More Parrots in the Desert

Parrots are not usually associated with the desert. But this red masked parrot (aka parakeet) is a regular resident of desert areas, including the greater Phoenix area. The Peach-faced lovebird I featured in an earlier post eating with grackles, belongs to a population that my number in the thousands. The red masked parrot is not quite so common in Arizona, but it is more common in California communities. Taking pictures of birds is a challenge, due to the foliage surrounding the bird. The auto-focus on the camera may pick a random branch or leaf to put in focus and leave the bird out of focus. I suggest using manual focus when you are faced with an animal surrounded by trees or grass.

Prairie Dog

This is the much maligned prairie dog. They are actually becoming rare because of the constant eradication efforts of the ranchers and farmers across America. Quoting from Wikipedia on the animals:

Ecologists consider this rodent to be a keystone species. They are an important prey species, being the primary diet in prairie species such as the Black-footed Ferret, Swift Fox, Golden Eagle, American Badger, and Ferruginous Hawk. Other species, such as the Mountain Plover and the Burrowing Owl, also rely on prairie dog burrows for nesting areas. Even grazing species such as Plains Bison, Pronghorn, and Mule deer have shown a proclivity for grazing on the same land used by prairie dogs.

 They are rather pretty little animals. 

Fat Man's Pass Revisited

Fat Man’s Pass is a popular day hike in South Mountain Park, just south of downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The Pass is a narrow slit between two huge boulders leading to Hidden Valley. Both attractions, Fat Man’s Pass and Hidden Valley are along the 15 mile long National Trail. The National, as it is known, follows the ridge line of the South Mountain, a granite ridge running east and west on the edge of the Salt River Valley. This 17,000 acres park is one of the largest city parks in the world and enjoys a huge number of visitors each year. There are over 58 miles of trails for hikers, mountain bike riders and horse riders. The trails vary from easy walks to rugged hikes through rough and steep terrain. The highest point in the Park accessible by trail is Dobbins Lookout at 2,330 feet. You are as likely to see seasoned outdoor types hiking or running the trail as you will young people with babies. All the trails are rocky and steep. You might encounter desert animals, including rattlesnakes. Just give them plenty of room and keep going. Always carry plenty of water with you, wear sturdy shoes, a hat and sunscreen.

Some of the Parks attractions are accessible by car and there are several spectacular overlooks that give panoramic views of the valley. 

The hike can be made from either the Pima Canyon Road, which is located at the extreme eastern end of the Park or by driving to a parking lot off of the main entrance road on Central Avenue in Phoenix. The rocks in Fat Man's Pass are polished smooth by all the people who go through the slit. The day we were there, we actually had to stand in line for 5 minutes or more to get our own slide through the pass. Carrying camera, lenses and tripod, I elected to walk around the Pass rather than try to maneuver all my equipment through the narrow opening. 

Here is a 360 degree view of the Pass:

 

Fat Man's Pass, South Mountain Park, Phoenix, Arizona USA in Arizona

Bird Watching

Here are a Mallard, an American Coot and Goose. We get a lot of opportunities to see dozens of kinds of birds. Some of the more rare ones are very difficult to photograph, but these are a little more cooperative. The light was good for taking this type of image. Strong sunlight creates dazzling reflections, so it was nice that there was a cloud cover. I had to take about six shots of the goose before I got one in focus. They do not like to pose for photographs.

Arizona is not all desert

This photo was taken just about 15 minutes from where I live in Arizona. Even the desert is full of surprises. This is the Gilbert Riparian Preserve and Water Ranch. It is used by the City of Gilbert to replenish their underground water supply. Waste water is treated and then pumped into these lakes to add water to the underground aquifer.  As a result, this is a wildlife sanctuary right in the middle of town, surrounded by offices, homes and shopping centers. Right next door, overlooking the lakes is the Maricopa County Library. The Preserve has miles of trails, campgrounds and bird watching blinds.

Desert Snow

This is really a plant called Desert Broom when it has gone to seed. The seeds are like cattails and cover the ground just like snow. If you happen to bump into the bush, the seeds will swirl around like dust or, if you use your imagination, like snow. The plant is a rather invasive weed and will grow anywhere there is enough water. We are always pulling out the smaller versions of this plant from flower beds and gardens. Despite its shortcomings it is a pretty plant.

Black Necked Stilt

I couldn't decide which of these photos of the Black Necked Stilt I liked the best, so I posted both of them. Arizona is not known for its water birds, but it should be. We have a huge population of local water birds and a lot that migrate through Arizona. These photos are taken with a 300mm telephoto lens. It would be nice to have a 400mm or 500mm lens but they get awfully expensive and even the expensive ones lose a lot of f-stops. Unless the sun is bright, you have to have a tripod or shoot with a higher ISO because you get a lot of camera movement with a long lens. If you click on these photos you can see a lot more detail.

Parrot in the Desert

This isn't a great photograph, but once and a while I just have to include something unusual. We were walking around the Gilbert Riparian Preserve and Water Ranch and I was taking pictures of birds and stuff when we saw this parrot eating with a group of grackles. Phoenix has flocks of parrots and other rather strange birds, mostly escaped from captivity but still living quite well in the desert. We don't usually see them this close and I don't usually have a camera when I see one. Have you ever tried to take a picture of a bird with an iPhone? Anyway, here is an uncommon sight.

