Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / Albatrossity / On The Road – Albatrossity – In the West

On The Road – Albatrossity – In the West

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good morning everybody,

Today we have a wonderful submission from Albatrossity.

Enjoy the day and celebrate the daily reduction in ever-shorter days; before you know it, the Solstice will be here and we can begin increasing daylight in pursuit of Spring.

 

In September I took a trip out to California to ostensibly go on a birding trip off the coast, but that got canceled due to high winds and the resultant imminent puking. But here are a few pictures from that trip, to help kick off this new blog site.

On The Road - Albatrossity - In the West 4
Four Corners September 5, 2019

Shiprock in the distance, Common Raven in the foregound

On The Road - Albatrossity - In the West 3
Monte Vista COSeptember 4, 2019

Swainson’s Hawk, one of many seen in this part of Colorado

On The Road - Albatrossity - In the West
Morro Bay CASeptember 11, 2019

Osprey observing the crowd scene near the beach

On The Road - Albatrossity - In the West 1
Ventana CASeptember 9, 2019

Acorn Woodpecker, one of the clowniest birds on the planet

On The Road - Albatrossity - In the West 2
Paso Robles CASeptember 9, 2019

Yellow-billed Magpie, a bird species that is only found in California

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    I’ve missed your amazing bird photos, Albatrossity! And some from the left coast I’ve never seen.

  4. 4.

    Quinerly

    Gorgeous pictures! Poco and I will be making our 3rd pilgrimage to Shiprock in March. Spending a week in Farmington after Santa Fe and Gallup. Your raven picture is fantastic. It’s a place like no other. On our first trip there, we were there at sunrise one cold January morning. Otherworldly. Plus, the wind. Poco stood perfectly still with his nose to the air. I like to think he felt something….

  6. 6.

    Doug

    Can y’all think of any reason that when this post is on the front page, all the photos appear twice? I don’t mind particularly, but it doesn’t seem like optimal site behavior. (Firefox and Windows 10 on a desktop)

  11. 11.

    DCrefugee

    @Doug: Same here. Consistent behavior every time an OTR post is on the front page.

     

    Win10/Chrome Version 78.0.3904.108 (64-bit)

  13. 13.

    raven

    The “Raven”on the fence reminds me of when I was a kid in California. We’d go up to Mount Baldy and hike around and then drive back through the farms around Pomona.  We always had .22’s with us and the when we saw the crows in fences we’d stop. If we just watched them they’s stay put but as soon as we pulled the rifles out they were gone!

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    @Quinerly: Took a cross-country road trip once and stopped at Shiprock along the way. “Other worldly” is a good description of it. I’d like to see it again some day.

  17. 17.

    laura

    I love the yellow billed Magpie! We haven’t had any in our neighborhood since the west nile virus wiped out corvids about 5 or 6 years ago. The crows returned in much smaller numbers but no Magpies as of yet.

    Lovely photos all -thank you albatrosity.

  20. 20.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    @Doug: The weird thing is I predict the repeats will disappear when the next post comes on the front page.  That’s what seemed to happen yesterday.  Hopefully, this might shed some light on the problem.

  23. 23.

    arrieve

    I love to photograph birds but I never come close to this magic. I especially love that woodpecker. It’s so nice to wake up to On the Road again. Thanks, Alain and Albatrossity!

  27. 27.

    TomatoQueen

    Oh lovely. The look on the Osprey’s face, and then as a TOON supporter, the Magpie–fabulous.

     

    Also, as to seeing double: yesterday morning on this here gov’t IE machine yes, in the evening on the personal Thinkpad w/Fireyfox, no double. Here, this morning on the gov’t IE machine, no double. I suspect behind the scenes magic.

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    @laura:

    Similar in our area, the yellow-bill population took a significant hit but they seem reestablished at least along the river parkway, where they still enjoy their fussing and feuding.

    Nothing seems to reduce the vast crow population, who guanofy downtown sidewalks nightly.

    Wonderful set. Birding is a very specialized branch [heh] of photography and my meager attempts lend me an appreciation of how very good these are. Well done!

  32. 32.

    Miss Bianca

    I could tell that was Ship Rock in the first photo just from the thumbnail!

     

    What amazing photographers we have among the jackaltariat. I, alas, am not one of them.

  33. 33.

    J R in WV

    Typical superior production of frabjous birds. And Shiprock is a magical place, no question. I have the strongest feeling I’ve seen one of those magpies in the flesh before, but was only in CA once, San Francisco, Muir woods, train in from Portland, out towards Denver 4 days later on. Perhaps one was lost into AZ or UT… or they’re pretty common around SF.

     

    Today I only have one set of the photos in the front page, same here on the details and comments page. Linux Ubuntu 18.04.3, Firefox 70.3. First time the duplicate set is properly gone. Sounds like a counter error looping through twice, sometimes, perhaps. Maybe…  was that indefinite enuf?

  34. 34.

    mrmoshpotato

    Common Raven in the foregound

    With an awck awck here, and an awck awck there, awck awck awck awck, everywhere an awck awck

  36. 36.

    JDM

    BTW, I love magpies but think the name doesn’t fit the nattily dressed bird at all.  I prefer the Czech name: straka.

  41. 41.

    Albatrossity

    Thanks, all. And thanks especially to Spanky for the tip about the 30% off today at the site where I publish my bird photo calendars! There are two this year, Iconic birds of the World at http://www.lulu.com/content/legacy-lulustudio-calendar/iconic-birds-2020/25669047

    and Hawks and Owls of Kansas at http://www.lulu.com/content/legacy-lulustudio-calendar/2020-calendar—hawks-and-owls-of-kansas/24948351

    It’s good to see On The Road back in business again. Thanks to WaterGirl and Alain for all the hard work that they do behind the scenes!

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    Speaking of work behind the scenes, I would like to thank Albatrossity for all of his work cropping and otherwise working with the images you see under View by Topic and View by Author so they would display as nicely as possible.

    I’m not sure that either of us realized – at the outset – just how much time that would take, but he did a wonderful job and has been an absolute pleasure to work with.

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