Category: Animals

Travel Photo Challenge Day 5 Birds Birds Birds

Timothy Price35 Comments

I’m a Bald Eagle and I approve this post.

I took a break from putting this post together to go out a see what was going on in the bosque and river. A Bald Eagle flew over in approval of this post. The clouds approved also, forming a pterodactyl being chased by a chimera.

My photographer of the day is Lukas Kondraciuk with Through Open Lens at https://throughopenlens.com/. Lukas does wonderful bird photographs, tells really bad jokes, and always has interesting facts about whatever he posts.

Pterodactyl and Chimera in the clouds.

Jupiter with 3 clear moons and maybe one faint moon, and a moon peeking out from behind Jupiter on the top right. Saturn is slowly diverging, moving further away each night.

For Day 5 of the Travel Photo Challenge, I present you with a whole bunch of photos of a Gray Hawk, a Barn Owl, and a group of Harris Hawks. In October 2017, we drove to Tucson for a Linguistics conference. On the way home, we stopped by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The museum has a raptor free-flight exhibit, which we happened to be just in time for.

Gray Hawk, also known as the Mexican goshawk.

When Barney the Barn Owl flew out of the aviary, all the crowd went “Aaahhh! How cute!” He is certainly adorable. He flew silently between perches entertaining his adoring crowd.

The stars of the show we experienced were the Harris Hawks. Four Harris Hawks performed for the finale of the free-flight show. Harris Hawks have made a regional adaptation to the harsh conditions in the Sonoran Desert by hunting in groups. The Sonoran Desert is the only place that Harris Hawks have been observed hunting and working together in groups. Their distribution in the US is limited to southern Arizona, southeastern New Mexico, and southwest Texas. Their larger distribution is throughout most of Mexico, the west coast of Central America, and the lower elevations of South America. Free flight shows are great for photographing these raptors because they are close enough to get a lot of detail and action shots.

 

Travel Photo Challenge Day 4 Christmas And The Continental Divide

Timothy Price51 Comments

Christmas 2020 sunset

One reason I don’t generally do photo challenges is that life in real-time is so much more interesting than the challenges. For Day 4 of the Travel Photo Challenge, I am starting off with four photos that are less than four hours old from when I took them to when I’m posting them. To help maintain proper social distancing, and keep things nice and airy, we celebrated Christmas with family outside this afternoon. We had two fire pits and two space heaters spread out to keep us warm.

I’m not featuring another photography today, I will resume with a featured photographer tomorrow. My Day 4 Travel Photography is from December 2009 when Laurie and I hiked on a short portion of the Continental Divide Trail west of Cuba, New Mexico.

The landscape was not as exciting as the badlands, except we could see Cabazon looking to the southeast. Cabazon is the largest of 50 volcanic formations in the Rio Puerco valley between the Jemez Mountains to the northeast and Mount Taylor to the southwest. Mount Tayler is a large volcano that stands at 11,305 ft (3,446 m) above sea level. Jemez Mountains has Valle Grande, a large 13.7-mile (22.0 km) wide volcanic caldera with a high point at 11,253-foot (3,430 m) above sea level. Cabazon stands 1,100 feet above the valley floor. The top of Cabazon is 8,000 feet above Sea Level.

The Continental Divide Trail is a 3100 mi (4989 km) trail between Chihuahua and Alberta. The continental divide snakes its way up the western side of New Mexico, through Colorado, heads northwest across Wyoming, along the border between Idaho and Montana, and then up the western edge of Montana. Runoff and rivers on the western side of the continental divide flow into the Pacific Ocean. Runoff and rivers on the eastern side of the continental divide flow into the Atlantic Ocean.

We celebrated Christmas outside and kept warm with fire pits and space heaters.

A Christmas bunny dropped by to wish us seasons greetings.

Jupiter & Saturn on December 25, 2020.

Looking SE from the Continental Divide Trail at Cabazon and another large volcanic plug in the distance. December 2009.

Happy Solstice & Conjunction

Timothy Price60 Comments

Jupiter & Saturn in the trees at 6:45 pm. That’s about as close to looking like one star from my view-point.

Sahsa was looking for the conjunction but said all she could see was the ceiling. Silly Kitty.

Jupiter & Saturn at 6:40 pm.

This is the best shot I got of Jupiter & Saturn with 4 of Jupiter’s moons. I believe the light on the lower right is a star.

Another shot a little closer.

Twelve Hours

Timothy Price44 Comments

6:00 am. Venus rising in the dark at dawn.

Glenda looking cool on top of an armario at noon.

Sasha napping at noon in the new hammock that replaced one of the worn-out burlap hammocks.

6:00 pm Saturn and Jupiter closing in on each other.

A closer view of Saturn and Jupiter at 6:00 pm. The lights coming off at an angle from Jupiter might be a few of its 79 moons.

The Wilds

Timothy Price60 Comments

Wild moon

Saturn & Jupiter in the Tangle Heart Tree. I had to get way back into the wilds of the dark bosque with coyotes and chupacabras nipping at my heels to get the shot.

I made my way back onto the levy at the same time as the coyotes.

There were two of them and they paid little attention to me even though we were close to each other. After I lightened up the photo, I could see the coyote on the left had a bad case of mange.

I started walking towards the coyotes. They took one last look before they scurried into the bosque.

Crow flying under the quarter moon.

Saturn and Jupiter through the trees. They are supposed to conjoin in three days.

 

Crows, Moon, Mia’s Tree, Tangle Heart Tree

Timothy Price41 Comments

Crows over cranes at dusk.

Crows, crane, Sliver Moon over Mia’s Tree.

Intermission: Daddy owl hooted at me in the dark and got my attention. +2 stops made for an interesting exposure.

Crows and Sliver Moon.

An alignment of Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity, a plane, and the Sliver Moon under the Tangle Heart Tree. Saturn is trying to shine through the clouds above Jupiter.