Month: December 2025

Our resident American White Pelican is content to hang around the pond beneath the waterfall on the edge of the golf course. He swims and fishes with Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Buffleheads, and (surprise!) Canada Geese. I walk by the pond every morning on my way to the Ferrari Pond Trail a mile and a half away, and seeing him there always brings a smile to my face. Yesterday morning he decided to move toward his egret buddies and I captured him as he came in for a landing, shaking the water off his tail.

When I was growing up in the 1950’s, my mother had a mink fur wrap that, while stylish at the time, was also horrifying. It was made up of three mink bodies, with dangling feet, tails, and heads, and the mouth of one functioned as a clamp to close the wrap. It creeped me out. At that time, it didn’t occur to me that mink was an American species but it is native to much of North America, including Northern California. I’d heard there were minks at Ferrari Pond here in Lincoln Hills, and finally the other day, I saw one bounding along the trail and into the pond but did not manage to get any photographs. And, since day before yesterday, a dead Canada Goose, seemingly moored in the shallow waters of the pond just below the surface off one of the golf cart bridges, has been attracting the attention of mink in the vicinity. They are predatory, aquatic mammals adept at swimming and diving and they are carnivores. They dive for fish and frogs, hunt rodents, attack birds, and consume carrion like the goose. The goose seems to be providing at least two minks with sustenance. The first three images are of one individual and the last is a second individual who showed up after the first disappeared. When they swim, their bodies move like cigarette boats. The two minks worked the goose over, diving beneath the carcass to find some flesh, never really flipping it over. Both looked up at me on the bridge, one swimming with a mouthful of flesh, the other about to dive under the carcass.

The rams stick close together. I’m convinced that they even use each other’s horns to scratch an itch, especially on top of their heads. The Bighorn on the left, his head under the other ram’s horn, seems content to stay that way. BFFs forever.

While we were photographing a Bull Elk, a pair of Coyotes appeared from behind the trees. The first Coyote drank from a pool of water in a recess on a large granite boulder then trotted away as the second climbed onto the rock and proceeded to drink from the same watering hole. This Coyote checks to make sure that its mate will soon follow. It did and they both disappeared up and over the hillside. So much fun to watch these Coyotes in their gorgeous winter coats.

Floating Island Pond in Yellowstone National Park is surrounded by tall grasses. As we drove by on our first morning, the grasses reflected in the dark waters of the pond. There were no birds and no critters at the pond, only the reflections of the dried grasses.