Orilla Verde

Jungle Ducks of North Pilar

ducks on the Rio Grande

At Orilla Verde north of Pilar in the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument

Another dispatch from the terrible high desert! Behold the poor female mallards, forced to feed and find shelter on the banks of the Rio Grande. The water was running high and clear on Sunday afternoon. So much water going south, where everybody steals it. The ducks kept to the slow water unless they wanted to [...]

Monster of Love

blooming cholla in NM

Don’t get too close or it’ll gitcha

“Ohhh my heart is a monster of love swallow you up like a dove, in the eye of a hurricane ohhh making my heart sing, over and over again”                 (silly old song I wrote years ago – JHF) My wife drove off to her studio a while ago. These colors remind me of what she [...]

Rio Grande Rocks [Revised]

rocks by the Rio Grande near Pilar, NM

Love the “duck’s head”

Behold these fine New Mexico stones. Pieces of some of the oldest rock on earth, down there at the bottom of the canyon, worn smooth by water flowing over them for eons. So what, huh. Go break a granite boulder or a slab of basalt from a rift, stack it in your driveway, and try [...]

Rio Grande Goose

Canada goose on the Rio Grande near Pilar, NM

Sometimes a bird is just a bird

Another shot from last weekend’s visit to Orilla Verde on the Rio Grande River near Pilar, this time a Canada goose. We saw a number of them in the canyon, along with a beaver dam in a side channel and three kinds of ducks: mallards, buffleheads, plus one I have yet to identify. It’s so [...]

Colors of the Rio Grande

Colors of the Rio Grande post image

An icy backwater (not the main channel) of the Rio Grande, down in the canyon near Pilar

I shot this just before Christmas and just wanted to share. It’s one of our favorite places. I also guess by now you’re wondering if every post will lead off with a big photo, and the answer is, I don’t know. They certainly don’t have to, but it’s so much fun. I can get away [...]

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