Dusting Off the Lens

It’s been a while since I hauled my camera out. The actual one. Not the cell phone one. A couple days ago, I discovered our hawks are nesting in a tree on the lot line

This tree, as a matter of fact

They’ve never nested here before. I suspected they were in the woods to the north of our property, but never knew for sure. Perhaps this is a new pair.

A closer view of the nest, minus mom & dad.

In any case, I love birds of prey. Always have. I’m thrilled to have the hawks and the Great Horned Owls on our place. Seeing the nest so close, inspired me to dust off my camera and see if I could get any decent shots of the parents. I decided I’d make a little walk-about out of it, and introduce Dillon to some of his new world.

Unfortunately, this is the only shot I was able to get of the very vigilant parents.

Not wanting to pester them into leaving, I turned my lens elsewhere.

A much tinier nest, re-purposing sheep’s hair.

“I’m teething, so, yes, I put everything in my mouth. Why do you ask?”

Sparrows don’t seem to be as shy as our hawks.

Dillon, investigating the trail through the Thorn Forest.

“Hey! You weren’t going to leave me here, were you?!!?”

When you’re older, Dillon.

And, an unsolicited shout-out to the ABI folks. If you are in need of a small manure spreader, I suggest you invest in one of these beauties. It had its inaugural run this morning, and performed far better than we expected. Those of you who’ve had to deal with compacted sheep manure know how much like a concrete slab it can get. I never expected a spreader of this size to be able to pulverize it like it did. The barn is cleaned out, my pasture is fertilized. Easy-peasy.