Remembering Agramonte

Ten and a  half years ago, Agramonte and I celebrated my birthday in Batavia, Illinois. In his third year of life, the purebred Tibetan Mastiff was such a good friend:

He was our canine Grandson (Nieto). Our human Neitas took part in the celebration (Why are there only 7 1/2 candles on my cake? I think they know why!):

They welcomed Agramonte into their home just before Christmas in 2007:

He knew he was loved:

Agramonte played in the snow. His winter fur was so dense that he could sleep in a snowdrift:

We first met him when we "migrated" back to our second home in April, 2008. Agramonte was 5 months old:

He grew up very rapidly. Here he is at 10 months of age:

When one year old old, he weighed 108 pounds and his mane was growing:

Neighbors sometimes thought our granddaughters had a lion on a leash. He loved the girls and was very protective of them, not in a fierce way but he would stand between them and any possible threat. One day I walked Agramonte with them to a small playground in a nearby park. The girls played on the swings and slides, so I decided to walk Agramonte a little way down the path. However, when we reached a turn where he could no longer see the children, he stopped dead, sat down and absolutely refused to go any further. I tried to make him stand and lead him on until I realized he did not want to lose sight of his treasured little friends:   

Here he is at 10 years of age in 2017, as he watched me barbecue a chicken in the back yard. If he wanted to, he could have overpowered me and inhaled that bird:

Moncada, another Tibetan Mastiff and Agramonte's little "brother," joined the family in 2018.  This is how the mastiffs spend most of their days:

A few days later, Cazador, a black Standard Poodle puppy, made them a doggie threesome:

Agramonte, the alpha, greeted the newest member of the pack:

Agramonte always loved the snow. His mane became huge during winter:

We last visited Illinois and saw Agramonte in early April, 2019. Sad to say, this was my last photo of him, with Cazador, back in September, 2018:

Our Illinois family flew down in April 2019 to join us for a short but memorable vacation on the Florida Keys.  "The sun comes up and the sun goes down. The hands on the clock keep going around..." And then there was the Coronavirus.

Tranquility Bay sunset:

April memories: Sedate Black-necked Stilts in formal garb, reflecting... 

...and a Northern Cardinal. There are old traditions-- “When a red cardinal visits your yard, it’s a visitor from heaven”. . . "The red cardinal bird symbolizes the phases of restoring when going through great difficulties with greater hope in God"... "Seeing a red cardinal after a death can be a message for you from the divine"... “When a cardinal appears, a loved one is near...,”

During our last visit to Illinois in May, 2019, it was clear that Agramonte's health was failing, He retained his sweet disposition despite a loss of energy.

The COVID restrictions have kept us apart since then. 

Despite treatment, his attempts to walk became increasingly painful and impaired. Finally he could not even stand up. For a large breed at 13+ years, his "dog age" calculator says that both he and I are about the same age. 

The veterinarian just made a home visit and helped Agramonte say goodbye.

A little spark of consciousness has been extinguished, and the universe is somehow diminished.

Goodbye, Agramonte, you big friendly, fluffy, furry phlegmatic doormat of a dog.

Sunset in Batavia, Illinois:

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Linking to:

Fences Around the World

Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

Camera Critters

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Natasha Musing

Our World Tuesday

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World

Timeless Thursday

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Please visit the links to all these posts to see some excellent photos on display
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Blue & Gold: Birds of midsummer

As July gives way to August, the morning chorus diminishes in the grasslands and woodlands of northeastern Illinois. The prairies take on an increasingly golden hue. This is the prairie pothole at nearby Nelson Lake preserve in Batavia:

Common Yellowthroats are still tending to nests and singing, usually out of sight in the high vegetation:





The songs of orioles and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks no longer ring through the treetops. Many bird species are busy with the affairs of raising families. Energy must be conserved and diverted into replacement of feathers during the post-breeding molt.

Indigo Buntings continue to sing from treetop perches:







 
 
 We visited Lippold Park, also in Batavia. This is the small marsh and pond, with the pavilion and fenced treetop walk in the background. (Mary Lou just received a phone call):



The prairie at Lippold is protected and well-managed. It was alive with wildflowers:





American Goldfinches are very late breeders and are only beginning to gather flower down for their nests. I waited patiently for one to alight among the flowers, but instead they moved among the low shrubs:









Two years ago in late August I did catch one singing among the flowers at this same location:



The plumage of an adult female American Goldfinch is more subdued:

 

Bells and whistles... go together like a goldfinch and thistles. Common as they are on the prairie, I never tire of seeing, hearing and photographing goldfinches around and above me. 

August through September is their peak season, as the thistle begins to go to seed, providing them both food and shelter. Other birds have nearly finished their breeding and are hiding away to molt, but the goldfinches are eating the seeds and gathering the down of the thistles for their nests. 

