Posts in Category: Pic of the Day
Broadbilled Hummingbird
Broadbilled Hummingbird, Santa Rita Lodge, Madera Canyon, AZ
On our last morning in Tucson, before our drive to Santa Fe, we spent a few hours in Madera Canyon, mostly sitting and watching the feeders at the Santa Rita Lodge. We did hike up to the Trogon nest on the Old Baldy trail, but we knew they had fledged the evening before, and, indeed, mom and pop apparently moved the chick up-canyon during the night. Still, there is always plenty of action at the Santa Rita Lodge. Besides the hummers, like this Broadbilled at the feeder, there is a pair of Hepatic Tanagers in the area and coming to the seed feeders.
I prefer my hummingbirds on natural perches, but this is just such a detailed and beautiful shot that I can not resist posting it. Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 320 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
Frog of the morning
Chiricahua Leopard Frog, Sweetwater Wetlands, Tucson AZ
I think this is a Chiricahua Leopard Frog. We found it at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, AZ. The range is right. The habitat is right. And it matches the descriptions. So that is what I am calling it until someone who knows better corrects me. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 200 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Roseate Skimmer. Happy Sunday (again)
Roseate Skimmer, Sweetwater Wetlands, Tucson AZ
Those of you were paying attention might have noticed that yesterday I was suffering under day-of-the-week confusion. My daughter Sarah and I are working the Tucson Birding Festival, and we have been up and out early to do workshops or just to get some birding and photography in while it is still only in the upper 80s, and for some reason I woke up yesterday convinced it was Sunday already. It was only after I had written and posted The Generous Eye post for the week, which is my Sunday morning routine, that I was divested of that illusion. Saturday! Oh well, too late now.
Therefore this is the rare week when I post two The Generous Eye posts. What a blessing! For you. And for me!
This is one of my favorite dragonflies, though I only see it when traveling to Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona…states within its range. We do not have them in New England. The color is just so unlikely in nature…so intense…so pink! I had seen them on, what turns out to have been Friday, while doing a workshop at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, but they would not perch for a photo. On, what turns out to have been Saturday, we found two different specimens perched nicely. One was a tattered individual, with frayed wings, but the other was this relatively new dragon. Even it has a little wing tare…life at Sweetwater, with a host of predatory dragonflies competing within a relatively small area, must be rough.
The Roseate always makes me smile. There is, for me, a deep satisfying joy in seeing one, and especially in photographing one. What an outrageous bug! How extravagant…how unneedfully generous…of the creator to have lovingly intentioned such a creature in our world. I have to admire such extravagance. I have to love such a creator. And sharing an image of the dragonfly that might cause you to experience even a echo of that tangle of feelings is just plain fun! Happy Sunday.
Handsome is as handsome does. Happy Sunday!
Gambel’s Quail, Sweetwater Wetlands, Tucson AZ
We spent the early morning yesterday at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson AZ. Sweetwater Wetlands was one of the first municipal water treatment plants developed with native vegetation and trails specifically for birding. The size of its parking lot testifies to its popularity with Tucson area birders, and with visitors from around the world. In the winter it draws a wide variety of wetland species that would otherwise be hard to see in Tucson’s desert environment, and even in August there are birds aplenty.
This covey of 8-10 Gambel’s Quail were along the edge of one of the berm paths, feeding. I have attempted to photograph Gambel’s Quail in both New Mexico and Arizona, never with much success. They are easily spooked, hard to approach, and fast when they decide to disappear. At Bosque del Apache in New Mexico, even with a sheet of glass between you and the birds (at the feeder blinds in the Visitor Center), it is hard to get them to sit long enough for a portrait. This is the “guard” quail…generally a male…who has the job of standing watch while the rest of the covey feeds. For some reason, instead of leading his covey off into the brush when I came around the corner of the trail close to them, he took the challenge head on, and approached me…strutting his best…his head plume raised…ready to fight me if I insisted! Of course, his covey obediently followed a yard behind…so they all clattered down the edge of the path toward me. He repeatedly struck his best pose on the brow of the trail and dared me to do my worst. My worst was to take a lot of pictures 🙂 The light, behind him and still warm with rising sun, along with his attitude, made him irresistible.
Nikon P900 at about 1600mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
An encounter like this is always wonderful…in the literal sense of the word. It fills me with wonder…with a sense of the greatness of the creator God. And, of course, with an appreciation of God’s love in all creatures. How can I not feel blessed? It is way more than good luck. I can not believe there is not a loving intention behind an unlikely encounter like this, and it gives me great joy to share it with you. That is what the Generous Eye is all about. Happy Sunday!
Eastern Collared Lizard
Eastern Collared Lizard, Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, Tucson AZ
Who says lizards can’t be beautiful? Did someone say that? I hope not! The Eastern Collard Lizard has all kinds of beauty going on. Not to mention attitude. This is one bea-ute-a-ful lizard…and don’t he know it! 🙂 This specimen was at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum near Tucson Arizona yesterday on a hot day…but he was still sunning. Getting his beauty rays.
Sony HX90V at around 1000mm equivalent field of view (using a little Clear Image Zoom beyond the optical). 1/320th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.
Sandstone Bluffs Overlook on El Malpais
Sandstone Bluffs overlook at El Malpais National Monument, near Grants NM
It does not seem possible that my daughter Sarah and I experienced the many kinds of beauty we saw yesterday in just one day. We picked up a car at the Albuquerque Sunport at noon…after some negotiation, a nice little Kia Soul…and drove and down across New Mexico into Arizona. Along the way we drove through El Malpais National Monument which consists of amazing stand stone mesas and bluffs and one of the largest (and most recent) lava flow fields in North America. We stopped at La Ventana Natural Arch, then drove the rest of the length of the Malpais, and on out across a volcanic plateau (complete with cinder cones) clothed, in this wet summer, in so much green that it looked like the Yorkshire Downs more than New Mexico. On the plateau we were caught in amazing cloud burst thunderstorms with veils and faucets of rain, were stunned by vast expanses of sunflowers filling low spots and turning the foothills yellow, caught a rainbow, and then drove out across Arizona and down one side of the Salt River Canyon and up the other. Sunset found us on the west rim of the canyon. Amazing day.
This is early in the trip, at Sandstone Bluffs Overlook in El Malpais National Monument. That is Mount Taylor on the horizon to the right, one of the youngest volcanoes in the US, and author of the black lava flows you see to the left. The intricately carved edge of the sandstone mesas dominates the view.
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 24mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
Cactus Garden
Native cactus, Arroyo Hondo Open Space, Santa Fe NM
My assignment for yesterday morning was to find somewhere to hike around Santa Fe. With the help of Google and the Trails Alliance of Santa Fe I found Arroyo Hondo Open Space. It is right at the east edge of the city, near the top of the first pass on 25 North. After some false starts due to my thinking I could find it without consulting the gps, we got there. There is a nice parking area (and even a portapody) and an extensive loop of trail through Pinion Juniper habitat with too many varieties of cactus to count. It must be glorious when in bloom. There were a few wildflowers still in bloom in August…and the views were amazing. They say on a clear day you can see Mt. Taylor, 90 miles to the west, and the views south and west over the Sandias are spectacular. On the other side of the hill you overlook Santa Fe, and the Santa Fe mountains rise to the North. All in all a great place to spend an afternoon (or morning…morning would be cooler in August 🙂
This little grouping of cacti and rocks looks like something a landscape gardener would have designed…and my compliments to the master gardener!
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 160mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 80 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
NM Sunflower! Happy Sunday.
Sunflower, just over the NM border from OK.
There is a substantial stone sign to mark the border crossing between Oklahoma and New Mexico on Route 56, and a more subtle shift in the landscape from high plains to volcanic plateau, but the real difference, at least this year, is sunflowers. Evidently New Mexico distributed tons of sunflower seeds this spring, and sprayed them along roadsides all over what I have seen of the state so far this trip. And it has been a wet (by NM standards) summer…with enough rain so that the sunflowers, watered by runoff from the roads, have prospered. Big, bold, beautiful sunflowers provide a foreground for the volcanic uplands and mountains of this section of New Mexico. It is great! It is wonderful. It is an act, intentional or otherwise, of worship and praise…guaranteed to lift the spirits of everyone who lives in, or visits the state.
We had to stop a few miles into New Mexico at a little roadside rest to take in the view, and I was compelled to photograph a few of sunflowers. The glancing, high altitude light of late morning, with in-camera HDR to keep the shadows and highlights in range, contribute to image that makes me smile…and I hope it does you too. It is just so cheerful. And yet it is authentic. This is not a pampered garden sunflower. You can see the wear and tear of life on the roadside all over the plant…and the great green hairy fist of the new bud adds a contrasting element and another dose of reality. This is cheerfulness in the face of adversity. This is a great big simile despite the challenges. This is praise for the good life even when that life is not easy. It says to me: God is great. God is good. And nothing life can throw at me will change my mind.
All that from a sunflower on the roadside? Certainly! Happy Sunday! And may it be a sunflower day for you!
Somewhere high plains Kansas
Somewhere in southwest Kansas.
My daughter picked me up at the Airport car rental counter in Pittsburgh on Thursday morning. We drove into the City to pack the van, and then headed out across country on her move to Santa Fe NM. She drove the interstates until just after mid-night to just short of Topeka Kansas, then we tried, without much success, to get a couple of hours of sleep at a rest stop. By 4 I was driving, and dawn found us out on the back roads of Kansas cutting down across the southwest corner headed for the narrow slice of Oklahoma and then on into New Mexico to hit the Interstate again about 200 miles from Santa Fe. Since we were on a tight schedule (having to do with the rented van), we did not stop very often, and I developed my technique of rolling down the window and shooting off an in-camera HDR of the passing prairie. It should not have worked, since were generally traveling over 60mph when I did it…but the Sony managed to make sense of the three exposures and, most of the time, pull them together into an acceptable image. Amazing technology.
And the prairie sky put on an irresistible show for us…with huge clouds in the morning and then something of interest all the way across Kansas and Oklahoma. I saw this cluster of trees on the horizon and the plume of cloud above it just in time to get the window down and grab the shot. In Lightroom processing, I cropped out the motion blurred foreground, which left me with, I think, a very satisfying image. (We did stop several times for more studied photography. I will post a link to my trip album when I get home.)
Blaze of Blazing Star
Northern Blazing Star, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
For the next two days I will be in a van with my daughter Sarah, helping her move from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe, NM, and then we move on from there to Tucson for a birding festival. It seems I am always traveling at the height of the Blazing Star bloom on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. This year I might have just caught the forward edge to of the peak. 🙂 It will not get much better than this, but it will get better. I shot this at a fairly long telephoto to compress the mass of blooms.
Sony HX90V at 520mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.