2019 AZ Sandhill Cranes

The last few days I spent in Arizona were at a state game & fish wildlife refuge. What a wonderful place! It is home to thousands of Sandhill Cranes in the winter. There is also a variety of ducks and a pair of resident Great Horned Owls.

The cranes fly out early so getting up before down to capture them as they fly out can be challenging. It’s usually pretty cold, but definitely worth the effort as the sun rises and highlights the birds.

They return late in the morning, coming back in great groups. Then the sun is high and it’s more a matter of looking for interesting behavior as they mingle.

The ducks are very fast, hard to capture. The owls were a different matter entirely. She was sitting on a nest and he was perched at the opposite end of the shed high up so the challenge wasn’t in capturing action but getting the lighting right.

There were a also some Snow Geese there but they tended to stay pretty from from the berms where watchers can stand.

 

The last evening I was there there was a spectacular sunset. As I and others watched it just got better and better, the colors so strong. Then some of the Cranes flew across, making it even better!

This was my second visit to this refuge and it was well worth the time. It was also a lot warmer this time than in mid January last year!

 

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2019 AZ Winter

After spending a couple of weeks at Quartzite seeing friends and visiting another friend in Buckeye I went south to Organ Pipe Cactus NM for a few days. Been there before but it is a lovely campground and a good place to relax. I did get out one evening for some night images but the OP cactus were not close enough to the road for me to get any images of them. I tend to stick very close to the truck at night.

From Organ Pipe I headed over to Gilbert Ray cg, just  south of Tucson. Very glad I got there on Thursday because when I got up Friday morning it was snowing!  It didn’t let up so after breakfast I grabbed a camera and large zip lock bag to keep it dry and headed out to where I knew there might be some great photo opportunities. While I’m not a big fan of snow it was such a great opportunity I couldn’t pass it up. The roads were wet but not slippery.  

At times it was snowing pretty good, the blurry spots are snowflakes coming down.

 

This is a great campground with electric hookups at each site. Given the very cold weather it’s been a real treat  to  not  think  about  using  up  the  propane.

My last day here it has warmed up and I even got a few sunset images.

 

 

 

 

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2018 Valley of Fire SP, NV

A few friends have been to this state park and had glowing reports so this fall on my way south I decided to stop there. It’s not a large area but has some really nice views and scenery. It reminds me of what a cross between Arches NP or some of the other UT NPs and City of Rocks SP in NM might be like. Many of the rocks have the coloring of the UT parks, but the size and the fact that the campsites are located in in among the rocks reminds me of the NM state park. There are plenty of places to hike and lots of very little “arches” to view. Maybe someday some of those mini-arches will be bigger?

There are some Desert Bighorn Sheep there, rather regal looking the way their horns are set on.

 

2018 Gros Ventre final days

Watching and photographing the moose in the Gros Ventre area in Wyoming is usually the highlight of the fall for me and this year I was there close to a  month, what a great time! I got to see and photograph several bulls, watch them interact with each other and with some cows.

One of the things a bull will do at times is pee in a spot, then lay in it. I’ve seen elk do this, too. This time I learned that a cow will lay down with the bull, getting very cosy. After a while these two wondered off to the river, she went across and i don’t know what he finally did. It was getting too dark to hang around

Fall is when the aspen turn golden and I got to see that, too.  The moose were pretty active at dawn so I was up with or before the sunrise. That paid off one morning with some glorious color. 

But the moose were my main interest and they cooperated so well. One time there were two bulls. a cow & calf and another cow on one side of the drive and two bulls on the other side of the drive. Where to look, which to photograph, and all the while paying attention to where they were all moving!  The campground has been putting up very sturdy “bear boxes” at each campsite for storing food,
etc., in. They often seemed to be in the worst locations for taking photos, though.

One morning when I left the trailer I saw two bulls and a cow right close by. The mature and immature bull butted antlers a while then took a break, grazed, moved to another area and resumed the challenge.

 

 

 

To give you an idea if the size of some of the bulls, the truck on the left is mine and that bull was right behind it.

 

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2018 Tetons Moose

One evening I went  down the road to the riverbank to see is anything was going on. There were lots of folks watching something so I stopped and took the camera with me to catch any action. What action!  The bull Custer had found the cow with twins and was intent on pursuing her. She didn’t want any part of him and so the chase was on. They started out in a thick cover of willows and came out running. They moved downstream in and out of the water. The calves followed mom as best they could. At one point the bull was chasing after the calves a bit but that wasn’t his main objective. It was fascinating to watch, totally futile on his part though since with calves that young she would not be breeding this season. Eventually she moved off into the woods on the far side of the river. He followed but much more slowly.

