P.S. Glaucidium gnoma

An owl perched on a branch, within a tangle of branches. The owl's body is turned slightly right of the camera, while the head is turned slightly to the left. The owl's breast and belly are white with brown streaks. The shoulders and head are brown with white dots. The beak, which is small and tucked in, is yellow. The visible eye is yellow with a large black pupil. The in-focus branches are gray, but with small splotches of yellow lichen.

A Northern pygmy-owl in Cienega Canyon, in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico, on April 20, 2026. In the words of the birder who pointed it out to me, it's the size "of a Coke can."

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A contrasty black-and-white image that takes a moment to decipher. At the center, leaning to the left, is the emerging flower stalk -- no open flowers yet, just what looks like a series of pointed scales. In the rest of the image, narrow leaves interrupt the gray background. Those leaves point upward, in most cases a little the left, and mostly continue off the image. As happens with this species, the edges of the leaves are shedding thin white curlicues of fiber, which add a bit of visual interest.

'Cause sometimes I get tired of my usual approach to nature photography. An emerging flower stalk on a narrowleaf yucca (Yucca angustissima) growing on Mesa Portales, Albuquerque. Photo taken on April 13, 2026.

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A bird perches on a pale branch, one of many in the image, surrounded by leaves showing the emerald green of spring. The bird has a bright blue head, that color extending to the base of its neck, and mostly bright blue wing feathers. The back, chest, and belly are reddish-brown. The undertail coverts, barely visible, are white. The bird's eye and beak are black. The beak is short, with a sharp, slightly downcurved tip. The legs and feet are also black.

No need to pump up the colors when your subject is a male Western bluebird (Sialia mexicana) sitting among new cottonwood leaves. Photo taken at Mesa del Sol, Albuquerque on April 13, 2026.

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The setting for this image is farm-wire fence (think big rectangular holes) supported by a rusty pipe post, with out-of-focus brown grass behind. Perched on the fence, next to the top of the post, is a bird that's looking back over its left shoulder. The photo is taken from behind the bird. The bird's back, folded wings, and head are a uniform medium brown. The long tail feathers, bunched together, are a darker shade of brown. The belly, barely visible from this angle, is lighter brown and mottled. The two striking things about this bird are its orange eye with a black pupil and the long, black, downward-curving beak that comes to a sharp point.

A curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre) at Mesa del Sol, Albuquerque, on April 13, 2026.

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A flower stalk intrudes into the image from the lower right. The flowers are subular, flaring open at the ends, and are a pale mix of yellow, green, and white. The outsides of the flower tubes are very hairy, as is the stalk. A bee has its head stuck into one of the flowers. The bee is mostly covered with silvery hair. One almond-shaped black eye is visible. The transparent wings have brown veins.

A digger bee, I think (cf. Anthophora) nectaring on milkvetch, aka locoweed (Astralagus). Photo taken at Tijeras Pueblo on April 10, 2026.

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Close-up of a small, low mound of greenery dotted with tiny white flowers. The leaves, stems, and calyces are all incredibly fuzzy. The leaves are low and narrow. The flowers are just big enough to make it clear (in this close-up) that there are five white petals. There's no way to tell from the photo, but the rounded plant is about the size of half a canteloupe.

Taking a moment to celebrate a flower (and plant) that's abundant but so small, people rarely notice it. Thick-sepal cat's-eye (Cryptantha crassisepala) on Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque, on April 13, 2026.

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Two bees with metallic-looking green bodies and folded brown transparent wings, at the center of a four-petaled white flower. One bee is resting on a petal but the other is actively climbing on a stamen. Both bees have yellow pollen cached on their hind legs. The flower has multiple T-shaped male parts, the top of each T being a yellow anther and the shaft of the T being the curving white stamen. Those ring a central hole.

Two striped sweat bees (Agapostemon sp.) on evening primrose (Oenothera sp.), in the grasslands on Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque. Despite the flower's name, the photo was taken in the morning (on April 13, 2026).

