This photo shows why Painopepla are mistakenly called “black cardinals”. FYI:They love mistletoe berries and are responsible for spreading it to other trees. My goal is to catch one in the act but no luck so far. This is a grab shot of one resting in the Ocotillo outside our front door. (Captured with my Canon point and shoot at 200mm).
Category Archives: arizona
I see marbles
This aisle of sport drinks made me think of photoshop marbles. I used my Canon S5 (set on the smallest aperture) and walked very quickly to get the blur. I then applied a Flaming Pear filter called Flexify2 .
sunset
Leaving for the day in a few moments so I grabbed a photo from my archives; converted into a line drawing and then added sunset colors that I remembered from two nights ago. (used threshold and gradient fill adjustment layers among other things)
vine ripe
Every time I buy tomatoes that are still on the vine, I tell myself to photograph them as soon as I get home. That hasn’t happened yet but this morning I got one at least! I used Photomatix to process a single image (cool) and then applied a fun filter called Fractalius. Both these programs accentuate any lines or textures. Below is the original file.
snapshot
Had a great ride this morning. Shooting while biking is really hard! Fun though 🙂
velcro fruit
White Ratany produces a little burr fruit with barbs that attach easily to anything it touches. Note that there’s one main curved barb. Check out the photo below to see the velcro-like barbs at the end of each spine. By the way, they are not sharp like cactus so they’re easier to remove from your clothing.
cleo and cloe
Cleo (L) and sister Cloe in their kitty walk enclosure. This is a very quick handheld and not so great HDR from this morning. The cats were in total shade so I set my 40D to ISO 400 and auto bracketed to produce 3 different exposures. The newest version of Photomatix does an excellent job of aligning handheld images.
watch and learn
Fledgling learns what to eat by watching parent.
flicker fledgling
This morning (still shooting through the glass sliding door), I saw what I thought was a Gila Woodpecker fledgling but then the parent arrived and it was clear it was a Guilded Flicker because of the spotted underside. Otherwise, they look very similar to the Gila. These photos were shot handheld at ISO400 with a Sigma 18-200mm lens at 200mm.
The fledgling immediately started begging and was fed. I can’t tell if it was mom or dad but I think it was dad.
vanishing trails
It’s sad to see the Sonoran Desert being replaced by homesites but at least in this case, developers were forced to designate 63 percent of this site as preserved open space. The lots average 2.5 acres and start in the mid 700Ks.