Mornings here can be pretty nippy, down in the mid teens in fact. A few days after that evening’s drama I was up at 0600 and out at 0700 to see if I could find yet another bull I’d heard about. Sure enough he was where I was told, along with three cows. This bull is massive with an impressive rack. Of course I wasn’t alone, there were quite a few photographers and spectators there. As we watched him and the cows we realized another bull was coming…… oh boy.  The second bull moved in from the west, staying in the low area where one of the cows was while the first bull stayed on the upper area (same level as us). He waited for the second bull to approach him, knowing he had the advantage of higher ground. There was no dramatic charging or clashing but bull #1 was definitely the winner is the contest. Bull #2 moseyed away in search of easier pickings. At least one of these bulls has a name, too, but I down’t know it yet.

Getting really good images is always satisfying, but I truly enjoy watching the animals interact. There’s always something to be learned from observing them.

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2018 Grand Tetons, first 10 days

One of the main reasons I come to the Tetons now is to watch and photograph the moose. This time of year they are in wonderful coat, all shiny and sleek and the bulls are on the lookout for cows.  The day after I got settled in at the campground I drove along the river to see what I could find. Lo and behold, there was a bull hanging around a cow with twin calves of this year. I think it was wishful thinking on his part but great to see them all. They graze on the willow shrubs that grow along the river stripping the leaves off the thin branches. Haven’t seen the cow with twins since but it’s good to know she’s out there.

One day I took a drive along a narrow winding road that goes from Moose (yes, it even has a post office!) to Wilson. This handsome elk bull was just coming out of the trees into a large field. When he spotted the stopped cars he kept moving away from us at a dignified pace so I was able to get an image. Butt shots aren’t my favorites but in this case it was this or nothing.

Recently the moose have been coming into the campground early in the morning. I managed to get over to where there was a bull (he’s named Custer) and a cow. This is the same bull I saw at the river earlier. They were both laid down when I got there, he stayed down for 2 hours, got up and moved 10′ and laid down again. They were not particularly close to each other but when the cow got up (after a 4 hour rest) he did too. His efforts to get close to
her were wasted so he headed the other way to do “bull moose things” like rubbing his antlers on shrubs or tree trunks, making a wallow. As he did this he swung right coming very close to where I was and thwarting

Custer

the majority of photographers who anticipated a different direction for him. This gave me some great images as I hid behind 2 trees. I did move back after getting about all I could safely. My 4 hour wait was well rewarded I think.

This morning I was up and out but just missed the real action. Wysockie, a mature bull who seems to be dominant here had arrived. I’ve heard he knocked Custer to the ground. Custer headed away and I followed, thinking Wysockie and the cows would head the same way. Unfortunately my guess was wrong but I was able to get a nice image of Wysockie before he headed to the river with 2 cows.

This afternoon I took another drive just a short way out on the Moose-Wilsoon Rd. On the way back I was stopped by rangers who were holding up traffic…… I got to see 3 bear cubs cross the road and got a few photos through the windshield. Not the best but better than nothing. The sow had already crossed. From the coloring and head shape I think these are grizzly cubs. 

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2018 Yellowstone Nights

During visits to Yellowstone I usually try to stay on the west side for a few nights. Madison campground makes a good base for getting around to the geysers and thermals.  This year was no exception. The Milky Way in the SW sky made a wonderful backdrop for some of the features in the park.

One night I was very fortunate to be able to photograph Great Fountain geyser as it went off. The breeze was blowing the wrong way for trying to capture the Milky Way behind it but it worked out OK. Usually night photography is a solo experience, but at times having at least one other person around  is handy. In this case the people happened to be lighting the geyser in just the right way so my photographs were enhanced beyond what I could have done alone. This geyser is unpredictable, the sign said it might go off between 9 pm and 1 am. Fortunately it went off between 10 and 10:30 pm.

When I’m traveling up this way I regularly check out the website, http://www.spaceweather.com. It gives great info about the sun’s activity and possible Aurora sightings. As it turned out there was a faint bit of the aurora visible one night. Not much compared to some I’ve captures but fun to see.

Sunsets, while technically not night photography, can be quite spectacular in Wyoming. With the foregrounds in Yellowstone they are truly fun to photograph.

 

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