The wildlife menagerie at Pomegranate... and some shots I like

It's been a miniature High Desert Museum wildlife scene (minus the otters) at Pomegranate recently. We always have lots of critters everywhere (including our dog Mollie), but the visitor activity seems to have ramped up lately. They must be all talking to each other about the high quality food we serve.

The popular neighborhood café is our bird feeder between the main house and the ice house: we keep it fully stocked with a mix from Round Butte Seed (1/2 and 1/2 Wild Bird and Wild Bird Premium). So we have a zillion little birdies, quail, squirrels, chipmunks, #^!*rock chucks, deer, geese, ducks... and sometimes, the hawks. The squirrels entertain us all day with their antics, hanging upside down and straddling the tree and feeder to get right into the goods. The chipmunks chase each other at warp speed, all the birds come out in force in early evening... and everybody seems to get along. A few weeks ago a couple of quail came bobbing along, followed by about 40 little itty bitty teenie weenie babies, each about the size of a small walnut. I grabbed my camera and tiptoed out there, but they had already scattered under the bushes. Sat on our bench for a long while, the camera focused and resting on my knee, in case they decided to trot back out.

And then I remembered that I was at the shop, and there might be confused customers wandering about inside {have you ever walked into a shop and said "hello! hello? heLLOO?" wondering if the shop owner was lying on the floor in the backroom or something? But I digress.} I've been on high alert for baby quail appearances since then, but they're in hiding (for good reason, it turns out).

Then last week (the week before? who knows?) we were working away, getting ready for our shop's 12th anniversary celebration, and we heard that unmistakable "scree screeee" sound the hawks make. Robert ran outside and sure enough, a hawk was just scooping up – in full flight and with hardly a dip in power – a little bird off the ground. The hawk-mate was sitting at the very tip of a pine tree in our garden making a lot of noise. Maybe 40 feet up? 50?

I got a shot of it I really love. I wish the bird itself was more in focus, but you can see how sharp the tree is: the bird at that second was cawing at me and just raising its wings to fly off. It was just one of those accidental moments that worked (and it was pretty darn far away, so not bad, little Nikon P-90!). Had I thought to set a faster shutter speed, I might have captured it perfectly. Still, I'm the one who usually presses the shutter just as the dog turns her butt to me, so I'm happy with this.

What kind of wildlife shots have you been capturing (NY city street scenes not necessarily included)?