Life and Death in the Backyard

My husband spotted this beautiful hawk in the backyard this evening. He was perched on a low birdhouse- and was eating prey. I took photos through a window, but he was behind branches and, was, well . . . eating. I ended up sneaking out the back door and brazenly going out on the patio with my camera. He heard the door and flew to the top of one of the shepherd’s poles we have in the back. He looked at me, but didn’t seem to recognize me as the source of the noise. He looked all around, and I slunk back into the house. He is gone now.

My bird app tells me this is an immature Cooper’s hawk. I hesitate to post this, because I have had commenters argue back and forth about Cooper’s hawks vs. Sharp Shinned hawks. I will say we have had Cooper’s/Sharp-Shinned hawks in our yard many times over the years, but this is the first immature one I’ve seen.

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Lynx

Lynx

We took our youngest grandson to our local zoo on Saturday, and I didn’t take my regular camera. This shot of a lynx was taken through the glass barrier with my iPhone, and I thought it did a pretty good job. Those paws are huge1

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Otter

Otter

Seeing otters is always a major highlight of any boat trip in Alaska, and we were able to see quite a few off Gull Island. Otters are always special to our family, because our oldest grandson was fascinated with them beginning when he was very little and continuing throughout his childhood. Now that he is a teenager living in Alaska, otters have become less exotic to him- but no one can really resist watching the playful antics of these delightful creatures.

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Gull Island

One of the highlights of our Alaska trip was a two hour boat trip to Gull Island in Kachemak Bay. We enjoyed it so much that we actually returned the next day!

Gull Island is the breeding ground for several types of sea birds who return every year to make (and reuse) their nests and lay their eggs. There seemed to be many more kittiwakes (the white gulls) than the other species, and you can see them flying around and dotting the cliff in their nests. There were also many common murres and some puffins. A few eagles were sitting on the tops of the cliffs. Otters played in the waters below.

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Moose!

We returned yesterday from Alaska- arriving at 6:15am in Phoenix after a smooth but excruciating overnight flight from Anchorage. It was a smooth flight with the potential for a good night’s sleep in the darkened cabin, BUT. . . the lady behind us had brought her CAT which yowled continually the entire time! Sleep was beyond reach for me- I watched a movie and tried to calm my frazzled nerves by playing a meditation album on my iPhone and taking photos out the window. Lonnie actually managed to sleep for a few hours.

None of the above diminished the joy I felt from our wonderful reunion with our daughter and family and our 50th anniversary vacation within a vacation! It was perfect!

I’m posting an iconic Alaska photo first, because previously I had managed to travel to Alaska at least 5 times without capturing a moose image! It was raining lightly as we drove along the Seward highway as we were leaving Anchorage. We spotted a small group of moose, pulled over, and managed to get a shot of this young moose before he turned back to resume eating. The others had already disappeared into the brush. I love the look in his eye as he spotted us!

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Peek-a-boo

While everyone around us was watching the hummingbirds at the feeders, I happened to turn around and spot this little guy on the pole behind the group. He looked at me, I looked at him. He was very cute! My bird app tells me he was a white-breasted nuthatch.

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Zoomed in . . .

I am now the owner of a long zoom lens- and am totally intimidated by it! It is heavy (4.5 pounds)and very zoomy (up to 600mm), but so much fun! Until yesterday I had only used it in the driveway (it has been rainy and dreary), but I finally took it out for a short walk at Willow Lake. I was fortunate to have my photo assistant (Lonnie) with me to carry the tripod (I didn’t attach the lens to it until we got out to where I was setting up). I know my friend, Carol carries her much heavier gear on a tripod over her shoulder, and I even watched a Moose Peterson video on doing it this way- but I was nervous about handling the new gear, not having the special tripod head etc.  But once I was by the lake, it was all fun!

The shot below was taken as we walked to the lake. It is the same spot where I took reflections shots earlier this month. Normally there is no water here. This was taken before I put the big lens on; I just used the lens which I happened to have on the camera, my 50mm.

 

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As you can see from the above shot, it was very overcast and even more unfortunately, there were no herons or egrets there to greet me. So once I got the tripod set up, I had some practice with the ducks who were reluctant to pose and were mostly swimming away from me. I have a lot of shots just like this one:

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Not too impressive, I know, but- take my word for it- he was very far away! And it’s all good practice!

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For a bit of a change of pace. . .

I seldom photograph birds, especially since my friend, Carol, has set the bar so high with her amazing, professional quality bird photography (oh, THAT’S what a bird photograph should look like!)- but I went along with my camera club on an outing to the  Arizona Raptor Experience. It was fantastic! We were there by 7:00 a.m. and had beautiful light for most of the morning. And the birds were magnificent!

I’m not posting any action shots- although I did get 3 acceptably sharp shots out of dozens I took.  It was operator error- my camera and lens did pretty well.  I did get some pretty raptor portraits.

Today it’s a Harris’s Hawk (which I always thought was a Harris Hawk). Tomorrow will probably be a Swainson’s Hawk. See you then!

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Morning Stroll

This morning I was out with my macro lens, trying to capture the early morning light on the flowers when I became aware of some movement across the street.

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It was a javelina!

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He seemed on a mission and continued up the hill and up the driveway of our neighbor’s house, where I lost sight of him.

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We have lived here almost three years and, although herds of javelinas can be seen throughout Prescott, especially in early evening, we had never seen a javelina in our neighborhood until today. I know from neighbors that they are around, but they seem to avoid my camera. In fact, last month something rooted up all our bulbs in the front flower bed- and damaged some of the drip system. And now I have a potential suspect!

Unfortunately, my 80mm macro lens was on the camera, so I wasn’t able to zoom in on our visitor. The first two photos are cropped.

FYI, javelinas are collared peccaries, not boars or pigs.  They are usually in small herds or family groups and can be aggressive.

And they sound like this! http://www.desertmuseum.org/books/audio/javlina_medley.mp3

 

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Mammoth Mornings

It’s been over a month since we left Yellowstone, but I still am going through my photos. Here is a shot of the chapel with an elk grazing outside.

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And below is a very early and very cold morning view of the Yellowstone Justice Center. Can you spot the elk in this photo? 🙂

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Bison in the River

You might think that I was finished with bison photos- I see them every time I go to Yellowstone, after all.  However, on this last visit I saw got to see bison doing something I knew they did, but had never viewed. On the last day of our visit (the same day we saw the bighorn sheep), my son-in-law pointed out a small herd of bison crossing the Gardiner River.  This is probably a typical sight for him, but, for me, it was something new to photograph.

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Bison in the Mist

Every time we made the short drive from Yellowstone to Gardiner, Montana, we would see bison gathered at the river munching on the grasses. The steam rising from the water gives a misty appearance to the scene, contrasting with the icy banks. We stopped several times to take photos; I never get tired of this scene!

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Hello, Sheep!

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I had fun with some creative edits on the above two shots using Topaz Simplify and textures.

The one below is probably my favorite edit. I used both Topaz Simplify and Impression, as well as textures. I desaturated the bright blue sky to create a monochromatic look, which is more pleasing to my eye.

20151128-MMA_6486_melinda_anderson-Edit-Edit And here is an edit of my sheep image from last Thursday’s post with a similar edit.

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