A New Year's tradition is that we're out of the house to do a drive around the Steens Mts to the south. We hustled around so as to make it back for the second half of the Rose Bowl game. Anyway, Cookie insisted the gear go along, a practice that slows ones progress considerably.

Single digits all day, but there were a few things out and about.

Ran into some sheep, but there was nothing of substance. One ear tag (top-right-center)and one packing a GPS collar (right).


A good 4 By pretty well fuzzed up in the cold.


An unlucky meadow vole.


Ringnecks than never ever pose.


And a couple GH Owls that never seem to have a welcoming gaze.




One can hit the "Reply" button to access Photbucket's 1024 x ??? resolution images and then back out.

Have a good one,

Seriously... I can't find an Owl around here to save my life....

Nice, damnit...

you guys suck... ;-p

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Look for a small isloated grove of trees in some barren 5-square mile block of country. Come at it from the sunny side and quietly stroll through. We hit about 5 in a 2-acre patch. Pretty easy for us as we can go for miles without being near a tree.

Some company or help can be benefical too. Get set up etc and have a partner make a little noise. Else they simply sit up there with their eyes closed.


Thanks, I'll pass that along to Cookie.

Have a good one,

Ha... I'm not far from the Madison River... a there's miles of trees...

Not to mention on slope of the Madison Bench there's oodles of them as well...


grrrrr.....

Crop that Sheep photo 10X20 or 1X3 format...lighten the shadows... see what it looks like... there's something there...

Same with the songdog...

Nice pictures

Great photos! You're lucky to have such a variety of species in your "backyard"!!

Eric

barid and EricM:

Thanks for the comments. Our saving grace is that we have a really big back yard. There was about 200+ miles of travel involved in the New Years run. In that distance, however, I think we saw a total of 4 other rigs. Nice quiet country.

Have a good one,

4 rigs in 200 miles... I wish... I gotta hike 6 hours to get that kind of alone...

Cocadori:

A 10,000+ square mile county (Harney) where about 60% of the 7,200 residents live in the paired communities of Burns/Hines. About 70% of our lands are in the public domain (BLM, USFS, and USF&W). Leave town and one can go a long way between porch lights. Lucky to have landed here for the bulk of my career.

I like images best of the cluster of ewes and the mule deer. Compositionally, considerations may be to crop off the dark rock above the sheep, and add more to the sides of the deer as the buck seems crowded on the left. Also, just a touch of warmer white balance to the mule deer image may be added. You and Cookie are fortunate to have the variety of wildlife nearby.

RedRabbit:

Thanks for the constructive comments. Cropping and white balance is stuff we can work on. Adding to the sides of the 4x4 will be a challenge though.

Changing subjects - Is the polar vortex making it to your country? We've only caught the western edge of the recent big freezes here in eastern Oregon, so the wood pile is holding up quite well.

1' - It has been rather nice since we received 18" of snow on Dec 31. It has been 50* in the afternoons. It is supposed to rain lightly this weekend with a snow level of about 7500'