Robin... To the Bat Cave!

Actually, this is really a lava tube. There are probably bats in it too. It certainly smelled like bat guano. I like how it looks like it's swirling near the entrance. Though it's hard to fit the batmobile in there. Believe me, I tried.

On this little outting we did go to the mystical ice caves as stated in the previous posts. However, I will not be posting any photos of the ice caves here in my blog. My photos would simply not do it justice. The magical ice caves are so amazing that they must be experienced in person. So if you want to see the ices caves, you'll have to make the journey yourself. You can read up on the ice caves at this unbelievably beautiful website:

www.icecaves.com

Ahh Ha Ha Ha (evil laugh)

Holy Rusted Metal Batman.... It's a Bat!

Now, I'm very happy to say that this photo was NOT taken with optical zoom. While we were hiking in the Lava tubes near Grants, we saw this little bat "hanging out" near the entrance. It was great to see it so close. We were inches away from him and we could have grabbed him with our bare hands if we wanted to... but decided to leave the little guy alone. He was fast asleep. He actually woke up and started chirping at us at one point. I even got some of it on video with my camera. He wasn't very big at all (maybe 2 and a half inches or so). I doubt that I'll be able to see a bat like that so upclose in the wild again. He was so cute. Yeah, you heard me, cute!

Hypnotized Hummingbird

Now that summer is winding down, here's a glimpse at a bird that we'll miss once summer is gone. This photo was taken near the mystical ice caves near Grants, NM. To get this photo I had to dress up like a giant flower and stand near the feeder for 4 hours until this hummingbird came. Alright, so all I did was use my 12x optical zoom on my Canon S2... but I almost had you didn't I? If you look closely, you can actually see the hummingbirds tongue sticking out as it's being hypnotized by the nectar filled feeder. I'm not sure what kind of hummingbird it is... but if I had to take a guess, I'd have to say it was a juvenile male Rufous or Allen's Hummingbird.