Just a fall color photograph with a Canon 1D:
Archive for December, 2011
A foggy evening in the power-cut November 2011
Posted in Shrubs and Trees, tagged Parthenon AR fall colors 2011 on December 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Sunrise and sunset over Reynolds Mountain
Posted in Mountain Scenery, tagged Reynolds Mountain Parthenon sunrise and sunset on December 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Reynolds mountain is about 12 miles long at the ridge and stretches from Highway 327 just north of Parthenon to intersect with Shiloh Mountain to the west. There are formidable foothills all along the southern path of the mountain carved through eons of time by the action of the Little Buffalo River. Because of it’s length and the position of my home I can view sunrise and sunset over the mountain during winter months.
The rising Little Buffalo River at dawn in November 2011
Posted in The River, tagged Little Buffalo Parthenon Arkansas Boston Mountains on December 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Rains the week before Thanksgiving brought the rivers and creeks up a little; enough to make on pretty dawn picture near Parthenon, Arkansas:
The desolation of the river bottoms in mid-winter fog
Posted in Mountain Scenery, tagged Little Buffalo River freezing fog near Murray AR. on December 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Just a picture of the freezing fog at dawn on the Little Buffalo River bottoms near my home; it was as quiet as it looks. The only sound was the flow of the river. Beautiful !!
Today a Red breasted Nuthatch
Posted in Wild Birds on December 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Not common in Arkansas (at least compared to the white breasted species). An intense bundle of energy at your feeder, Red-breasted Nuthatches are tiny, active birds of north woods and western mountains. These long-billed, short-tailed songbirds travel through tree canopies with chickadees, kinglets, and woodpeckers but stick to tree trunks and branches, where they search bark furrows for hidden insects. Their excitable yank-yank calls sound like tiny tin horns being honked in the treetops. Taken with a Canon 7D.
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Size & Shape
A small, compact bird with a sharp expression accentuated by its long, pointed bill. Red-breasted Nuthatches have very short tails and almost no neck; the body is plump or barrel-chested, and the short wings are very broad.
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Color Pattern
Red-breasted Nuthatches are blue-gray birds with strongly patterned heads: a black cap and stripe through the eye broken up by a white stripe over the eye. The underparts are rich rusty-cinnamon, paler in females.
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Behavior
Red-breasted Nuthatches move quickly over trunks and branches probing for food in crevices and under flakes of bark. They creep up, down, and sideways without regard for which way is up, and they don’t lean against their tail the way woodpeckers do. Flight is short and bouncy.
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Habitat
Red-breasted Nuthatches are mainly birds of coniferous woods and mountains. Look for them among spruce, fir, pine, hemlock, larch, and western red cedar as well as around aspens and poplars. In northeastern North America you can also find them in forests of oak, hickory, maple, birch, and other deciduous trees. A more northern species of nuthatch.
RFC Precipitation Analysis (upper Little Buffalo)
Posted in The River, tagged RFC Precipitation parthenon murray deer wayton on December 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »
This is a very accurate (radar estimate of rainfall in a particular region. For instance to see rain fallen in different time periods by zip code.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge2/RFC_Precip/
After the US Precipitation Map comes up, simply put in the zip code, then explore the region desired by click-zooming into the map more deeply. This would indicate the areas around Murray got 3/4″ to 1″ of rain in the 2 days listed:
East Fork Little Buffalo River (Deer to Murray) Gauge
Posted in The River, tagged Esat Fork Little Buffalo Deer to Murray water gauge on December 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Just located this courtesy American Whitewater:
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Gauge2/detail/id/40558/
Thanks, American Whitewater.
Elk cooling off last fall in the Buffalo River
Posted in mammals, tagged Buiffalo River Bull Elks just before RUT 2011 on December 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »
This is the last agreeable moment before the RUT started 2-3 days later. These Bull Elk are enjoying a dip in 95F weather and seem almost friendly. This picture on Labor Day 2011 near Ponca:
December dawn near Parthenon, AR.
Posted in Farms and Homes, tagged December dawn parthenon arkansas valley on December 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Pileated woodpecker in my backyard
Posted in Wild Birds, tagged pileated woodpecker murray valley arkansas northwest on December 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Cool Facts
- The Pileated Woodpecker digs characteristically rectangular holes in trees to find ants. These excavations can be so broad and deep that they can cause small trees to break in half.
- A Pileated Woodpecker pair stays together on its territory all year round. It will defend the territory in all seasons, but will tolerate floaters during the winter.
- The feeding excavations of a Pileated Woodpecker are so extensive that they often attract other birds. Other woodpeckers, as well as House Wrens, may come and feed there.
- The Pileated Woodpecker prefers large trees for nesting. In young forests, it will use any large trees remaining from before the forest was cut. Because these trees are larger than the rest of the forest, they present a lightning hazard to the nesting birds.