There was heavy mist rolling over the Rio Grande this morning. At times the cranes looked like phantoms in the haze.
87.3% Waning Gibbous over treetops
Wile E. Coyote
In the shadow of the rising sun
Category: Great Horned owls
Of Cloudscapes and Cats
The clouds over the Sandias this morning made beautiful cloudscapes, some with rainbow colors made by the rising sun reflecting off ice crystals in the thin clouds. Other clouds cast shadows as the sun rose above them.
Sasha
Silver
Loki
Spunk
Gwendolyn
Intermission
Marble
Ice crystals reflecting colors in the clouds.
Glenda
Moon in the western sky before sunrise.
Moon behind Mama Owl before sunrise
Mama Owl at sundown
Daddy Owl watching the birds flit around below him at sunset.
Mama Owl hopped over to another branch so I could get a shot of her from the levee after sunset.
First Full Moon of 2021
The clouds were still hanging low behind the Sandias when the first full moon of 2021 rose cost to 6:00 pm tonight. Between the brightness of the full moon and the clouds, my lenses had trouble finding a sharp edge to get a sharp focus. I miss the old days when I could dial a lens to infinity and the moon would be in focus. I didn’t have to deal with finding edges in bright objects to focus on.
Mama Owl sunny side up
Uncropped photo taken from the irrigation ditch bank right under the owls just before sunset.
Cropped photo of Owls taken after sunset from the levee near the Tangle Heart tree.
Paint The Sky Fantastic
Through the Mist Darkly
Geese Nebula
The Wave
Through the Tangle Heart Darkly
Crane Borealis
Owls
Moon @ 99.5% Waxing Gibbous
Lavender Mist
We got about an inch of snow last night. The sun came out and melted most of the snow even though the high temp was only around 35ºF. The clouds broke up for a very short time this evening, allowing me to get a shot of the moon through the lavender mist†.
†Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) is a masterpiece by Jackson Pollock: https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/pollock-number-1-1950-lavender-mist.html
Thinking About Snowing
A dusting of snow on the Sandias
Following in someone’s footsteps
Snow on trees. Towers in the clouds.
Southwestern sky
Not so lonely dove
Snow is forecast
Owls were well hidden tonight
The moon is starting to get full of itself
Alpaca la Mañana Tuya
Dawn this morning
The morning started off mostly cloudy, and clouds blew around overhead all day long producing some interesting skies. In the late afternoon, we had dramatic pre-storm light. It’s overcast and raining this evening, so no moonshot tonight.
“¡Hola! Buenos Días. Me llamo Cara de Calavera (Skull Face).”
Blanca: “¿Qúe pasa? Cara de Calavera.” Cara de Calavera: “Hay un paparazzo en el dique.”
Blanca: “Oye paparazzo, ¿qué pasa?” Me: “¡Disparándote con mi Bazooka!”
Wild morning sky
Susan Hunter identified this bird as a Song Sparrow. It was foraging on the river’s edge.
Pre-storm dramatic light on the cottonwoods.
Robin
Another Robin
And yet another Robin.
How many robins can you find in this tree?
Pre-storming
The many faces of Tommee Towhee.
The Lonesome Dove
Mama Owl and Daddy Owl trying to get some rest after a night of really hooting it up.
Spunk Approves
Murder over the bosque
Lavinia asked if I had used a telescope to photograph the moon last night. Lavinia never lets me down on being observant and asking questions when something seems different like a whole lot of detail in the moon photo. As I answered her, I did not use a telescope, I used a 400mm lens that is equivalent to a 640mm lens on my Canon 7D Mark II body. I have been considering getting a long telephoto lens for quite some time.
I was originally looking at the Canon 100-400mm lens, which is one of Canon’s best telephoto zoom lenses for mere mortal photographers, such as myself. However, the 100-400mm lens is ƒ/4.5 to ƒ/5.6, which is a little slow for as much low light photography as I do. I really needed a faster telephoto lens. I seriously considered both the Canon 400mm ƒ/2.8 and the Canon 300mm ƒ/2.8 lenses. The problem with those lenses for me is their weight. The Canon 400mm ƒ/2.8 weighs in at 12 pounds, and the 300mm ƒ/2.8 weighs 6 pounds, 1/2 the weight of the 400mm ƒ/2.8, but still a heavy lens.
I ended up compromising on speed for lighter weight and bought a 400mm ƒ/4.0 DO lens with Refractive Optics, which enables Canon to put a 400mm ƒ/4.0 lens in the same body as the 300mm ƒ/2.8 lens, shaving 2 pounds off the weight in the process. At 4 pounds, the 400mm ƒ/4.0 DO is easy to handle, and fast enough to get decent images hand held in low light. In the photos of the owls below, we could only see outlines of the owls with our bare eyes like in the first photo, but not nearly as close up. The new lens is able to focus on the owls in relative darkness, through the branches and get an amazing amount of detail.
Spunk loves my new lens
Preening
Spunk’s a lens hugger
Intermission photographed using a Fuji XE-1 with 27mm ƒ/2.8 lens
“Who are you calling a ‘lens hugger?’ Stupid Paparazzo!”
RAW image of the owls before I cropped the image and adjusted the exposure, contrast, color balance, etc.
“Oh my! The paparazzo found us again.”
Mirroring
The streak photographed using a Canon 5Ds with a Canon 70-200mm ƒ/4.0 lens
A little over half a moon on 01/21/21
The Pterodactyl On The Tangle Heart Tree
On the 29th day of January, the Owls said to me: “Look! There’s a Pterodactyl on the Tangle Heart Tree.” I turned around and sure enough, the Pterodactyl was perched on the Tangle Heart Tree.
The Pterodactyl flew off into the sunset.
I checked out the cranes grazing on the east bank of the Rio Grande.
After the clouds cleared the half-moon hung in the sky.
Copter & Crows
Helicopter flying among the crows.
The snow that was forecast for today ended up only cloud cover with a lot of cold wind.
Sandias after sunset.
Daddy Owl after dark.
Off Center & Not Even 