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A photo taken on an overcast day, and that as a result looks a bit soft-focus. The central focus of the image is a a flower with at least eleven cream-colored petals, plus yellow stamens and anthers. Also present are eight buds. On the two that are about to open, the calyces have peeled back to form green star shapes, revealing still-bunched petals. On the other buds the pointed ends of the calyces still clasp the petals. The plant's typical leaves are also apprent, if out of focus: long and narrow, and deeply dissected with rounded tips. It's not at all apparent, but the stem for the flower stalk is white.

Stickleaf (Mentzelia multiflora) in the grasslands on Mesa del Sol, Albuquerque, on April 13, 2026.

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A distinctive wasp! The head is silver, with large black Roswell alien eyes and black antennae. The broadly set mandibles are clamped onto an upright dead stem. The legs are orange. Where the abdomen emerges from the thorax it looks thin as fine twine, but it swells at the end until forming a point. The abdomen is orange and black. The transparent wings are folded back. The background for the image is a uniform tan color, due to extreme blurring.

This thread-waisted sand wasp (Ammophila sp.) was using its jaws to help hang on to an old plant stem. Photo taken at Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque, N.M. on April 13, 2026.

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The head, back, right arm, and tail of an Abert's squirrel. The squirrel is using its right paw to hold the tail within reach of its mouth. The over fur color is a grizzled gray. The ears still have their winter tufts of hair. Part of the reddish patch on the back is visible at the upper left edge of the image. One brown eye is visible. The snout is buried in the tail as the squirrel actively grooms itself. The squirrel was resting on a branch, and there's a patch of rough bark with gold-colored lichen at the lower left corner of the image. Behind the squirrel the image is blurred out.

An Abert's squirrel (Sciurus aberti) keeping one eye on me as it grooms its tail. Photo taken in Sulphur Canyon, in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico, on April 14, 2026.

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A cloudy morning -- in this image looking up at a perched bird, the sky is a uniform gray. The bird itself is mostly gray, but a little lighter below. The black beak's upper half ends with a sharp downward tip. A black "mask" extends from the beak back past the eye. The eye itself is black. The feet grasping the thin, gnarly branch end in long, sharp claws.

This loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) let me get closer than most. Once I got its picture, it sallied from the branch and came back with an unlucky grasshopper. Photo taken at Mesa del Sol, Albuquerque, N.M. on April 13, 2025.

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Much of the image is short brown grass, which is increasingly blurry from the bottom of the image (closest) to the top (farthest). At the lower right, in sharp focus, is a narrowleaf yucca. The narrow green leaves, arranged in a rosette, come to sharp points. A dead, knobby stalk rises from the yucca leaves, and the top bends over to the left. The bird perched near the top end of the stalk has a mottled brown and black back (good camoflauge) but bright yellow on the chin, breast, and belly. The head looks striped (black, white, gray). There's some black on the breast and some white towards the back of the belly.

Last year's narrowleaf yucca flower stalks make great perches for Western meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta). Photo taken at Mesa del Sol, Albuquerque, on April 13, 2026.

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A tiny sprout of a plant, with one fully open flower and several buds. The flower is purple and five-petaled. The yellow throat is ringed by five dark purple marks. The plant itself forms part of the blurry background for the image; the leaves are narrow and green and fuzzy, whilte the stems are red. The photo was taken on an overcast morning, so is low contrast.

One thought that keeps me going back outside is that I might see a species I never saw before. This morning I encountered bristly nama (Nama hispida) for the first time. Photo taken on Mesa del Sol on April 13, 2026

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A cluster of six daisy-like flowers, but very close to the gravelly ground. When seen from above, these flowers look like they're springing almost directly from the earth. Seen from a low angle, as in this photo, it's clear that in the couple of inches below the flowers are narrow, pointed leaves. The flower petals are white to very light pink, but with pink undersides. The centers of the flowers are yellow. The image looks a bit subdued, as it was overcast when I took the photo.

Easter daisies (Townsendia exscapa) along the interpretive trail behind the Forest Service's Tijeras Ranger District office, Tijeras, N.M. on April 10, 2026.

