Aug 5
Marine Blues are one of the most encountered butterflies here. The blue color of the top of their wings gives them their name but good luck catching one open! As other Blues, this one is very small. Canon 100mm lens hand held. ISO 400, 1/800th sec at f/4.
Aug 2
My first sighting of a Ladder-backed Woodpecker and I see two right outside my kitchen window! I wondered if they might be fledglings because feathers on their heads were a little sparse. I searched online and read that juveniles of both sexes have red on their heads so I might be right. Light rain and a slightly dirty window kept me from getting a really clear shot but once again, I have a photo for the day 🙂
Jul 27
Walking the cart path of the golf course, we encounter a lot of Desert Cottontails nibbling on the fairways. What’s hysterical is how they go into stealth mode as we approach…I guess thinking we can’t see them 🙂
Jul 25
Mule Deer are often seen in our neighborhood, especially in the summer, so when we started our hike this morning, I hoped we’d encounter one. This one bounded away when it heard us coming but then stopped just long enough to get one shot. It’s tough to hold the camera still at maximum zoom with my compact but I got my photo of the day 🙂
(Edited on my laptop so this might be darker than it should be)
Jul 23
Along with bats and bees, the White Winged Dove plays a significant role in pollinating our Saguaro blooms. They also LOVE sipping nectar from the blossoms and eating the fruit so we’ve been hearing them COO from the time the buds show up until the last fruit fell about a week ago. With their favorite food source dwindling, there are less and less of them around now.
Jun 18
MSC hike to Balanced Rock, State Trust Land (now Preserve!)
An appropriate name…no? Personally…I think it looks like a giant molar 🙂 (captured Oct 2007 with Infrared converted Canon Powershot S3)
Jun 16
After the 4th fire engine went by our neighborhood, I looked out the window and got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw the smoke on top of the mountains. I jumped in the car and just 4 miles away I got there in time to see them dropping slurry and water on the ridge that includes Toms Thumb (scroll down for video link). Because of the expertise of our firefighters, the fire was contained to just 200 acres. Whew! The probably cause was electrical sparks from construction on a house at the base of the mountain. Wildfire is a constant threat in the summer and with two thirds of Scottsdale being either Preserve or natural area open space (NOAS), these fires can be a real threat to homes. The last fire that came dangerously close to the neighborhoods up here was in 1995, the year we moved here. That fire destroyed thousands of acres of pristine desert. A real heartbreak. VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/user/ezpixels
Video captured with Canon SX1 IS
Linen Theme by The Theme Foundry
Copyright © 2025 marianne skov jensen - all rights reserved. All rights reserved.