Hummingbirds and other local critters

The last few days have been warm, but  not too hot yet, and we've had nice breezes, sometimes heavy winds.

I haven't seen any burros since the last post, so they are roaming elsewhere.  As much fun as it was to have them here, I've gotten a little worried when Katie and I walk.  I've heard from numerous people in the area about how the burros will go after and kill small dogs because they consider them a threat.  When we take our walks, I'm scanning the ground and bushes for snakes and the horizon for burros.  So far I haven't seen a single snake in Arizona, but because of Katie's "alert" bark, I did see this guy outside The Palms.

He was pretty good sized, definitely not a small lizard.  I'd guess he was 18 inches long, or more.

 He looks well fed, doesn't he?

And of course, being Quail Hill campground, we have quail. It may be because I'm not putting seed out, but I haven't seen a lot of them, and they seem thinner and less colorful than the quail at my site in Quartzsite. This one was outside The Palms standing on a large rock, calling out in their distinctive voice.

There are at least three different kinds of hummingbirds.  One is very pretty and rakish looking, kind of like an action figure.  He has fluorescent green feathers on his head and neck, with red feathers coming down under his eyes and cheeks, going back and out out at his neck like a Viking warrior.  Doesn't he look like a fighter?

This is also a very pretty bird - he has three distinct areas of color, like a little piece of art.  He's not shiny, but I think he's the prettiest of the three that have been coming by the feeder.

Then there's this little guy.  He isn't as pretty as the other two, but seems to be the dominant bird; if another bird comes by when he's around, he drives them off.  The other day they flew into my window during their scuffle.

He's not very colorful, pretty much brown wtih a lighter chest, 
and he has spotting on his throat.  

I'm not sure if the following photos are of a different, fourth, bird, or not.  He doesn't seem to have the same coloring as one of the others, but these flying photos are the only ones I have of him.

These hummers come by early in the morning, before I lift the window shade (I can see their shadows flying in to the feeder on the shade), and keep coming back until dark.

Thursday we went over to the Christian Center to register for mail delivery, then we went back up the road to the main LTVA to dump our tanks and take on fresh water, then we drove to Yuma and did some grocery shopping.  I looked at new TVs, but after much deliberation at Walmart and Best Buy, I decided to wait a month or so for the new models to be on the shelves.  I don't want to pay full price for a TV that's been out a year or more, especially when the new ones are just being received by the stores.

It was a really tiring day, we started out at 9:30 and didn't get back to camp until after 6:30, the sun was just going down behind the mountain.  It was good to be back!

I will be here at least a few more days - my daughter is mailing my motor home registration, which expires on the 8th.  I was going to have my mail delivered to the Army base down the road.  I went in on Thursday, it was the first time I've been on a military base.

This is at the left side of the entrance to the Administrative Gate.

The right side has an Army tank. 

You have to show them a photo id, vehicle registration and current insurance card to get in.  Since I have to show a current registration to get on the base, I'll be a couple of days past the renewal date when it arrives, so I couldn't use their post office.  I could have walked onto the base to the post office, but decided to use the Christian Center mail service across the street.  Their post office is open for one more week, very limited hours - one hour per day on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, then they close for the season.  So, luckily I'm within the time the registration will arrive, and I'll be good to go.

I just paid my annual motor home insurance, too, so The Palms will be legal and insured for another year.  I can't believe it's been a year since I bought The Palms.  How excited I was last year at this time!!!  A lot of water under the bridge, and a lot of bridges traveled over, since then.

Here are some photos of our site and the area around us:

That's The Palms up on the hill.

 View east from the dinette is of West Pond and the canals down to the dam.

 West Pod?

 Two tiny islands that are often covered with little birds. 
Each day, in the early evening, hundreds of little birds swarm over this area.

 Another view from the dinette window.

Looking up the road is the burned forest area.

My impression from other RVers is that this camping area is very crowded during the season.  There isn't as much desert area as Quartzsite, so when I was there, I could have moved almost anywhere and found a good site to park The  Palms.

 During these last few weeks, there's tons of room around each RV.

Lots of good camp sites right now.

 Katie and I walked across the street to The Pond, 
but I couldn't see a path to the water.

Looking out to the pond was very pretty and quiet and peaceful.

 The Pond at sunset.

Last night I looked out the window and this is what I saw:

It was just beautiful, especially with the sprinkling of lights from the base below.

Those are the photos I've taken during the last week, since I've been here at Quail Hill - with all the burro photos I didn't have a chance to post these before.  