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This flower spike features tiny, waxy, very pale purple flowers, with a cluster of four purple buds at the top. The stamens are also pale purple, but the anthers are bright yellow. Six stamens, and no obvious pisitl, per flower. The background is fuzzed out and mostly brown, but with an obvious golden streak (a beargrass leaf) and vague purple clusters (other flower spikes). Oh, yes, the bug! Very small, and with its head in one of the flowers, so I can't suggest an ID.

A flower stalk on beargrass (Nolina sp.), including a tiny but presumably hungry insect. Photo taken in Piedra Lisa Canyon in the Sandia Mountain foothills, Albuquerque, on April 9, 2026.

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Close-up of the head and breast of a very young bird. The head is mostly gray, but with a white streak extending over and past the eye. The eye is blue-gray. Unline the adult beak, this juvenile's beak is short and wide. The beak is gray, with yellow edges at the back, and curved down at the back -- so it looks like the bird is unhappy. The breast is white with black spots. The background for the image is blurry brown (dead) ground cover.

A juvenile cactus wren -- a bird with the ridiculously long Latin name Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus. Two siblings were sticking close to the nest (in a cholla) as Mom and Dad, not far away, tried to distract me. Photo taken at Piedra Lisa Canyon on April 9, 2026.

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A short, disorganized-looking, purple and white flower stalk emerges from a bid of somewhat fern-like, dull green leaves. The individual flowers aren't at all your standard arrangement of petals sticking out at the sides. More like a white tube emerging from a light purple base, the tube curled over at the bright purple end. In fact, the end of the flower looks like a snarling, eyeless purple face with multiple small, sharp, white upper fangs. Maybe this one does deserve a weird common name!

"Dwarf lousewort" -- what an insulting name for a plant! Pedicularis centranthera blooming in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico on April 6, 2026.

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A hawk peers down from a branch in a bare tree, with a cloudless blue sky behind it. In the bright sunlight, the feathers look very dark brown rather than jet black. The eye is dark. The beak is yellow at the base, dark gray at the downcurved tip. The legs are yellow, with dark claws. The tail feathers barely protrude past the folded wings.

In March I posted a photo of a common black hawk (Buteogallus anthracinus) flying past. This is the same one, or perhaps its mate. When common black hawks are at rest, their tails always look to short to me. Photo taken in the Rio Grande Bosque on March 24, 2026.

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Close-up of the end of a stem with clustered leaves and inconspicuous yellow-green flowers. The leaves are look slightly fleshy and are slightly pointed.

I'd like help with this one. Is it myrtle spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites)? If so, I'm sorry to report that I found it doing well in the Sandias. Myrtle spurge is non-native, invasive, and toxic. Photo taken on April 6, 2026.

Five pale purple, tulip-like flowers on fuzzy green stalks. All five are facing away from the camera -- can flowers be shy? This image does provide a good view of the way the petals grow out of the stalks. A good ways down from the flower, the stalk is circled by a set of bracts, which together look like a fuzzy green crown with long, narrow points. The image background is brown leaf litter on the forest floor.

A passel of pasqueflowers (Pulsatilla nuttalliana) on the forest floor. Photo taken in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico on April 6, 2026.

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"When big honkin' Dale wernt nothin but a boy he seen something that changed him in his soul. But on account of his limited years he never found the words ta articalate jus wat it was he sawr until one day he woke up ta find that the unknown is wut preserves a feller like old DALE." Written on the sloping concrete side of a flood control channel, with farmland and blue sky behind.

Usually I equate tagging with vandalism, but this one is more philosophical than most. Photo taken at the mouth of Tijeras Arroyo, in Albuquerque, N.M. on March 18, 2026.

A flower spike with green buds at the tip, partly opened buds below, and fully open yellow flowers at the bottom. Each individual bloom has the characteristic shape of flowers in the pea family. Not easily described, but first imagine your hands loosly clasped in prayer. Then imagine two upward-pointed petals behind, not unlike your open hands side by side.

Golden-banner (Thermopsis sp.) in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico on March 31, 2026.

