Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam

Classes start on Saturday, so I'm buried in prep. My theme this semester is folk tales and folk songs, so I've found myself walking around singing Flies in the buttermilk, shoo fly shoo and Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, strummin' on the old banjo. I don't know if kids even sing those songs anymore, but I still remember all the words.

I don't have any pictures of deer handy, but here's a buffalo and an antelope, home, home on the range of Custer State Park in South Dakota.

More bighorns, plus a baby

Unfortunately, the picture of the lamb is blurry, but the cuteness comes through.

More Glacier fauna

We thought that these nosy creatures checking us out through our windshield were mountain goats, but they are actually bighorn sheep.

We never did see a moose, but we probably were able to get a lot closer to these sheep than we ever would to a moose.

And now for something completely different

This chipmunk in Glacier National Park does not get any of the Monty Python references, and clearly isn't impressed by anything I have to say.

Where the deer and the antelope play

It's not all scenery in the park. We saw a big herd of bison, lots of prairie dogs, and several of these pronghorns.

Bunny!

We've had some really annoying and expensive but also kind of hilarious hotel problems the past few two days, so I'm going for pictures that don't require a lot of explanation. I'm too exhausted to explain much, and we're leaving at 6am again tomorrow.

So how about a bunny? Google tells me that this rabbit behind our hotel in Glendive, Montana yesterday morning is probably a desert cottontail.

Wild horses

It was a long drive today and I'm too tired to talk about pictures.

But here are some wild horses in the national park yesterday. I think they speak for themselves.

North Dakota

A bison in Theodore Roosevelt National Park today.

One of my fellow teachers had told me, “North Dakota is prettier than you'd expect,” and that's an understatement. Even in the dreary rain this morning, there was something magical about the highway stretching into the flat forever, with the farms and the yellow canola fields flying by.

And we spent most of the afternoon in the park, where there was abundant wildlife—bison, wild horses, prairie dogs—in a magnificent setting.

Tomorrow we cross Montana heading for Glacier National Park.

The Four Elephant Seals of the Apocalypse

The one on the left is being gently reminded to turn around and face the camera.

Sunday bird blogging

I have many similar photos of this group of Gentoos in Cierva Cove, but I love all of them. I wish I knew what was going on in those little penguin brains.

Penguin went a-courtin'

If you look closely at this gentoo in Mikkelsen Harbor you can see that he's carrying one of the very important courtship pebbles in his beak.

Whale bones

There were whale bones all over the beach at Mikkelson Harbor, along with the ruins of a wooden boat.

Sunday bird blogging

A pair of kelp geese on the shore in Puerto Williams, before we set sail for South Georgia.

Sunday bird blogging

Four kings in Fortuna Bay.

Sunday bird blogging

A giant petrel on the beach with some seals at Fortuna Bay.

One more week of crazy prep, and the semester will be finished. There may not be a program next year, unfortunately. We won't know if our funding has been cut until July, but since there's nothing I can do about it, I'm just going to keep my head down, grade my tests, assemble my books of student writing, and try not to think about it.

Sunday bird blogging

A few penguins hanging out on the beach in Gold Harbour, in South Georgia.

Sunday bird blogging

Evidence that not every penguin in South Georgia is identical.

I'm sure that these two characters are coordinating with their relatives in the Heard and McDonald Islands to cheat their way out of the new U.S. tariffs. My experience is of course limited, but after spending some time around several different species of penguin, my impression is that their primary export is poop. Lots and lots of poop.

There's a metaphor there somewhere.

This seal is my spirit animal

At least today. I've been very busy but I will resume posting regularly soon.

One more dive

And that's a 10 out of 10 for form, a 7 out of 10 for being too far away and too hard to see against the rocky background.

Before and after

Although I missed the actual dive on this one. They're speedy little buggers.