The last couple days in Beaver Dam involved almost no back road touring, but were used for catching up on chores and just relaxing. I did spend a little time going out for sunrises and sunsets, as well as getting more familiar with this community. (I won't call it a town, since there is almost no town there. One lodge and one convenience store, both of which sell lottery tickets and were inundated with Power Ball customers.) I was pleasantly surprised by some very nice neighborhoods of fairly new and attractive homes.
Lots of pretty plants adorned the residential areas, many of which are not known to me.
I do recognize a cereus cactus, but there are many varieties and I am not familiar with most of them.
After moving to Overton, NV, I continued to take it easy, watching football and World Series on TV, catching up on laundry and taking short drives around town. Quite a few birds posed for me, but I'll share just a few.
One of the more numerous bird species here is the Gambel's quail, which likes the low growth plants so plentiful in this desert. Hundreds of these guys hide underneath low branches to feed, scurrying from one patch to another and minimizing time in the open.
The phainopepla is an interesting bird. I learned they drink very little water, getting liquid from mistletoe berries. They will eat more than 1000 berries each day, providing they can find that many. I don't recall seeing much mistletoe in the desert.
The northern flicker is my nemesis bird. Hard to get close to, I often see only their white rump as they fly away from me. A pretty member of the woodpecker family, the Western variety has red shaft feathers, while those in the East have yellow. This photo was taken from such great distance, I didn't know what it was until enlarging the photo.
A group of eight wild turkeys were wandering through town.
On one trip into the wilderness, I ran across an abandoned operation that I believe must have been mining of some type. More recently, it has obviously become a popular spot for graffiti artists. I wonder if the one who painted the upside down flag realizes that is a distress signal.
Sunsets here are pretty nice, too.
A couple more attractive landscape plants that I can't identify.
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