Mobile, Alabama: An Addition to the Carcass Gallery

 

 

Cedar waxwing, dead. Mobile, Alabama. February 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Although I didn't touch the body, it emitted an essence of still-warm plumpness. 

I found a small stick and I gently moved it off the sidewalk pavement so as to save it from the indignity of an unintentional crush by a pedestrian's footfall. 

How did it die? There was no evidence of injury. Note the small berry in the upper right corner of the photo. If it is a nandina berry, this can kill cedar waxwings that binge on them. But is it a nandina? I don't know.

The cedar waxwing is the newest addition to the We Stop for Carcasses collection:

 

El Paso: A Roadrunner Tease

Upper Tom Lea Park, El Paso, Texas. July 2017.

July 2017

El Paso's Upper Tom Lea Park, albeit tiny, always delights the visitor.

Upper Tom Lea Park, El Paso, Texas. July 2017.

Dusk, and then nightfall, on the last day of my sister's visit was no exception.

Upper Tom Lea Park, El Paso, Texas. July 2017.

One reason was the roadrunner sighting, which I only barely captured on video the evening before:

Roadrunners fascinate.

My second attempt to get that bird is here:

Damn it.

El Paso: Dove Tail Memoriam

Dead dove on UTEP parking lot. El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Found on the pavement of a UTEP parking lot.

The upright tail. Yellow corn nuggets spilled out of its gullet.

An addition to the carcass gallery:

El Paso: Some Birds, Alive and Dead

Pigeon, El Paso Library Main Branch, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

 

Sparrow, El Paso Library, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

 

Pigeon, El Paso Library Main Branch, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

 Some patrons of El Paso Library's Main Branch above.

Below, the flock of El Paso Library pigeons plump up against a chilly El Paso wind:

And a dried dead bird in Segundo Barrio in October, a new addition to the carcass gallery:

Dead bird, Segundo Barrio, El Paso, Texas, October 2016.

Lounging pigeon, Segundo Barrio, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

A fat pigeon lounging on a Segundo Barrio lawn one October afternoon.

Colorado: Longmont: An Osprey Nest

Osprey nest by Twin Peaks Golf Course, Ninth Street, Longmont, CO. May 2016.

When we humans are good, we are very very good.

It gladdens my heart when I see examples of people creating a safe space for us to co-exist with other wildlife.**

This osprey nest in Longmont is an example.  It's on Ninth Street by the Twin Peaks Golf Course.

Another osprey nest in Longmont - at the Boulder County Fairgrounds - is the center of rapt(or) attention via webcam. Indeed, in 2015, the "ratings" soared when two female ospreys battled it out over a man.

Osprey nest by Twin Peaks Golf Course, Ninth Street, Longmont, CO. May 2016.

**Disclosure: I am not a proponent of the current fashion in feral cat management, but that's a conversation for some other day and maybe some other forum.

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala: La Iguana Perdida: A Hummingbird Morning

While I sat in my favorite chair overlooking the lake at La Iguana Perdida, a hummingbird made its floral rounds.

I like how it looked right at me at 0:18.

Some other hummingbirds I've met: 

• At Oliver Lee Memorial State Park in New Mexico, outside Alamogordo here. 
• At Leasburg Dam State Park in New Mexico here. 
• At Dripping Springs Natural Area in New Mexico here. 

 

Hummingbird in the octotillo, Leasburg Dam State Park, New Mexico. 2013.

 A story of Lake Atitlan hummingbirds here.

Antigua, Guatemala: Additions to the Carcass Gallery

Verily, I confess that I collect carcasses. Pictorially, that is.

So it was that when I encountered a wee lil' possum (or large rat?) and a baby chick, both of which had departed to their heavenly rewards, I took a photo.


Is this a baby possum? Or a rat? I was, and still am, fascinated at how cleanly picked its torso is. What critter could have made such a tidy meal of this little one?

Dead baby possum? Or rat? Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

A baby bird:

Dead baby bird. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

My Spanish teacher told me she knows of people who collect road kill. That's their thing. I don't remember if they eat it or skin it and display the pelt or what. My Spanish teacher and I talked of many odd things.

The up-to-date carcass gallery here: