Some Birds

We lucked into some birds today!

We found this Great Horned Owl.....

 Who was flying around.....

 ....and started flying toward us....

 ....and Walt just happened to have his camera handy!

 And Claire got one too!

As if that wasn't great enough, there was a Harris's Hawk.  Tuscon is the northern boundaries of the Harris's Hawk and they like to hunt in groups which are a lot of fun to watch.  This guy lit close to Walt so being prepared like any good Boy Scout, he got a primo shot!!!

Even the morning started out well today.  The morning sunlight on the cactus close to where we're parked with the RV. 

Nature - The Great Restorer

A friend posted this article on Facebook the other day and it's a great read, especially if you haven't been out in the wild lately.  Even if it's a visit to your local nature sanctuary or park, it's worth the time to take in nature that can give back so much.

 Whether we're simply driving down the road and spot a couple of hawks on a pole.....

 Or get stopped by a pair of coyotes....

 Or in constant amazement over the beauty of the Ocotillo in bloom.....

  Or the Ocotillo's blooming leaves....

 To create almost a halo around the Saguro....

only to end on a beautiful peaceful blast of color.

Each day out seems to bring its own peace.  One of the special things about the desert is that it's simple.  It's also cruel, unforgiving and is always dangerous, but with caution and a little planning, the simple peace and

Wile E. Coyote

I'm a rancher's daughter and for years I felt that coyotes were the personification of the worse animal on the universe, and I still they can be devastating to the rancher.  They can kill, damage and maim a rancher's profit in no time. 

At the same time, they are so dang intoxicating that it's hard to avoid them.  When we are out in the wild and meet up with one, I instantly am charmed. 

This little guy was in a very wide draw that crossed our road.  He walked right in front of us then stopped in this draw.

 Whenever this happens these animals always have a look on their face like "Are you a carnivore?  So am I.  Maybe we should hunt together!" 

 I can totally see how ancient man would not only be drawn to this animal, but want him to be a part of his pack.  And as far as the coyote is concerned, it's a good deal for him, as he can get the leftovers from the human's meal - better than having to hunt alone for his daily meal!

 Alas, as much as I would love to make friends with these guys, they are in the wild and to domesticate them or even try would kill them (or me!), so I have to admire from afar.  And pretty soon they get bored with looking and asking us for answers when there are no answers forthcoming....then it's time to check out!

Coyotes mate for life, and this one had his mate he was actually waiting for and after they caught up with each other, they decided we were boring (we had no food), and off they went!

The Artist's Light

Light is the heart and soul of an artist.  The first and best advice I got from an art teacher was "paint the light!"  And he was right - light is everything.

We were traveling through the Ajo Mountain range and the main path is on the west side.  That meant that we could only do a decent shot of the sunset - not the sunrise, as the light would be behind the mountains, and although that might have made a nice silhouette shot, it wasn't what we were looking for. 

Trekking out to the mountains in the mid-afternoon the winter solstice sun is low in the sky, so it makes for some interesting shadows, but by far not as good as the sunset shadows.  In addition, we had a partly cloudy sky.  That meant we were going to have something interesting in the sky.

This is a good example.  This is great composition (large on one side, horizon not half/half) and interesting sky, but the light is a little off.  It's even taken at the right time of day (notice the long shadows which usually means golden hour (close to sunset or sunrise) which is a movie-maker's favorite time to film.  Next time you're at a movie and notice the outside shots, and how long the shadows are.   It's a great shot, but the light is not really dramatic. It's hard to see unless you compare it to something where the light is actually a masterful part of the photo. 

In this one, the light really works.  Even though most of the time you are looking at the foreground or wanting to highlight the foreground, this one, the foreground is not spotlighted but the beautiful color of the mountains is spotlighted.  What makes it extra special is that there's a dramatic shadow on the mountains that highlights the front and back of the mountain.  There's a little of that in the cacti in the foreground where the light is coming from the side with long shadows.

Photos like this are dream photos with everything coming together to make it work:  clouds to make the sky interesting, light on the foreground flowers (which happen to be located in just the right place), cacti in the background, part of the mountain lit while part of it is in shadow from those handy-dandy clouds who were so thoughtful as to place themselves just right, and if all that wasn't great enough, there's a wonderful arch in that beautiful orange stone with the blue of the sky, which colors just happen to compliment each other fabulously.  Obviously, this wasn't arranged by us, but it sure was helpful that all those components came together to make this photo really spectacular.  Thank you clouds, color in the mountains, the location of the flowers, and the sun being in the right place at the right time and the arch being there!!!!

Sometimes you're limited by simply where the mountains are located in relation to the sunrise or sunset.  You have the best light in the world but if the mountains aren't in a good position to get the light, no amount of good light will make a photo good.  On the other hand, when they are in the right place, it makes magic like the light above.  The mountains were lit, but not directly, but on the side a bit to offer nice shadowing on the mountains.  Add the interesting Saguaro cacti in the foreground and it's hard to depict the Sonoran Desert any better than this.  Walt's camera helps too!!!

The real light show was, of course, the sunset.  We were so lucky to have all these clouds in the sky, cause they reflect back on the mountain to make the landscape even more colorful than it normally is.  So colorful, that it makes the colors look fake, and they aren't at all.  This is really how it looks.  The mountains, however, wouldn't have been nearly as beautiful without those clouds.  This is the sun after it has actually gone down behind the horizon, but is shining through the atmosphere of the Earth and reflected on the clouds whose reflection is on the landscape. This happens very fast and lasts even less time than that.  What made it worse for us, was that the clouds were throughout the sky so that meant the east view was as beautiful as the west view.  We were doing 180°'s all through the sunset!!!

This was the shot that I saw all afternoon in my head...the black silhouetted foreground with the colors of the sunset in the sky.  

Something about those Saguaro Cactus in silhouette with the colorful sky simply spells Happy Trails to You over and over.

Our First Ferruginous Hawks

So two hawks on one pole beg the question.....

If one finds a goodie, does he share it or take it for his own, and are they both looking in the same place or different places in the same field. 

In the desert, one has to wonder if this field is really that filled with rodents that it deserves two hawks on one pole.  To answer that we looked at the neighboring poles and they were also occupied with hawks.  So obviously this is a fav restaurant for hawks!

Finally one flies away - greener grass and all.....

But the other stays and finds us merely curious, but that's about it. 

He finally flew away, but circled around and came back to land on the pole again - this really must be a great place to get a meal!

As most nature parks say, left it as you found it -  not quite with 2 on the pole, but at least one returned.  The other was on another pole close by!

On The Road Again!

.....And it is so good to be on the road again!

We decided to do something warm for the holidays so headed for southern Arizona - something on Walt's bucket list and sounded good to me, so here we are.  We're in Ajo, Arizona, pronounced ah-ho - like ah-ha, only a-ha!  This is a small quaint town, just our cup of tea.  This town mostly serves Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which a sort of cactus that looks a little like organ pipes - sort of!

But what has struck us the most is the color.

 

Our first morning and we have a spectacular sunrise.  The Saguaro cactus is in the foreground and it's everywhere here.  

Sunsets are just as colorful - this is Walt's version of a Happy Trails western type sunset with the cactus in the shadow.

But the nights here are really dark.  For an amateur astronomer like me, this is a dream come true.  This means that even though there is a bright full moon out, I can actually see other stars - even close to the moon.

Well known to astronomers is a fan favorite constellation, Orion is best viewed during the winter.  In normal Northern Hemisphere climates, that's a tough deal at night in the cold.  In the desert, it not only is easy but because the air is so clear and dry the viewing is extra great.  The above photo makes my point because if you look closely you can see Orion rising with the full moon.  This would be almost impossible to view elsewhere, but here, it's possible.  Here's a shot of our location where they observe "dark skies" at night.  

Here, at the top is Orion's belt, and at the bottom is Orion's sword.  Also well known by astronomers is that in the sword, specifically the middle star of the sword is not actually a "star".  It's actually a nebula.  If you look at the star through binoculars, you can see the blur that is characteristic of a nebula.  

Fortunately, I brought my telescope and am having a field day viewing things that I would have to specifically schedule and dress like Nanook of the north!

Who Says The Dry Old Oklahoma Panhandle Isn't Exciting

So you think that the Oklahoma Panhandle is boring.  Most of the time it's dry and the farmers are sitting around waiting for rain.  And the only time they get it is usually right before harvest, then they can't get their tractors into the field.  And Walt and I trek out there for a simple expedition to test out his new drone.

But first, we start in our neighbor's yard.  This is simple and easy enough, their yard is large and we know their neighbors so we have some space to maneuver.  But nothing is simple for Walt and me, and we shoot the drone up.  The sky is blue, the wind is slight, there's a lone kite way up in the sky minding his own business, what could happen.  Well, we immediately found out that was not alone Kite and as we flew way too close to a nest, out came about seven kites to dive-bomb the drone and for a first-time pilot, that was very scary.

About 1:24 into the video, the kites started dive bombing the drone.  Walt, fortunately, got the drone home and in one piece, so why not try that again - without traveling near the nest, so the day continued, but fortunately either the kites got used to the drone, or they didn't feel threatened anymore.

After that, Walt decided he needed some wide open spaces to fly his drone, and nothing better than his farm, so we took off to the panhandle - you know that DRY, HOT part of Oklahoma?.....well, not when we were there.  The first night we had some rock and roll weather, and there's nothing like experiencing a good ole fashioned summer thunderstorm in the high plains than a trailer.  That thing rocked and rolled for a long time, till we decided we'd had enough and took off for the storm shelter, which was a good thing, cause the trailer collapsed off the hitch blocks (those are the things in front that keep the trailer level), and we thought we'd worry about it later.  The dog was not a happy camper but figured it was better to keep the gritching to a minimum cause he really didn't have a choice.

However the next morning it was beautiful and sunshiny just like the song......"Oh what a beautiful moooooooorniiiiiing!"  And the corn cooperated being as high as an elephant's eye.  Walt got some stunning video of one circle of corn and another circle of cotton.  We had more storms, but fortunately figured out how to anchor the trailer really well, and weathered the other storms quite well, and the weather was actually cold some mornings.  For the end of July, the low 60's were pretty neat.

This may be a little like watching grass grow, but it is a beautiful video of the breadbasket of America.  In the bottom right corner is a little "YouTube" logo, and click that, cause both these videos are in high def and it's much more fun to view that way.

Finally Some Sun!

Sun is always the photographer's friend or enemy.  I know there are folks who say you can get just as great a show without sun as with it, but when the landscape is lush and colors are almost so rich they are fake, nothing does this justice like the sun. 

So I should have known that our sunset/night tour was going to turn out well because at the very start I got this great shot of the resident chamber-of-commerce egret on the wharf before we even started.  To be fair, this Great Egret has a clear draw because the local fishermen come in and clean their fish at the dock and there are lots of tasties for a very aware egret to munch on.  So he's very cannily skulking around to get the goodies from two fishermen working on their catch.  It was a great start.  

We start out and first of all, we have lots of sun - thank heavens.  The lake is not only up, but up a lot because of all the rain, and even a couple of nights ago they had another 2½" of rain in one night.  Rain means clouds, and that means no sun!!!!  But tonite we have sun!

Right away things look up.  There's a couple of osprey nests on the lake and we trek close to one and there they are - a couple working the nest.  This one has a nice tastie and probably getting a little snack before he heads back to the nest with some goodies for the kids!

They really are elegant creatures and these ospreys are very large.  The ones we see in Yellowstone are a bit smaller because of the climate, but these are a lot larger and a little more skittish, but we manage to get closer.  

This guy was obviously trying to draw us away from the nest, and we followed.  Either that or he was protecting his tastie from us.  I wanted to tell him he could have it if he would simply sit still for a quickie portrait....maybe with the dog - maybe not.  I'm not sure Bruno would be that accommodating (barking and all might be a bit disconcerting for the osprey!)

This is the nest and mom finally gave flight with a beautiful wingspan.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any great shots of that fabulous wingspan to show how really large these birds are.    Oh well, something to work for next time around!

We took a canoe ride earlier in the day even with clouds the landscape is totally lush.  All these photos are larger and you can see them when you click on them individually.  I can only imagine what this will look like this summer when the trees are in "full bloom"!

As we ended our ride we got some fabulous shots of the sunset.  One of the great things of nature is how it blends opposite colors of the color wheel (yes, it's another art lesson from Claire), without the colors getting muddy.  Notoriously when you do that with paints - no matter what medium, the colors get muddy, but not in nature.  They simply compliment each other beautifully!  Here the turquoise of the sky and the orange of the setting sun set each other off gloriously.

Match the complimentary colors (without mud) with the silhouette of a cypress or two, and It's a Painting!

Caddo Lake Texas

Walt's first video this morning and it was verrrrry coooooold, but beautiful.

An Unusual World

We're in east Texas in the middle of the world's largest cypress forest.  Yep, there is such a thing as a cypress forest and it's in the middle of a lake.  Here's the baffling part.....when you look at a map of this lake like this:

So you think this is a pretty good-sized lake and it covers a lot of space and this will be fun to be on a lake this large and the lakescapes should be really neat.

Then you look at this map and think - whoa what there a drought I missed here?....didn't these folks talk about lots of rain in this area?  What in the world happened?

When one overlays the other it shows that almost half of the lake is missing or looks like half of the water is missing.  

But here shows what's really going on.  

All those green dots in there represent the forest.  Cypress don't grow on land, but they can't seed in the water.  That means that they had to seed on land and then grow in the water, so the water had to appear after the tree was seeded.  That answers the question why cypress trees last so long.  Some are even 400 years old.

This lake has a very active history and is the result of some very dramatic earthquakes, oil finds, and finally, conservationist have kept the area as much as possible as it was created.  The lake today looks very much like a fairyland as many of the explorers must have thought when they came upon the lake.

This is Caddo Lake in east Texas.  A few photos from a trip this morning.

As the lake became navigatable with riverboats hauling produce up and down the river, the lake had a path cut through it, and it really does look like the entrance to some huge plantation with rows of cypress on each side.

The sun setting gave us great light on this trip

And the sunset on the lake didn't hurt either

More interesting shots from Walt with the light from the sunset

Some of these scenes look so beautiful that they are almost unreal.  This was from this morning during a paddle boat ride we took, with Walt and me offering the paddling.  Needless to say that paddling a canoe is a team sport, not one in which either member are telling the other what to do!  We both need some paddling lessons.  Tomorrow we're taking a motorboat to save any more arguing about where to go and what to do!