Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
These pictures remind me of spring as I so loved sitting beside a lush meadow and listening to the savannah sparrows sing. They were taken in the fall though, the green backdrop courtesy of the wonderland that is the Pacific Northwest.
📷: Sony A6500 | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: October 1, 2017
Two of my favorite things, a phainopepla and an ocotillo, side lit by the rising sun. Ocotillos have been a revelation since we moved to the desert though I struggle with how to capture that love in pictures. The past couple of nights I’ve sat out in the dark watching the meteor showers, positioning myself behind one of our ocotillos so that in the darkness its inky fingers reached out to Orion as shooting stars flew past.
📷: Sony A6700 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: December 13, 2023
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
A pair of mourning doves on a crucifixion thorn, one of the most common desert birds and unlike the white-winged dove, year-round residents.
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
A Harris’s hawk silhouetted on saguaro blossoms at sunrise, surrounded by bees. A feeding frenzy often follows when the giants bloom though I didn’t get that sense so much this year. To be fair I wasn’t able to get up early very often on the weekends this spring, on this occasion I struggled to sleep and decided to make the best of it. It was a planned short hike, soon it was back home to join my wife and Bear for a hike in a county park.
📷: Sony A6600 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: June 10, 2023
I would have thought most desert animals would go into hiding during the hottest months and only emerge when the temperatures cooled but for some of my favorites it’s the other way round, so the arrival of more comfortable weather carries some sadness alongside. A notable exception are phainopepla who fly in for the fall and fill me with such delight, they’re here in numbers now and quietly encourage me on my hikes from many a palo verde or ocotillo. Yesterday this male was stretching and showing off the white bars on the underside of his primary wing feathers, I almost got a shot with his wings fully extended above his head but the tiny buffer on my Sony filled and it couldn’t take any more pictures.
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 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.
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.
Boolie 