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A pale trumpet-shaped flower hangs off a branch visible in the upper left corner of the photo. A second, out-of-focus flower hangs at the left edge of the image. A bee hangs upside down from the first flower. It's a big all black bee with transparent but veined brown wings. Its head is stuck into the mouth of the flower but the undersides of its thorax and abdomen are visible. Or better said, somewhat visible, thanks to the heavy dusting of pale yellow, almost white pollen.

After hanging off multiple downward-facing pale wolfberry (Lycium pallidum) flowers, this bee has thickly dusted its belly with polllen. It is, I think, a carpenter bee (Xylocopa sp.). Photo taken in the Rio Grande Bosque, Albuquerque, on April 3, 2026.

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The head and shoulder of a dove, which is in profile with the head to the left. The dominant plumage color is light brown, but with a black patch below the cheek. Also, a bit of the white patch on the leading edge of the wing is visible (most of it extends off the image). The black beak is long, narrow, slightly crooked-looking, and pointed. The striking part of the image is the red eye surrounded by an irregular patch of bright blue skin. The blurred-out background is mostly pale blue.

Seen this close, the blue eye patch on a white-winged dove (Zenaida asiatica) turns out to be bare skin rather than feathers. Photo taken in Albuquerque, N.M. on April 2, 2026.

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A curving brick walkway, flanked by tall grasses and forbs, in the ghostly monochrome of a trail cam. At the center of the image, a raccoon stands on its hind legs, with its front paws hanging down. It's facing the camera, but with its head turned a little to ther right.

I continue to be fascinated by the way raccoons in my front yard (in Albuquerque, N.M.) sometimes stand on their hind legs to look around. Trail cam image from just after midnight, on March 16, 2026.

#mammal #raccoon

A fluffy-looking bird with dark eyes and a small black beak, leaning to one side as it looks at the camera. It was cloudy when the photo was taken, so the image is low contrast. The bird is mostly gray with a yellow tinge. The blurry partial view of one wing show it to be generally darker than the bird's head and body, but with a white wing bar and some bright yellow. From this angle, the eye right that characterizes this species isn't that apparent. The bird is perched on a twig, with other twigs in front of it and behind it.

On a gray morning, a ruby-crowned kinglet (Corthylio calendula) checks me out from behind a protective screen of twigs. Photo taken at Capulin Spring, in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico, on March 31, 2026.

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Close-up of two tiny, mostly white flowers, one facing the camera and the other in profile. The flowers have tubular calyxes, which are hairy. Usually they end with five bent-back calyx lobes (which look like petals, but the one facing the camera has eight such lobes. Inside the loves are pink and whiite actual petals, which are small and sticking straight out. Inside those it's difficult to distinguish the details. Parts of leaves are also apparent; those are somewhat fan-shaped and indented. One of the plant's thorns is also visible, but too blurry to stand out.

Flowers on a trumpet gooseberry (Ribes leptanthum) bush. The one facing the camera is unusual in having eight rather than five calyx lobes. Photo taken near Capulin Spring in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico, on March 31, 2026.

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A spray of flowers and leaves at the end of a branch, against a blurry background. The flowers are tubular, with five petals at the ends of the tubular sections, and mostly red centers. In the lower left quadrant of the photo, a bee hovers as it faces one of the flowers. This wild bee is small and has black and white stripes on its abdomen. Its wings are blurred due to rapid motion.

A native bee photobombing my image of flowers on a golden currant (Ribes aureum). Photo taken in the Rio Grande Bosque in Albuquerque, on March 30, 2026.

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The central subject of the image is a cluster of spikes of flowering sedge. I admit, the stuff looks a lot like grass. The flower stalks include unopened flowers (which look like black scales), open male flowers (with what look like golden yellow hairs), and open female flowers (with what look like short white hairs). I think -- I don't know sedges that well. The rest of the image includes a blurred-out gray background with blurry grasslike stalks.

Emory's sedge (Carex emoryi), I think, blooming at the edge of the Rio Grande. I couldn't get a better angle on this plant without falling into the river. Photo taken in Albuquerque on March 30, 2026.

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