I honestly don’t know. This is the time of year when we get those dangerously low overnight temperatures, so it’s quite possible that we won’t be seeing dragonflies or damselflies around until next year. I captured this little guy’s picture several days ago, and we’ve had some cold snaps since then.

The past couple of years have been very good to the dragonfly. This summer at the capitol I saw several that looked like small birds, hovering over the lawn on the commons area and feasting on mosquitoes. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to spend as much time as I’d hoped in the wetlands areas. This led to a lack of dragonly or damselfly photos. I’ve had some really nice ones in the past, but this year slipped away too quickly.

Dragonflies are your friend as a North Dakotan. They seem to keep pest insects to a minimum, and anything that can accomplish that feat is a friend indeed! The Japanese kept praying mantises in their bedrooms to eat insect pests; maybe some guy needs to find a way to put a leash on a dragonfly…

We’re fortunate in Bismarck-Mandan to have wildlife thriving among us. It’s not uncommon to see all sorts of creatures in our yards and on our streets. Back in my law enforcement days, I even remember a call about a deer running up and down Collins Avenue! While urban sprawl may be a problem in more densely populated areas, we still have the luxury of sharing our city with indigenous critters. At my house we count ourselves especially fortunate.

I wrote a while back about Greg, the bunny living in our yard. Sure, he ate some of my wife’s flowers at first, but he’s since given that up. We now coexist peacefully, and he’s really cute besides! We had a little bit of a scare today, however. On the way to church this morning, I saw that a bunny had been struck and killed by a car just around the corner from our house. While I admitted it would be jumping to conclusions, I speculated that it was probably Greg. After all, we’re far from the outskirts of town; how many bunnies could there be on an average city block?

My fears were put to rest today as my wife came upstairs. Glancing out a basement window, she spotted Greg taking a peaceful little bunny nap in one of the flower beds. Talk about a relief! We’re both animal lovers, sure…but I think anyone would admit that having a cute, furry neighbor living nearby is heartwarming. It’s easy to get attached to a little guy like this too, since we see him in the yard quite frequently. Thankfully I can report this day that, while tragedy certainly did strike around the corner, our long-eared friend is safe and sound, and able to nap comfortably.

This little crawler was sitting on a park bench I wanted to use along the Missouri River, along the walking path on the Mandan side of the river. I refer to him as Spike because of that protrusion on his posterior. I imagine it’s intended as a deterrent to any bird who might think of swallowing him. Many animals have unique defenses, and they’re neat to observe. This guy and his spike are no exception.

If you’ve been putting off a walk down that trail, don’t wait much longer! The leaves are starting to turn color, and the weather’s starting to change as well. Soon it’ll be a cross country ski trail again! My wife and I took a nice 3 hour walk down this 5 mile path, pointing our cameras all over the place…in fact, we could have made the walk much longer but had an afternoon church service to get to!

I was walking alongside one of the labs at NDSU where I studied as a chemistry major in college, when this baby squirrel dashed across the lawn in front of me. In a deft reflexive move, I swung the backpack containing my camera to the grass and extracted the Canon. My newfound subject had darted up a nearby tree and was waiting to see what I was up to. That’s when I was able to get this last-second shot before he scurried up to a high branch and hide.

I caught this bird hanging out atop a bush full of food along the river north of Bismarck. There are a lot of places to pick juneberries, chokecherries, and other natural treats. Of course, for a bird it’s much easier to get to those places and eat freely. That’s what this bird was up to. Such leisure for a bird is fleeting, however; the cold winter is just around the corner. Better get ready to stock up those feeders!

Hi! This is Greg. He’s the bunny currently living in our yard. There were two bunnies on our property earlier this year, but only Greg has been showing up as of late. In this photo he’s actually a little put out – it was pitch dark and I used a flash in this photo. He got a little rattled and didn’t even want to take the piece of bread I’d brought out for him. No worry…he’ll eat it soon enough.

I have had a number of bunnies in my yard since I bought this property several years ago. They’re all named Greg. Why’s that, you ask? Because they’re all named after the lead character in the funniest TV show ever, “Greg the Bunny.” Although he got his start on IFC, the Independent Film Channel, I prefer to remember him and his puppet pals (or “fabricated Americans” on FOX. They did two seasons of the show and then, in a move of colossal stupidity, cancelled the show. That happens a lot, to a lot of really great shows; only TV networks can be so ignorant. In any case, Greg the Bunny was released on DVD, so I can watch the episodes every once in a while. And as far as a “surrogate Greg,” well…there’s one in my yard every year…and he’s not nearly as sarcastic!

No, not a John Grisham novel…a brief blog post featuring a couple of bird photos from this afternoon! Taking a break from some frustrating yard work, I found myself poking around near some water where these guys were hanging out. Thankfully some of them were also circling overhead, providing some practice with moving subjects for this amateur photographer.

I just ate a fish THIS BIG!
That’s about the best caption I could come up with for this picture of one of the gang gliding in to join the rest. It was a much more graceful landing than the one I caught out near Crystal Springs a while back!

When you find bunnies hiding in your grass, it’s definitely time to mow it. Can I qualify for CRP within city limits? Actually, the lawn did get mowed tonight. My bunny will have to hide in a neighbor’s yard now, or perhaps in my wife’s beautiful flower beds. I caught him in there the other evening, actually.

I’m one of those guys who takes 15 minutes after mowing the lawn to give the mower a beat-down maintenance session: make sure the blade and deck are clean, give it a head-to-toe cleaning, spray the blade with WD-40 or something so it doesn’t rust, and an all-over inspection. That’s also a good time to make sure that no bolts have worked their way loose or anything as well. It may sound a little overboard, but I bet my mower lasts for 20 years. My dad always taught me: “If you take good care of a tool, it’ll take good care of you.”

I caught these two hanging out in a little wetland on some reclaimed mining land. I don’t think they need to fear being hunted here, so they really weren’t as skittish as most ducks I’ve tried to photograph. They just kept rooting around while I stood by. Of all the sights of North Dakota’s wildlife, ducks feeding with their tail pointing straight up has got to be one of the funniest. If they were in sand instead of water, you could say the one on the right is a Democrat!