After a rain, we have to empty the roofwasher pipe...but doing it without getting wet is just about impossible. Here Richard dodges the "gusher" at Owl Pavilion.
The first small rain changed these lichens from dull gray fringe on a fallen twig to luxuriant, even exuberant decorations in various shades of green.	Even before the rains we had some butterflies out and about. Now that it's damper, we have even more, though most are flying low, hovering just above the grass on warm afternoons. Here a Sleepy Orange Sulphur, Eurema nicippe, perches at just the right angle to show off the underwing pattern that defines it. The few higher-flying butterflies (I've spotted Red Admirals and Common Buckeyes) don't slow down to be photographed.
Slanting winter sunlight brings out some colors better than others...the acid yellow of nightshade berries show up strongly against the soft dull green of prickly pear. We have several Solanum species; without the flowers and leaves, I'm not sure which this is.
Still, much of the vegetation is now winter-bleached to neutral monotones...but again tthe angle of light makes it interesting. Indiangrass seed stalks silhouetted against afternoon shadows in the woods across the southwest meadow.
Redder than red....can't have winter bird pictures without including a cardinal posing in the sunlight.	I like all the northern sparrows that winter here, but I have a special fondness for Harris's Sparrows...I don't know whether it's their markings, or their attitude. They seem much more comfortable at Owl Water and the surrounding area than they did at Fox--not sure why, but it makes the photographer happy.
Late in a perfect (if very warm--it topped 80 degrees) day, headed home, but looking back out to the dry woods and west grass. That little brushy area was full of wintering sparrows, song and white-crowned, mostly.
Richard called me out to see this sunset--the outter ring had been a rainbow, but by the time he got inside, and I grabbed the camera, trying to put in a compact flash card on the run, it had faded a lot. So I tinkered with this image, trying to make it show what the eye could still see. The yellow isn't the sun itself--it was already down--but the curious glow.

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