Over the weekend, I discovered where the night herons roost. These squat herons can be found after dark, one or two to each of the little creeks that run out from the La Serena and Penuelas farmlands into the bay. I happened to be out by the wetlands just north of Coquimbo on Saturday at sunset and saw them lined up on top of the fence posts which overlook the main pond. On Sunday I went back with camera and tripod and saw at least two dozen of them emerge from the reeds and sometimes one by one and sometimes in groups of four or five, fly out towards the beach when the sun went down.
The wetlands are surrounded by a badly maintained fence with various “no entry” signs, and this is the only protection for an obviously ecologically important wetland surrounded on all sides but the beach by industry, housing and cultivated farmland. I wonder how long it will last.
Drove up to Tololo today. Stopped in the valley to photograph a garza grande but only got one shot before I scared it off. Back at the car, much high-pitched twittering coming from a stand of eucalyptus and firs a few yards back from the road. There are many (20+) hummingbirds in there, fighting and feeding. I can’t get closer because of a fence and brush so satisfy myself with watching them for a few minutes.
Cloudy on the mountain, but clears up somewhat by sunset.
The dog who sleeps in the road halfway up the hill has had three puppies, one brown, two black. So now, driving home, not only do I have to drive around the dog sleeping in the road, but I also have to avoid her puppies who treat the entire width of the road as their playground. The same goes for the other cars, of course, so it’s only a matter of time before three puppies become two become one become none. Either that or the car body shop is going to be getting some work.
There are none so blind as those that do not know they cannot see.
There are none so deaf as those who do no know they cannot hear.
There are none so numb as those who do not know they cannot feel.
Seen on a bumper sticker:
Silence is the voice of complicity
El Silencio es la voz de la complicidad
I once viisted a cemetary in Hawaii and found a gravestone that recorded the name, year of birth and death (ninety-something) and the fact that he had fought in the second world war. I wondered that there was nothing else to record in the subsequent 50 years.
I found this here. Too funny, if hemispherically challenged (but maybe that’s why the other penguin is carrying a bag).
If you don’t look hard enough, you’ll see what itsn’t there.
Do the enlightened need the idea of enlightenment to be enlightened?
Never confuse force for strength,
power for right,
nor rules for morality.