From Me and Katie, have a great Saturday, everyone!  :)

Baby burros nursing and napping in our yard

WELCOME to our two new followers:

Ametrine KnowingWillow -  I don't see  any information about you, or a blog to plug for you, Ametrine, but we're very happy to have you along on our adventures.  I hope you enjoy following along with us. 

klbexplores - this is a brand new blog - the writer has horses, donkeys, a goat, turkeys, chickens, dogs, cats, children, and grandchildren.  AND she's a single parent.  WOW.  klbexplores also has a vintage trailer named Lolita.  There's only one blog post; klb, I hope you continue to post.  It sounds like you have an interesting life.  Thanks for following Me and My Dog!  :)

Welcome aboard to you both!

Well...  We've had visits from the burros each day.  Yesterday when I woke up they were in the bushes on the side of The Palms, just munching away.  They found a piece of cardboard, and two burrows took big bites of it.  Then they tried out the fire pit in front of us.

 This tastes like cardboard!

Checking out the fire pit.

They didn't come up to The Palms, just stayed in the yard eating, then moved on and stopped in front of a neighbor's rig and rested.  I walked over closer to see them, and some were laying down, resting and sleeping while the others seemed to be guarding them.  The burros were around - on and off - all day.

They must have walked a lot - the baby was really sleeping.

Then this morning when I woke up, I looked down the road at the water, and there they were, I could see six silhouettes, so I imagine when they are down this way, they drink the water from the Colorado River near the dam.

 Two families down by the river.

There is a lake up at Imperial Dam LTVA, the main campground, so they probably drink that water when they are there.  I heard them braying when I was there, but I never saw them.

Today was kind of exciting, burro-wise.  There were six this time, I don't know where the seventh guy was today.  From their coloring, they seemed to be two families.  They slowly made their way up toward us, staying in the bushy areas on the side of the road, then they crossed the road and came up by us.

At this point there were only four - two moms and two babies.  I lost them in the bushes, and didn't see where the males went.  A fellow camper said the babies were born last year, so they must be around a year old.  The families each have different coloring, grey and brown, and it's easy to see who is the Dad, Mom and Baby of each family.

As they were approaching our campsite, the grey mom and baby were walking together, and the brown mom and baby were together.

Then the brown baby started irritating the grey mom.  If you click on the following photos, check out the grey mom's ears - they are up when things are good, sideways or back when she's mad or threatened.  You can also see her face - teeth and all - when she's fighting with the brown baby. 

 Little brown burro getting a talking-to by grey mom.

 The talking-to didn't seem to work, and there was a bit of an altercation.

The grey baby quickly got out of the way.

When things calmed down, the moms and babies slowly came up the incline toward our site, then stood in front of The Palms, each young burro standing by it's mom, and the brown baby getting a little snuggle.

The brown mom comforting her baby.

The grey burros moved off a little, and then the smaller grayish baby started nursing.

Oh-oh - here comes trouble.

Soon the brown baby came over, and wanted to nurse, too...

"I'm hungry, too!"

... and the female didn't like that.

 There was another row between the mom and the brown baby, 

the grey baby went to the other side.  Notice mom's ears.

 Go back to your OWN mom.

 I'm NOT kidding - go away!

 Okay... (Mom's ears are back up)

It's not fair, though! (Mom's ears are to the side - she's ready for trouble.)

... and finally the brown baby went back to it's mom to nurse.  Not for long, though. I was thinking the nursing time for this little one was about over.

Both babies nursing - nice burro family moments.

After eating, the smaller baby laid down to sleep, and the mom stood guard.

Good baby, go to sleep.

The brown burros stood close together and rested.

This little one didn't lay down for a while, but rested against its mom.

For the rest of the afternoon they took turns sleeping and guarding each other.  The brown baby finally lay down, and the grey mom came over and laid next to it.

So sweet.

I don't know if the grey mom came over to help protect the brown sleeping baby, but she left her own baby sleeping alone, so I'd guess she wanted the protection of the other mom while she was resting.

Then suddenly I heard long, loud braying, and looked out the window - one of the males was chasing a motorcycle down the main paved road.  He was hauling ass after that motorcycle!  (Note to Denise - drive slow if you come back this way next year on your motorcycle.)  Obviously the motorcycle got away, then the burro stopped running and walked across the street and up our dirt road, and the other dad appeared, too.

"Taught that motorcycle a lesson!"

They grazed while the moms and babies were resting/sleeping, then they laid down in the dirt by the bushes and rested, too.

Then a man stopped his car on the dirt road to the campsite and he had food, so the males got up and went over to him, and the females and youngsters woke up and went down the incline to see about the food, too.

After that man left, the burros all stayed there on and near the dirt campground road, either sleeping or watching.

Then a woman came up with her camera and the burros were "on guard," I don't know why, but they didn't approach her.  They seemed very restrained when she was there.  One male stood still a distance from the woman, the females and babies got up and stood further down the road huddled together in the middle, and the other male stayed by the other end of the road.  They just stayed there in that formation until she left.  They didn't move, but kept their eyes on her.  It was weird, because she wasn't doing anything but taking photos and didn't try to get close to them.

