Yesterday I found the first baby mantis of the season on, of all places, my toilet!  I looked around the bathroom for his 200 brothers and sisters, but he was alone.  Relocated him outside. The little guy is about the size of your fingernail.  At first I thought he was a mosquito!  The photo is enlarged and greatly sharpened, as the lens was about 4 inches away from him.

One of my favorite ways to spend a day is to hike off-trail in the sandstone wilderness.  This particular wilderness has no trails save those of the Mule Deer and the Bighorn.  I follow these whenever they’re going my way.  I figure the locals know best.  Otherwise, I strike off in whatever direction looks interesting, never knowing what I might find.

The ancient ones were here.  They left their writings for us to ponder a thousand years later.  Coyote was singing the whole time I studied the petroglyphs.  His song came from somewhere down in the dunes.  A small, colorful bird had collected his fur to prepare a feather-soft bed for her single egg.  She nested in a hidden slot canyon where no one ever goes.  No one, that is, until yesterday.