A properly potty-trained fish hawk...

projectile pooping in the preferred direction from the nest platform. But mother Osprey (not seen here) could be a better housekeeper.

Juvenile Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) assuming the position in the platform nest.

It’s amazing what you can capture at 120 yards (110 m) with a 500 mm prime lens, shooting at 1/1,000th of a second.

Closing in on 17,000 miles...

(27,000 km) ridden on my collection of electric mountain bikes since September 2020! My riding style is becoming increasingly aggressive with growing experience and time on the trail, so I’m leveling up with a new enduro-style eMTB. But the acid test of this very capable bike awaits on the considerably more challenging trails around Moab, Utah this fall.

It still has the new bike smell: Trek Rail+ 8 Gen 5 eMTB at Fish Lake on its first ride. The sidewalls of the tubeless tires matches the terrain in Utah!

The strongly-jointed Humbug Spires...

near Butte, Montana offer a myriad of easy to moderate rock climbing routes on a smooth, spheroidally weathered granite.

Quartz monzonite of Cretaceous age (145-66 Ma) that comprises the Boulder batholith south of Butte, Montana. Orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars and quartz are the lighter minerals with accessory biotite and hornblende constituting the dark minerals.

This cobbly terrace edge remains stable...

after the dry winter and spring, with no evidence of any unraveling or failure whatsoever along the length of the escarpment. Castle Creek, slightly off the image to the right, is not likely to undercut this sedimentary terrace anytime soon. The singletrack remains safe to cruise.

The mighty tamarisk leaf-eating beetle...

caught in the act of defoliating a tamarisk on my property in Castle Valley. Large swaths of the invasive tamarisk along the Colorado River are being stressed this year, likely due to the widespread emergence of the tiny beetle following a very mild winter. If one listens closely you can hear them munching away. Go, beetle, go!

Tamarisk leaf-eating beetle (Diorhabda elongata), approximately 5 mm long.

Let’s get small: Macro image of a molting beetle. Look closely.

This beetle was introduced at Potash and at Dewey Bridge in 2004 as an experiment in biocontrol but it never fully eradicated the tamarisk along the riparian corridor, though this year they are very heavily stressed, likely aided by the hot and dry weather this spring and early summer.

Stressed tamarisk on both sides of the Colorado River upstream of Big Bend.

Colorado River upstream of Take Out Boat Ramp showing highly stressed tamarisk on both banks, yet the voracious beetle has left the gambel oaks, cottonwoods, willows and sandstone (!) untouched.