That marked the end of rest time, and they spent a couple of hours in the vicinity across the campground road eating and walking around.  When I looked out the window later, they were gone.

I did research on what the baby burros are called.  Until they are one year old, all baby donkeys are called foals.  Once they are over one year old, baby boy donkeys are called baby jacks and girls are called baby jennys.  Adults are called jacks and jennys.  (A burro, of course, is the Spanish word for donkey, they are the same animal. Here in the desert, they seem to be called burros rather than donkeys.)

From me and Katie, have a nice Tuesday, everyone!  :)

MOOOOMMMM! WE'VE GOT COMPANY! or... Be careful what you wish for!

Ruff, Ruff, Ruff!  Well, now we know for sure, Katie is a good watchdog...

...and she isn't backing up!!  :)

We had the most exciting afternoon!  Katie and I were sitting outside in the cool afternoon breezes this afternoon. It was around 93 degrees inside and outside, but better breezes outside. I was reading and Katie was walking around as much as she could on a short leash.  I had a cold ice water, and Katie had a plastic bowl of water.

We are camped on the edge of the new campground (great Verizon!) overlooking the Colorado River across the main road, and I noticed a car stopped on the side of the road, other cars were going around it, but I didn't think much about it.  I kept reading.  Then a woman walked by my site toward the road, and I looked up, and saw more cars stopped.  Thinking there had been an accident, or someone was in trouble, I got up and walked over to the edge of my site to see what was going on. 

That's when I saw the burros.  I ran back to The Palms to get my camera - finally!  Burros during the daytime and I was going to get some photos!   OH BOY, was I ever!

I ended up taking 125 pictures.

There were seven burros, it looked like six adults and one juvenile.  They were in the middle of the street and when a vehicle stopped, they all walked over to the windows, begging.  (That's why the camp host was so vehement on Wednesday that I NOT feed them.  I told her I only want to see them to take photos.  Obviously they are used to being fed.)

They went from car to truck to car, everyone seemed delighted.

There were some men towing a boat,

and I could hear them laughing and talking excitedly.

I stood up on the hill overlooking the road  - snapping away.

Finally all the cars and trucks drove away, and the burros started walking down the road, toward the campground entrance road.  This guy seemed to be the leader.

And he saw me.

Okay, let's see if she's got food.

I guess that's enough car-hopping.  We're going to the campground.

"OMG - Here they come!"  I actually said that out loud to myself.  :)

I ran to The Palms and got Katie off her leash and put her inside.

The rest of the burros turned up our road, then went off the road heading up the hill to our site.  EGADS!  I ran back to The Palms again and put my drink and Kindle and the Cheezits inside, and went back to take more photos.  At that point they were all heading my way, getting closer - and I hightailed it inside, too. 

No, that isn't a hummingbird.

 
They were so polite.  Just crowded around the door, thank goodness they didn't press on the screen door - and push it through.  I was a little worried about that.

They found Katie's water bowl, and between three of them, emptied it.  

They finally wandered around The Palms, and looked in the window over the couch.  

They hung around for a while, trying to get closer, quietly edging each other out of the way, just hanging around like a bunch of teenagers outside a movie theater trying to get close to the cute girl.

Then they wandered away - across the campground to a  bush and started eating it.

They were still walking around the campground an hour later. There are very few RVs here and I could plainly see them walking, stopping, looking around, moving on.

It was so much fun, I was so excited, and Katie didn't know what to make of it.  She barked a little, especially when those big faces were right on the screen door looking through at her.  She stood her ground, though, and kept her eye on them the whole time.  She was close to the screen door, then close to the couch window screen.  She stayed between me and them; it must be instinct, and I was very proud of her.

The whole thing was so absolutely thrilling, I couldn't believe it as they slowly walked up the hill to my RV site, then to my front door.  

When I got here yesterday, I was across the campground, kiddie-corner to where I am now.  I decided I wanted to move this morning and tried a couple of places.  (One of which was a little tricky - I got kind of stuck, had a problem backing out because of the loose sand.  I decided that wasn't a good spot, but it had a fabulous view.)   I really wanted to see the burros, and thought I might be too far away from them if they came through.  They ended up leaving tonight right through the first campsite I was in yesterday. 

So, that was our exciting day.  It was really hot, but I remembered  the window coverings I bought when I was in Vacaville last July visiting my daughter and her family.  It was sooooo hot. I took them out this morning and put one on the kitchen window, where the sun was streaming in.  As the sun moved around the rig, I moved the sunshades to the couch window and front window.  There was a nice breeze all day, and that helped a lot.  All in all, the heat was very tolerable with the sunshades and breezes helping.

Tonight at 8:00 it's really windy outside, and only 84 degrees inside The Palms, so it's cooled down considerably.

From Me and Katie, have a great Saturday night, everyone!  :)