Flowers & Birds

July 25, 2021July 26, 2021 Timothy Price62 Comments

I believe this is a juvenile Flycatcher.

Beaker, our Gold Cap Conure who we have had for 29 years.

Crow

Søren, our African Gray who is 13 years old.

Spunk & Moon

May 22, 2021 Timothy Price30 Comments

Spunk is really getting into orchiding.

Crows hanging on in the wind.

Sleepy, with Mona Lisa behind him, trying to duck out of the wind. Major Tom Peepers has flown to another tree.

A fly on Taboo.

A Touch of Red

March 5, 2021March 5, 2021 Timothy Price45 Comments

Daddy Owl watching over Mama Owl.

Snow Came and Went

February 16, 2021February 16, 2021 Timothy Price49 Comments

Black and white of snow under dawn’s dark light turns to snow black and white under a dark street light.

Cranes fly into darkness in the sun’s waning light.

Clouds break up over the Rio Grande and the snow-covered Sandias.

Mama Owl and Daddy Owl perched in a different tree.

Crows fly in the final light of dusk.

The pTerodactyl reflects in the darkness.

Happy Valentine’s Day From The Birds

February 13, 2021February 13, 2021 Timothy Price39 Comments

The pTerodactyl posed perfectly in the Tangle Heart Tree for Valentine’s Day.

Miss Stripy Sparrow

Mama Owl

Sparky Sparrow

Daddy Owl snoozing at sunrise.

A congregation of cranes at dawn.

Tommee Towhee

Cranes celebrating the frosty sunrise.

The other side of Miss Stripy Sparrow.

A pTerodactyl takeoff.

A silly duck on takeoff.

“¡Hasta la huego you silly goose!”

As a thunderstorm blew in this evening lots of crows were flying all around us.

Suffering Succotash, Birds!

February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 Timothy Price53 Comments

“Suffering succotash! Do I see birds?”

18% waning crescent moon February 7, 2021

Lavender Mist

January 26, 2021January 26, 2021 Timothy Price36 Comments

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

Spunk Approves

January 21, 2021January 21, 2021 Timothy Price63 Comments

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