2/15/2007

On the periphery of town

A few pics from a couple weeks back on long run on the snowy perimeter trail.

Here is me in front of the well lit footyhills. No need to comment on the tights, the local HS kids are helpful and rarely miss an opportunity to yell insightful things like "nice tights" or "nice ass" or "capital knockers" some such and then guffaw heartily:

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A bit earlier in the run was this nice boulder with burnt tree with the northern los alamos scape in the background. The tree burnt in the cerro grande fire. The boulder is likely a volcanic bomb, yo.

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The tree was festooned with little woodpeckers that were increasingly irritated that I did not continue running along. They would not hold still for a photo, but at one point there were at least 10 maybe 20 in a small area. By the time I took some zoomed photos there were only a few shreiking stalwarts left:

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3 comments:

Scott Clark said...

Looks like acorn woodpeckers--they live in cooperative family groups, and peck old trees full of acorn-storage holes. Lots of fun to watch.

scott in cville va (no acorn woodpeckers here...)

Tarik Saleh said...

Thanks scott.

I don't think we have acorns here, maybe the ubiquitous scrub oaks do, but I can't remember seeing any, I will have to look later in the year.

Those big dead trees are filled with big fat maggots for sure. I see the larger woodpeckers (flickers) carrying them off all the time.

Scott Clark said...

[ geek hat on ]

Just checked the bird counts online, and there are definitely acorn woodpeckers in your area. Must be some acorny goodness for them to find. Not sure what they eat if/when the stored acorns run out.

Robyn (my wife) and I just looked at the click-for-big, and those are definitely acorn woodpeckers.

Anyway, enjoy the mountains and the snow, you lucky #@!$%@#$(%!@$#.