 At Lippold park on August 25, 2011, a female goldfinch was harvesting down for her nest:

 

This male was collecting thistle down at Nelson Lake back in 2011:



One of the few bird species to feed their young no insects, they engorge the thistle seeds and nourish their young with a protein-rich "milk" that is secreted from their stomach linings. A fledgling goldfinch appears bigger than its mother as it begs to be fed:

 

One of my favorite goldfinch captures is this one, reflected in the creek at Lippold Park:



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Linking to Misty's  CAMERA CRITTERS,

Linking to Eileen's SATURDAY'S CRITTERS,

Linking to FENCES AROUND THE WORLD by Gosia

Linking to SKYWATCH FRIDAY by Yogi, Sylvia and Sandy

Linking to WEEKEND REFLECTIONS by James

Linking to BirdD'Pot by Anni

Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday by Stewart

Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue

Linking to ALL SEASONS by Jesh

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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display

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Crops & Clips: White-crowned Sparrows

We enjoyed rather temperate but stormy weather for a couple of weeks after we arrived in Illinois in late September. Clouds hung low one morning over the silo at Nelson Lake preserve:



Then, in mid-October, the weather turned cold. Temperatures dropped to near freezing and we had a hard frost overnight. The air was still and we could see our breath when we visited nearby Les Arends Forest Preserve on the Fox River in Batavia. A slight breeze distorted the reflections in this slough along the west side of the river:



A cluster of Sky Blue Asters (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense), sheltered in the undergrowth, had survived the cold, but their days were numbered:



A few White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) were singing their distinctive lisping songs. They reminded me of the nights we spent in a little cabin deep in Denali National Park, Alaska. It was early June and the night sky remained deep blue all night. Around us, White-crowned Sparrows sang incessantly all night. As the light improved we watched them forage only inches away from our window screens.   

There are several subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows. Those we saw in Alaska, such as this one, has white lores (the area in front of eye):



This is one of my favorite photos of this species, taken in Talkeetna, Alaska back in 2011:



This bird, photographed at Rio Grande Nature Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, also exhibits white lores:



Four subspecies of this rather large sparrow are recognized, and intermediate forms are found where their ranges overlap. They are distinguished by presence or absence of black in their lores, bill color and other subtle plumage variations. 

Two of the most widespread subspecies are depicted above. Zonotrichia l. leucophrys breeds in the central and eastern portion of far northern Canada and along the Rocky Mountain chain into Northern New Mexico. It has a pink bill and black lores and spends the winter all across the southern US, more commonly to the east. 

Zonotrichia l. gambelli breeds in the western part of far northern Canada and Alaska and has white lores and an orange or pinkish orange bill. In winter it usually migrates into the western US and central Mexico.

While most of the White-crowned Sparrows around our second home in northeastern Illinois have dark lores, this one, seen at Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva, Illinois exhibited white lores:



My best photos of this species have been taken from the comfort of the back yard deck at our daughter's home in Batava, Illinois. They maintain several feeders and the birds are quite tame, often perching on the railing or furniture. Note that this bird has dark lores:



This one peers through their back yard fence:



So far I have shown only adult birds. For the first year of its life the streaks on its head and behind the eye are reddish brown rather than black, and the central crown stripe and those over its eyes are light tan rather than white:

White-crowned Sparrows are quite rarely seen in the southern tip of Florida. I was lucky to find and photograph them there on two occasions, in mid and late October two years in a row. All were immature birds. This one appeared on October 23, 2013, a year after my first sighting on October 18, 2012:



This immature visited our daughter's back yard in October, 2014:

 

This past week the feeders in our daughter's back yard had run out but there was some seed scattered on the deck. Two immature White-crowned Sparrows flew in and perched on the deck railing at eye level only about 4 feet from where I was sitting (photographing a junco in nearby tree). 

They were too close to focus and also more than filled the viewfinder of my telescopic lens system, so I cautiously switched on the macro setting. One bird flew but the other remained for a few seconds, enough for a burst of close-ups:









Here is the Dark-eyed (Slate-colored) Junco which was the initial object of my attention:




I have had difficulties with Blogger fonts and formatting and finally needed to re-write this blog using a default template, hence the difference in appearance. 

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Linking to Misty's  CAMERA CRITTERS,

Linking to Eileen's SATURDAY'S CRITTERS,

Linking to GOOD FENCES by Tex (Theresa). 

Linking to SKYWATCH FRIDAY by Yogi, Sylvia and Sandy

Linking to WEEKEND REFLECTIONS by James

Linking to BirdD'Pot by Anni

Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday by Stewart

Linking to Today's Flowers Friday by Denise

Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue
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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display
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