Hailey and the Birds

It has been pointed out to me that Hailey has not been prominently featured in several of the last posts, so she decided that she would be a lot more visible today!

We decided to do some bird watching, both in camp and across the state line.  Cibola National Wildlife Refuge is just across the range of mountains to our west, straddling the Arizona/California state line.  The state line there also happens to be the Colorado river, or what is left of it.  The river was channelized and moved into Arizona for a few miles many years ago as a part of flood control and irrigation projects.  The National Wildlife Refuge was established to mitigate the changes and lack of natural flooding and habitat that was lost as a result.  The reserve artificially floods some of the lands, maintains water bodies for waterfowl, bush land for song birds, and plants crops and leaves them in the fields for the waterfowl to eat.

With miles and miles of dry desert all around, it is certainly a popular place for birds to hang out for the winter.

All the photos are taken from inside the truck, as getting out would tend to disturb the feathered residents.

Of course, that didn’t stop my furry partner from crawling out the window onto the hood of the truck in her quest to catch a goose for dinner.  She was quickly re-captured and no goose was harmed during the event.

“Honk, honk - C’mon guys, keep in formation! Where’d ya learn to fly?”

“Hey, where did that Pintail come from? Who’s in charge of air traffic control here?”

Further down the road in the refuge was a field with geese and sand hill cranes.

Many of these large pumps were sucking water out of the channelized river for irrigation of nearby crops.

Meanwhile, back in camp, the doves were apparently mourning.

It was a breezy day, and Hailey was out trying to capture the elusive, rare, striped ‘cord snake’, that was blowing tauntingly in the wind.

Success!