West Fork Bird
I hear birds while hiking the West Fork Trail but don’t always seem them!
Posts from the ‘Birds’ Category
Oct 27
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Oct 9
Halloween Creation
A dead tree, two owls and some texture combined to make a Halloween inspired image.
Aug 2
Back to Normal
Actually….this is a test to see if all is back to normal. This image was taken recently and shows a Cardinal and House Finch enjoying sunflower seeds on the Desert Feeder. By the way, the “under construction” photo from last week shows how I installed the bird feeder.
Jun 26
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 6
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
Feeding the Birds
Expressions like this compel me to continue giving the Cardinals sunflower seeds 🙂
Captured from my dining room window.
May 31
My Hummer Buddies
Hummingbirds are very curious and boy are they fearless! Within minutes of going out to photograph in my yard, there will be a Hummer inches of my head and flitting around me for a few seconds as if to be checking me out. I think they like my hat 🙂 Whatever the reason, I love it. That particular morning, I was experimenting taking photos of cactus blooms with my 300mm lens. Right next to the cactus is an Aloe and almost the instant I started to shoot, this guy came in and started feeding. Unfortunately, my 300mm lens only focuses to 3 feet which meant I had to back up to take its photo…hence no tail.
Captured May 1st with 300mm lens. ISO 400, 1/600th sec at f/5
May 17
Cardinal Approval
I just installed a new bird feeder, put some sunflower seeds in one of the plates and voila! I’m guessing this is the same pair of Cardinals that comes here every year. They nest in the lower part of the wash on my property and, although I’ve never found the nest, I’ve been lucky to see fledglings. I hope to see babies again this year!
