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Sunday, February 20, 2011 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM

Morning at the Pond, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, February 18, 2011
Morning at the Pond, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, February 18, 2011

Territorial display

One often sees Sandhill Cranes jumping and bobbing and fluffing their feathers and generally making a ruckus settling territorial disputes. They can be quite entertaining. The International Crane Foundation offers a nicely illustrated field guide to crane behavior {link} (pdf) that describes the meaning of these displays.

Night camp

Site 10 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM

They do not Intrude on Each Other

The San Francisco Mountain lies in northern Arizona, above Flagstaff, and its blue slopes and snowy summit entice the eye for a hundred miles across the desert. About its base lie the pine forests of the Navajos, where the great red-trunked trees live out their peaceful centuries in that sparkling air. The pinons and scrub begin only where the forest ends, where the country breaks into open, stony clearings and the surface of the earth cracks into deep canyons. The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do not intrude on each other. ...

The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather, p265, Houghton Mifflin Co paperback edition 1987

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