Can anyone guess what this is a photograph of?

And no fair looking at the file name.

No idea? Okay, here's a hint.

What, you don't go down and check out the culverts under the roads you drive?

I do.

Not always, of course, 'cause it would take forever to get anywhere. But once in a while.

This was someday last week (okay, the file properties say Saturday). We're out in the middle of a huge expanse of greasewood desert steppe, with nothing around for miles but greasewood, antelope, and dirt and mud. But the road drops down to cross a creek, where a small cattail pond has backed up above the culvert.

A little oasis in the middle of not much.

Used to find the gorgeous cinnamon teal on this pond (the species of teal that the federal government told me wasn't found out here), but the cattails have choked up most of the pond now, and all I spotted was a lone drake mallard. Who was soon joined by a northern harrier (known as a marsh hawk to those not up on current AOU terminology for the past couple decades).

Odd, seeing a duck and a predator (admittedly not much of a duck killer) sitting no more than 10 meters from each other. Wondered what the hen mallard was thinking of the new neighbor.

But as I sat and watched, trying different lens on the camera, the drake took off and flew over us and down the draw. And came back a minute or two later, leading a hen. Missed a wonderful opportunity for a shot of the drake coming in for a landing, so I quickly set up to catch the hen doing the same.

And she never landed.

Don't know what the drake thought of that other bird with the pointy beak sitting on the cattail pile, but the hen was having none of this. She rejected his nest site, and quite possibly him as well, for being so dumb in his selection (in fairness, though, he was there before the harrier).

Anyway, after watching this for several minutes, I noticed the water flowing out of my side of the culvert was getting turbid.

As in, somebody was in there stirring up the mud.

So you know I had to check it out.

Left the heelers sitting in the truck, leaning out the driver's window to watch me disappear into the ground. I've found out from previous experience that heelers don't like culverts. And I'm not too fond of having muddy heeler prints on my lap and the seat.

Never did find out who was stirring up the water, but they had snuck out the other side into the cattail marsh.

And yes, heelers being heelers, they were still staring down at the giant hole where I had disappeared when I came through the culvert and snuck up to the other side of the truck.

That was fun.