buffer post, but then I realized that I was about to hit another meaningless milestone and decided to sneak this one in to facilitate it. We already know I’m shameless.
These are just a couple of photos that I had in the blog folder with no real topic to attach them to, so, yeah…
At the neighborhood pond, one of the female mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) sports a much paler and muted color scheme, seen here before. One of the (human) residents thought this might be from hybridization, but I more suspect just a genetic anomaly. She’s never lacking in male companionship at least, so maybe we’ll get more of an answer just a little later on. But I liked how the background rendered on this one.
This is kind of a follow-up to a previous post, now that the pine pollen is much reduced (the pollen I’m most allergic to seems to be peaking, however.) Just being fartsy, pay it no mind.
The ‘main’ Japanese maple out front (we have, what, five of them now?) is simply exploding into foliage this spring, and just after the rains that greatly reduced the pine pollen inundation, this juvenile green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) reluctantly posed for a portrait.
And one that’s a tad embarrassing.
Just yesterday, I found this rock dove (Columba livia) perched atop the shed right here at Walkabout Estates. The coloration is impressive enough, but also, there are practically no rock doves (virtually always just called ‘pigeons’) in the area anyway, so we suspected it was domesticated. I tried to get a clear view of the legs to see if there was a band, but it flew off at my approach. The embarrassing part is, I was already thinking that this slow, high-visibility bird hanging around was going to entice the bird-eating accipiters that are in the area, and as the dove flew off, The Girlfriend saw a hawk fly from an observation point nearby and pause on a branch almost directly over my head before darting away; I saw nothing. I mean, they can be very hard to spot in the heavily-wooded environs, so I likely would have missed it anyway, but even while thinking of the hawks I never bothered to even look, and missed the one that was ridiculously close. Ah well. Hindsight (and this post) is 20/20.