A canyon towhee keeping an eye out for scallywags, ne’er-do-wells, trouble-makers.
📷: Sony A6600 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: May 28, 2023
Tag: boulder
The Night Owls
Two night owls, one on each side of the camera. One of us has excellent vision, one of us doesn’t get dizzy when standing on a high ledge, both think mushrooms and green beans are disgusting. My favorite image from a set right as a mountain started to block the setting sun.
📷: Sony A6700 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: November 21, 2023
Symbiosis
Sperm whales often sleep vertically with their heads below the surface but here they poke their heads above the desert floor, providing antelope squirrels protection from their many predators while relying on them as lookouts for orcas or peg-legged hikers with a look of mania about them.
📷: Sony A6700 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: November 21, 2023
Surprise Test
Though I see them frequently in the neighborhood I rarely see roadrunners in the local preserve and have never photographed one there. So of course as I took a quick hike to test out a camera so newly arrived I hadn’t yet set it up to my liking, the first animal I see is a roadrunner posing on a boulder. So lovely to see, as their name implies while they can fly they prefer to walk, and can really scoot when they want to.
📷: Sony A6700 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: November 21, 2023
In the Shadows
When I passed a gap in the boulders this owl appeared as a silhouette to my naked eyes as the sun hung low and bathed my pupils in its glory, leaving the shadows an inky darkness. Even though I liked the look of the silhouette and a much brighter version, I settled on this exposure with the shadows lightly raised as I think it speaks to the reality of what I saw. The owl and its mate (on a different rock) were using the boulders to shield the sun’s intense gaze, the approaching sunset meaning I was on my way out of the park but for the owls the desert was about to become their hunting ground.
Looking East
Looking east at a great horned owl looking east. Perhaps enjoying the fading sunlight falling on the distant mountains, perhaps keeping an eye out for a meal below, perhaps looking out for the hawks living further east. As an adult its primary threats are no different than mine: age, injury, illness, humans.
Desert Friends
This whale and I share a special bond, it always breaches the desert’s surface when it sees me on the trail, often bringing a favored friend along like a lizard, ground squirrel, or in this case a curve-billed thrasher. Taken on an early fall morning in 2022.
Sonoran Springtime
Taken while walking Bear in April, had my 100-400mm with me.
A Vignette
A quick snap from the spring of an owl atop a boulder with wildflowers blooming in the desert below. I was busy and didn’t look closely at the picture until much later, when I realized an owlet was also looking out. And it was months after that as I finally edited the picture I realized an antelope squirrel was running down the rock on the right. I took other pictures as we circled around the loop, some with compositions I like better or with softer light, but I love this little slice of life. This section of the desert has few saguaros and the wildlife is dominated by small mammals and those that eat them.
You won’t see Bear in the picture but I do, not only was he standing beside me but I only found this trail because of him, as it is the easiest to access from our house and a great place to hike with him when I’m short on time. So for me this picture is as much about a slice of my life as theirs.
Patterns in the Shadows
In January while walking Bear we passed some large granite boulders and my pattern recognition self thought he saw an owl deep in the shadows of one of the boulders. The rest of my selves thought he was being ridiculous given the distance and while I had seen owls in the area, mostly what I see are protuberances in the rocks that at a distance look like owls. He was so insistent there was an owl there I took a picture and zoomed in just so I could prove him wrong and we could continue on our way.
Except to my delight and chagrin there was an owl there. If the owl seems blindingly obvious in the first picture I took it two months later on a rare occasion when I brought my super-telephoto into the desert and happened to find it in the same spot, with the high magnification and exposure for the shadows the hidden subject is easily revealed. The second picture was taken on the day in question and is still a moderate telephoto shot, zoomed in several times compared to these naked aging eyes, but even so you get a feel for what I was seeing on the day. The owl is in the shadows of the boulder on the right, with some rocks-not-owls on the boulder on the left.
It was a nice find and helped me understand more about the owl and how it manages the brighter parts of the day. The zoomed-in shot is a nice reminder that while I think of the boulders as being solid monoliths they are rather beaten up from so many years of wind and weather, and not so homogeneous to boot.
So I cut that same self some slack weeks later when he thought at first glance he saw a bullfrog in the middle of the desert. In this case all it took was a second glance for the frog to turn into the greens and yellows of the paddle of a dying prickly pear. Though I saw many bullfrogs in my years in the Northwest it was a particular bullfrog that triggered the recognition, a giant fellow sitting undaunted beside a trail in Portland, when I later looked at my notes I realized that sighting was 18 years ago. So if I’m still alive in 18 years I suppose no matter where I am on this great blue ball I’ll be seeing owls in shadows that aren’t really there, except maybe they are.
Boolie 