Some choice shots from the Mill Pond

above: female Mallard Duck (Anas platyrhynchos)
Above and below: Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)
Female Mallard preening with maybe a little scratching
Male Mallard Duck
Fishing male Mallard Ducks

Variety pack

Above: Thuglife, we've been playing intramural basketball, currently #1 seed with 6-2 record. Unfortunately it gets pretty serious haha, but it's a lot of fun. We could probably give out actual basketball team a good run, literally.

Below: A chavito, the only way I survived Uruguay, it's their version of a cheeseburger. It has a strip of steak, a strip of ham, egg, bacon and cheese on it. Absolutely amazing! 
This was in downtown Montevideo, outside of a bank. This guard was just chilling with an assault rifle right out on the sidewalk. Pretty intense!
My little cousin, posing with one of my fish tanks. 
All those tiny specks are 20 dollar bills. 
The Burress family has been growing quite a bit.
Their papa.
Sweet seat! 
This is the 6th one of these I've broken on the mtb, none quite as significantly as this, I wasn't messing around I guess. Somehow, I managed not to crash and luckily I wasn't too far from school. I don't fully understand how the leather cover ripped so perfectly?

Annabelle, chillin' by the fireplace, she's the most cold-natured dog I've ever known.

Photos from Uruguay, crash course in aquatic and avifauna

above: a cowbird (brood parasite) being fed by its foster mother, a Hornero (Furnarius rufus)

below: Great White Heron on the Rio Uruguay
Below: Rhea, very common in the north of the country, near the border with Brazil
Cabeçita negra (Chloris magellanicus) male
Juvenile Pirañha 
 male Gymnogeophagus sp. "san borja" from the Rio Yi
Rio Yi, department of Duranzo, central Uruguay
Gymnogeophagus sp. "paso pache II" (ex-meridionalis) male
unidentified frog
The massive Rio Uruguay, along the border of Uruguay and Argentina
Gymnogeophagus balzanii pair, male above, female below
Green Hoplias sporting some wicked teeth
A huge Pirañha 
Forked-tail Flycatcher (Tyrannus savanna) male
Churrinche (Pyrrhocephalus rubinus) male
Rio Masedo, every stone in this river is a geode! The locals refer to it as the Rincon de Pache ("river of jewels")
Rio Cuaro
Corydoras cf. paleatus "rio cuaro high dorsal"
Rio Cuareim, department of Artigas, northern Uruguay. Uruguay is the right bank, Brazil is the left bank
Juvenile Crenicichla celidochilus, the rarest pike cichlid in the world, only inhabiting the Rio Cuareim
Rio Cuareim
Crenicichla scotti from Aquas Blancas in the south east region of Uruguay
Great Blue Heron, on the Rio Uruguay
Dorado fishing on the Rio Uruguay

Hola from Uruguay

Well I am chilling in Salto, Uruguay. Amazingly enough our hotel has wireless internet. The connection isn't good enough to add pictures, but as soon as I get home in 5 days I'll throw some up. Today I caught like a dozen Piranha! and a 6 year old Uruguayan kid helped me haha. Alright, until next time

e

yep

Well, I am chilling in the Miami Int'l airport. I got here at 3 p.m. and my flight doesn't leave until 10:10 p.m.  So, needless to say I have a tremendous amount of time to kill. I am going to Uruguay for my biology internship, studying aquatic ecology. It's my first trip outside of the US and also, this is the first time I have ever flown without my bike! 

Winter cometh

View of my dorm from the top of the sledding hill, the expert sledding hill that is.
the roads were not so conducive to cycling, or walking for that matter, nothing like some sledding-cross training.  
Michelle and I, post-sledding. Needless to say it was cold, 12 degrees-ish

more bird watching...

Another poor quality shot, because this guy was on the opposite side of a pond, roughly 75m away. I got an ID on him, turns out it is a Rusty Blackbird, supposedly a rare find in the highlands now. Their population has declined 90%. We observed a family group of 10-12 at Valle Crucis Park

I took a quick trip home on sunday and took the opportunity to do some bird watching in a different area, so we dropped by Bent Creek Experimental forest. I think it was the first time I've ever been there without my mountain bike. Here is a shot of lake Powhatan, which turned out to be a nice spot for water fowl.  
Pied billed Grebe
Bufflehead pair (female left, male right)

Bird Watching

We spotted these White-tailed deer while in route, I shot this picture out of the window in my truck.
The sunset at Valle Crucis Park.
The park has a nice pond with mudbanks and cattails which makes a great habitat for migrating and wintering shore birds. 
We spooked these Red Winged Blackbirds out of the corn field and into these Black Cherry trees, the flock was 75-100 birds. 
Red Shouldered Hawk, also seen in route, picture was taken through the window of my truck.
This little guy was the highlight of the trip, a Wilson's Snipe, not common but they do winter here. He was probably 50m away, this picture was zoomed in 15x on my camera and then cropped extensively to get this poor quality shot. You couldn't see him with the naked eye but I spotted him through the binoculars. I was mesmerized by him for at least 20 minutes haha. 
We saw quite a few species, but taking even poor quality shots is difficult, thus the relative few pictures I came away with. Valle Crucis Park is actually a great place to go bird watching, if you're into that sort of thing, collectively we've seen over 40 species there in Ornithology lab.