barkley – Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge

March 2023

Barkley passed away in March. He had a heart problem. In a matter of days, he became very weak and was laboring to breathe. It broke our hearts to say goodbye to him. It was strange and painful to go to the refuge without him. One of the reasons we bought the property in the first place was so that Barkley and Momo could have space to run around. We joked that we bought our dogs a farm and that we should call it “Barkley and Momo’s Farm”. I’m glad Barkley was able to enjoy his farm. He loved to go in the pool and the ponds. He was so confident and independent that he would sometimes just run back to the cottage by himself in the middle of a walk. He was so good at communicating what he wanted that he got to do things like ride with Tonji in the tractor while he was cutting the grass, sleeping on our bed even if he wasn’t that clean because had been running around in the fields, and riding on his blue boat while being pushed up and down the entire length of the pool.

The dry season officially started in March. It is very hot and sunny. The grass isn’t green any more and there is a lot of amor seco. Our water lily ponds are slowly drying up. I want to add water to the ponds and save the water lilies! There are so many of them and it would be so sad to lose them all.

the baby water lily already has a flower even while still connected to the parent leaf!

the smaller pond is losing a lot of water

the big pond has also lost a lot of water

Tonji saw a pair of Greater Painted Snipes near the big pond with the water lilies! That brings our farm bird list to #104! So cool that we have seen and identified 104 bird species at our place! He sad they were in the shrubs on the left side of the pond. Unfortunately, I wasn’t with him at the time and he wasn’t able to photograph them. I looked for them, but no luck. Hopefully, I will see them some time in the future.

This is one of my favorite videos of Barkley. Of course it was taken at the refuge, our happy place. This shows the kinds of shenanigans we shared!

It’s a baby shark!

Crows in the House and on the Horse!

Some birds aren’t that scared of people and will hang out near the house. Like this cute little maya or Eurasian Tree Sparrow.

And then there are crows. I confess that I used to sit around thinking of schemes to get rid of the crows. Crows have a bad reputation. They eat other birds. They steal eggs from nests. Other birds mob them and try to drive them away. They are associated with witches and bad omens.

They are also very intelligent birds. They are part of the corvid family. There are studies that show corvids using all kinds of tools, remembering the faces of researchers at a university and then attacking them when they saw them in the campus, and solving complicated problems such as dropping pebbles into a container of water so they can get a sip of water just like the Aesop’s fable!

Now that I’m not scared of them or trying to drive them away, I can just watch them.

There’s a murder of crows that hangs out at the horse house.

What would happen if Barkley entered the horse paddock? Would they attack Barkley?

Ha! Barkley didn’t even feel threatened.

They are no match for Barkley and just leave him to do his thing in the paddock.

I thought it was so nifty when I saw a crow drinking from the horses’ water trough. I ran back to the house so I could take a photo.

And then the other day I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was the crow really standing ON Takoy’s back?

Yes, he was! And Takoy wasn’t bothered at all!

The crow stayed there for a long time. What was going on? Was he going to groom Takoy? Get a bug from Takoy’s back like those Oxpeckers and Rhinoceros in Africa? Walk behind Takoy waiting for him to unearth bugs from the grass like a Cattle Egret and carabao? Grab some feed from Takoy’s bucket? I didn’t see anything like that, the crow just flew away. But who knows what I’ll see next time!

Barkley the Model

When I get frustrated with drawing birds, there’s always Barkley! You can always count on him to take a nice nap during the day. And look really cute while he’s doing it.

Barkley sleeping and sunbathing

Unlike those birds! When I see a bird perched nicely, I grab my sketching gear! Sometimes, the bird is gone by the time I’ve pulled out my sketchbook and pencil. If the bird stays in the area, then it’s a very intense few minutes of looking through the binoculars or scope and sketching and painting.

At the end, I’m always surprised when I look at my sketchbook and see how few bird sketches I’ve made. It always feels like I drew a lot!

Let it Rain!

It’s great when it rains because that means we can plant trees and the ponds are filling up with water! We also end up stuck in the house, but that’s ok.

Things to Do When It’s Raining:

Sit around and sketch.

Continue reading “Let it Rain!”