Wild burros give me the evil eye
A chukar partridge goes about its businessCopyright 2008 Lydia Hinshaw
TWIN FALLS, ID -- We are on the road again, back to some serious vacationing after spending the weekend with my brother and sister-in-law in Tonopah, NV.
It's always good to visit Tonopah, a quiet little town where we are pampered by family and entertained by the resident canines, including a 7-month old puppy who shows all signs of becoming a very large dog.
We always take at least one bouncing junket into the wilderness when we're in Nevada, and we always see something interesting. Saturday it was feral burros who glared at us from the sagebrush alongside the dirt road we were traveling. There were probably a dozen or more of them, descendants of escaped work animals bought to the area many years ago.
Back in town, I kept sneaking outside with a camera whenever I heard the clucking of the chukars who were hanging out in the neighborhood. Chukar partridges are non-natives, imported into several western states from eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Their job is to get shot at. They prefer running to flying and they can run all day through difficult terrain, which makes them frustrating to hunt. And to photograph.
Every time they spotted me they took off. They traveled just as fast up the steep hillside as down it. I managed to isolate this one in a frame and the camera stopped most of his movement except for a blurry foot.
I like to think of these as pretty smart birds, since they've elected to live in town, where they don't have to worry about getting shot.
It's always good to visit Tonopah, a quiet little town where we are pampered by family and entertained by the resident canines, including a 7-month old puppy who shows all signs of becoming a very large dog.
We always take at least one bouncing junket into the wilderness when we're in Nevada, and we always see something interesting. Saturday it was feral burros who glared at us from the sagebrush alongside the dirt road we were traveling. There were probably a dozen or more of them, descendants of escaped work animals bought to the area many years ago.
Back in town, I kept sneaking outside with a camera whenever I heard the clucking of the chukars who were hanging out in the neighborhood. Chukar partridges are non-natives, imported into several western states from eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Their job is to get shot at. They prefer running to flying and they can run all day through difficult terrain, which makes them frustrating to hunt. And to photograph.
Every time they spotted me they took off. They traveled just as fast up the steep hillside as down it. I managed to isolate this one in a frame and the camera stopped most of his movement except for a blurry foot.
I like to think of these as pretty smart birds, since they've elected to live in town, where they don't have to worry about getting shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment