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Posts from the ‘Fauna’ Category

Jul 15

Snowshoe Hare

While searching for Wildflowers on Alta Mine Road, we encountered these guys. I could tell by their eyes they were Hares and not rabbits so I looked them up and found they are Showshoe Hares. Wow….did that bring back memories. The last time I saw Snowshoe Hares was when I lived in Canada. It brought up a memory of getting in trouble in class when the teacher was telling us about them. She explained how their huge wide hind legs made it easy for them to run in snow and thus escape their predators. Always wanting to share my knowledge (yes it started early 🙂 ), I raised my hand and announced that the Hares also turned white in the winter and I knew it because I had seen it. The teacher (a city girl new to farmland) accused me of making it up! I was given some kind of punishment…probably writing “I must not lie” a hundred times on the blackboard. The next day, she apologized to me in front of the whole class and we discussed the phenomenon of this hare turning white in the winter 🙂

Jul 14

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Priest Gulch Wildflowers

Wildflowers and bugs on Priest Gulch Trail…fun stuff!

L-R: Scarlet Gilia, Oxeye Daisy, Penstemon

Jul 5

Schultz Creek

Only a few wildflowers out along the Schultz Creek Trail but there were lots of butterflies! This little Blue (don’t know exact species) was enjoying a drink from a Sneezeweed flower. Captured with my Canon 70-200mm with a 1.4x extension tube.

Jun 26

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You Never Know!

While searching for a photo of the day in the desert this morning, I noticed this Hummingbird following me and I was sure I heard “I want to be on your blog today!” 🙂 He was flitting back and forth among the branches of this Desert Hackberry so it was impossible to keep focus so I did what photographers did before auto focus and that’s “pre-focus”. I just manually focused on the center branch tip and kept my finger on the shutter knowing he would fly into focus at some point. You never know what you’ll get but you won’t get anything if you don’t try, right? (Canon 60D, Sigma 18-250mm lens @ 250mm. ISO 200, 1000th sec at f/5.6)

Jun 23

Thicket Hairstreak

There were lots of Thicket Hairstreak as well as many other tiny butterflies on the wonderful Viet Springs trail last week. Rarely sitting still for long, they’re a challenge to photograph. I applied art filters to disguise the very busy background.

Thanks to Tom H. for the ID.

Jun 20

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Horned Lizard

These beauties are so skilled at camouflage, you’re not likely to see them unless they move. In fact, I didn’t see this guy until a photographer friend pointed him out. My friend was setting up to shoot an Iris on the Aspen Nature Loop when he saw a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. Thank you Fred, for sharing your find!
CLICK HERE to see where he was when first spotted.
Greater Short-horned Lizard (possibly since location and elevation match)

Jun 6

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High in the McDowells

With help from my favorite hiking partner, Chris, I finally made it to the highest point in the McDowell Mountains yesterday (4069ft). We started at 4:45am from the North Access and followed a climber’s trail through Mesquite Canyon, up over the 3 Svens, past Marcus Landslide and then up to East End. There’s a Geo cache hidden in the rocks up there with an “I made it” book and I was stoked to be able to add my name 🙂 Rather than go back the way we came, we then followed another climber’s route over to the Tom’s Thumb trail which took us back to the trail head. Four hours and a little more than 1500 ft elevation gain….it was awesome!

We saw deer and the remains of a deer which reminded us there are Mountain Lions up there but we didn’t see one (I was disappointed!). We did, however, see this guy which was pretty cool too. We had stopped to look at the view and after a few minutes, I did what a good photographer should always do and that is to turn around and shoot in the other direction too. This is what I saw. I was so excited I could hardly hold my camera still and wished I could have stayed to see him take off.

Sigma 18-250mm OS (perfect lens for long hikes), ISO 400, f/8, 1/640th sec.

Jun 4

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Feeding the Birds

Expressions like this compel me to continue giving the Cardinals sunflower seeds 🙂
Captured from my dining room window.

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