Life In These Here Parts

And hello again! I'm now set up with my own internet service, so I'm all set to keep this thing up-to-date -- at least as well as I have in the past. To start off this season, I thought I'd give you a little sample of the wildlife I run across in my wanderings around the park. This first critter is a male tarantula, caught ambling across the path to our work place "bathroom" (an area screened off by a stand of creosote bushes). I've had one of these crawling around in my hands before -- thanks to friends Jennifer and Romaldo -- but, as I was at work, I figured I'd just take his picture this time around. How would I explain that to the park medic?


Here's one of our residents that everybody comes to see -- a collared peccary, more commonly known as a javelina. These guys may look like pigs, but they're actually more closely related to a hippopotamus than a pig, if you can believe that. This one in particular is marked for either removal from the park or extermination, as it seems he's become a nuisance around the Rio Grande Village Campground. He's reported to have a somewhat foul temper and will charge and chase people for no good reason at all. I didn't know this when I stealthily creeped up on him under cover of a large cottonwood, but it's a good thing I kept its trunk between me and him. What a fun experience that would've been! NOT!!!


On a much more peaceful and elegant note, here is a frequenly seen denizen of these parts, the common roadrunner. The native Mexican Indian population used to call this little fellow paisano -- or "little friend" -- due to their tendency to follow herds of cattle, hunting for insects stirred up in their wake. When they move from place to place, they always walk/run stretched out fully, then upon stopping, they fluidly move to an erect stance as if hydraulically operated. It's really quite amusing to watch.


And here we have -- if you look closely at the motorhome's hub -- a California towhee pecking at what I have no idea. I kept hearing this metallic "bink, bink, bink, bonk, bonk, bonk" the other day and looked out to find him pecking three times at the rim and three times at the hub. He almost never deviated from this pattern. You can click on the photo to get a closer look at him, but the shutter speed was so slow he's still a bit blurry.


To close out today's entry, I thought I'd leave you with not a wildlife shot, but a rather interesting shot of a passing storm cloud, which I believe moved on to the east and dumped almost 8" of rain on my cousin Carol in Harwood, near San Antonio. We got spit on a little bit out of all this, but didn't get any real measurable precipitation. Great mood shot, though, don't you think?

Well, that's that for this portion of the program. As I'm back online at home now, you can bet -- or hope -- there'll be more updates coming along as soon as they happen. That's the theory, anyway. Stay tuned!