willows in the open space, wherein Coyote lurks
Some pictures from today. Warmer than yesterday, except for the wind. The wind coming off the mountains is often warm, but not right now. The dog, who comes bundled up without putting anything on, had a fine time on his walk.
yucca pallida; very tolerant of being under large amounts of snow for long periods of time (some yuccas aren’t)
agave mckelveyana recoiling in horror at the temperature. you would too if you had to sit outside all night. it’s fine, though.
winter comes to the Jardin Exotique
cylindropuntia imbricata x kleiniae wearing its holiday decor
still hard to believe that echinocereus knippelianus tolerates my garden ….without proper shriveling.
what a hardy cactus is supposed to do, lose water to prevent cells from freezing. this is echinocereus coccineus White Sands form.
Saxifraga x kellereri ‘Johann Kellerer’ (really); in less than a month this will be covered with raspberry-colored buds. blooms very early,
I bought a few roosting pockets from Garden Talk (a.k.a. Nicke’s), and maybe I’ll get some more, since they were investigated within a day of being hung in the lilacs. I feel sorry for the birds having to freeze their little rear ends off in weather like this.
Of course feeding the birds sometimes brings other visitors. I guess this is feeding the birds, too ….
Cooper’s hawk, I think; taken through doubled-paned, not very clean windows.
I’ll have to get some of those “roosting pockets” – never heard of those! It’s so windy up here on Lookout I’ll have to anchor them from both ends though :-). Great Cooper pictures – what an eye that bird (and the photographer) have. Hopefully he’s picking off starlings rather than juncos.
Originally I used heavy rope to hang them, but squirrels chewed through that, for no reason at all. I found some pieces of Kevlar in the garage and replaced the rope. The squirrels won’t chew through that.
I read that Cooper’s hawks fly through shrubbery to get their prey, which is what they do here (no starlings here), and that injuries to their chests, broken bones, etc., are very common. Pretty startling to have a bird that size fly through the garden.
When red tails and owls land in one of the trees, though, it gets very, very quiet here.
Bob