The Animals

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As I mentioned yesterday, the Blacksmith Wold Championships was held at the Wildlife West Nature Park and Rescued Wildlife Zoo east of Albuquerque. Today’s photos are of some of the rescued animals they have at the park. These animals have been hit by cars, caught in traps or injured in some way that makes it difficult or impossible for the animal to survive in the wild. Of course, in the rescue zoo, they are well fed and cared for, so all the animals are fat and healthy.

In photographing zoo animals, especially birds, there’s the issue of the wire on their enclosures. When I can, I put my lens up against the wire to reduce the wire’s visibility, so I end up with varying degrees of soft focus, streaks or the visible wire. The challenge is making the wires and habitats work in the composition, and as part of the effects of the photos.  I don’t remember the names of all the birds, but the animals (in order) are coyote, raven, bobcat, hawk of some type, coyote with humans, great horned owl, mountain lion, golden eagle, raccoon, vulture, Mexican wolf, roadrunner, gray fox, hawk or falcon of some type, and a peregrine falcon.

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Hay Girl

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I don’t think this lovely scarecrow is very scary, but she does cut a good hay figure. Fall is in the air — I saw a couple of sandhill cranes fly over this morning, so I went out to the river before sunset and a small flock flew by. The problem is the river is running really high and fast, so the places they normally roost are underwater. The Martinez House got its color coat, and the cottonwoods are turning yellow.

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Sandias10-19-13

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You Did What?

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I deleted myself from Facebook using the website justdelete.me which actually deletes all your data from selected websites if possible. Justdelete.me rates each website from easy to impossible on it’s ability to delete your data from the site. René and Mama Manx were surprised I did it. While people complain about Facebook’s new user agreement, as long as they stay on Facebook Zuckerberg wins and gets the free use of their photos and personal data for advertising and whatever they want. But if all the people who are mad about the new user agreement dumped Facebook, then it might force Zuckerberg to change policies or Facebook to fade away into oblivion.

 

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Bird, Bee, Flower and Clouds

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We watched the final stage of the Tour de France, and the multi-media, light extravaganza they projected on the Arc de Triomphe was spectacular.  If the church could could produce the same quality of multi-media production to illustrate the pastor’s points as the Tour de France’s light show did for the awards ceremony, I might buy into the multi-media projection during the service. Then again, if churches could give multi-media shows half as good as the clouds over the Sandias, they might be entertaining.

A hawk was blending with the insulators on the power pole — good hunting strategy. The bee/wasp in the second photo is as BIG as it looks. I’ve been trying to get a clear photo of this critter for a long time. It never lands for but a split second and zips around very quickly. I finally got it in flight. The Asian lily was backlit nicely just after sunrise, and the clouds were quite entertaining throughout the day.

 

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Ducks in a Row

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After I dropped Laurie off to sing in the choir at the early service, I went over to UNM and photographed the ducks and the architecture. The clouds were building up over the Sandias on my way home, so I stopped at the jetti sculpture on Coors and got the shots of the Sandias, clouds and sculpture.

 

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Macro Morning

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I got out my macro lens this morning and René and I started crawling around under squash leaves to get photos of a bee inside a squash blossom. The bee was pretty cute, but after several snaps it got tired of having a lens in its face and showed me a hefty pair of bee fangs. I can’t resist doing macro shots of damselflies and dragonflies. I sneak up on them until they fly, freeze in place and wait for them to come back (they often do), sneak up a little closer — they fly, I freeze, they come back — and the process continues until I either get the shots I want or they decide I’m too close and don’t come back.

Mama Manx has a cave in the cucumber patch where she lays on the cool mulch under the shade of the cucumber leaves. When one of us gets too close to the entrance of her cucumber cave, she darts out like a moray eel, chatters at us, then retreats back into her cave.

Puck is working on his memoirs, “Don’t Puck With Me”, and while he was taking a break he pestered Laurie for some attention while she was reading. Guildenstern was intently playing with clover under my chair while I sat on the deck enjoying the fine summer morning.

 

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