Patterns of our lives

I think we have a very limited view of perfection. We think perfection is simple, easily comprehended and young and beautiful. I think perfection is old, very old. Survival is perfection. Real beauty comes from overcoming adversity. Youthful beauty is only a promise, not the fulfillment. However age alone does not equate to perfection. As we age, our faces and our countenance show the pattern of our lives. Enduring to the end is part of perfection, as is completing your work, your purpose and the plan of your life while you are yet on the earth.  "Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Ne. 31:20.) That is to say all the faithful Saints, all of those who have endured to the end, depart this life with the absolute guarantee of eternal life. There is no equivocation, no doubt, no uncertainty in our minds. Those who have been true and faithful in this life will not fall by the wayside in the life to come. If they keep their covenants here and now and depart this life firm and true in the testimony of our blessed Lord, they shall come forth with an inheritance of eternal life."
--Bruce R. McConkie, "The Dead Who Die in the Lord," Ensign, Nov. 1976, 106

Ferruginous Hawk

As I noted in my last post, I am not a wildlife photographer. I do occasionally get a nice picture of a bird or some other animal. Here is a Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo Regalis). Ferruginous means rusty colored, so the name fits. The Latin name means Royal Buteo, which creates another problem because the translation of the Buteo in English is buzzard and buzzards don't get much respect in the U.S. which is probably why it changed its name to Ferruginous. I also don't do a lot of action pictures, I am usually trying to get the speed, focus, f-stop and other things to work altogether and miss the action. This picture was a fortunate exception to the rule.

Great Horned Owl

Although I do not claim to be a wildlife photographer, if I am outdoors and have the opportunity to take a picture of a bird or other animal, I will do so. I think if you are going to be a wildlife photographer, you have to actually go outside to photograph animals. I don't believe I have ever done that so I obviously don't qualify. This is a Great Horned Owl. I have a long history with this type of owl since I saw my first live one in the third grade at school. As it turned out my future mother-in-law brought one to school to show the children.

The Nauvoo Temple

The second temple built by the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was in Nauvoo, Illinois. The original temple was completed as the Saints were being driven out of Nauvoo by mobs to begin their exodus across the continent to the Salt Lake Valley. This current temple is a reconstruction of the original completed in 2002. I have visited Nauvoo, a small town on the Mississippi River in north-central Illinois, many times. Sometime I need to go there just to take pictures. Most of my pictures of Nauvoo tend to look more like snapshots. What is the difference between what I consider to be a photograph and a snapshot? It is mainly an issue of subject matter and composition. I can look at a hundred photos and maybe one or two will turn out to work as photographs. This is one of my favorite photos, taken on a hot sunny July day. Nauvoo is my favorite place in America outside of Arizona and Utah.

In my dreams

All of my life I have admired craftsmanship. I love things that are well made and at the same time beautiful. If my life had been different, I would like to have been a gardener or a craftsman. I especially like things that are handmade where the character of the craftsman comes through. I have tried some woodworking and weaving, but I never got good at either. I finally realized that the one thing I could do was communicate in writing and speaking. But to keep my hand in the creative side, I started dedicating whatever extra time I had to photography. I could spend days at the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Another interesting fact, some of my relatives came from Bucks County. Maybe that's where the urge to create came from.

Photograph as Metaphor

In a real sense, a photograph is a metaphor for a window into the past. Then a window into the past in a photograph is a double metaphor or a metaphor within a metaphor. Can something be a metaphor of itself? This photo of a window in the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works is a window into the past in an active and currently productive pottery and tile factory in Pennsylvania. This amazing place is home to both the oldest of crafts and the most recent of trendy designs. I will share several photos of this wonderful building and enterprise over the next few days.

Definitely not Arizona

This is definitely not Arizona. Our canals are not quite as picturesque. If you saw the last picture, you can guess that this is Pennsylvania near the Delaware River. It is next to the Washington Crossing Historic Park. I am always struck by the contrast between the East Coast and the desert Southwest. What made my ancestors leave this beautiful verdant country to travel to the barren deserts of Arizona? If you ever need a more graphic example of the faith of my pioneer ancestors, just look at this picture of a canal in Mesa.

Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania

Every American school child hears about George Washington's dramatic crossing of the Delaware River in the middle of winter during the Revolutionary War. What is probably not so well known is that the site is a lovely park area along the river bank with a museum and other historic buildings. This photo shows the absolute contrast between the Pennsylvania countryside and my own state of Arizona. I can safely say that there is no place in the state of Arizona where a photo like this could have been taken.

Liberty and Justice for All

I have done quite a few shots of the Statue of Liberty, but it is always a good idea to reflect on the symbolism of this great American icon. A while ago I had an iconic picture of a saguaro cactus and it is amazing how closely identified the cactus symbol has come to represent the desert Southwest. Likewise, Liberty has come to mean a lot of things in the United States as whole. Unfortunately, the underlying symbolism and the original meaning of the statue has been obscured by our current wave of jingoism and nativism.

A window on New York

Most of my days are spent indoors. When I was working full time at an office, I had a window to a courtyard with no view of the sky. Sometimes I think we view the world like we are looking out a window and not really participating in the outside world. Even though I still work indoors, I now have a window that looks out to the sky and some very large pine trees. Although the view is not much better than the one from my office, I enjoy seeing the sky, when I remember to look out the window.

Liberty in the Storm

I decided to trek to the other side of our country for a while. This is a photo I took and in thinking about it, I think it is probably symbolic. Storm clouds are gathering and the light of liberty is becoming quite dim. Maybe we need to think about what needs to be done to preserve liberty and justice for all a little more and less about solving our financial problems on the backs of the poor huddled masses yearning to be free. As usual, you can see the picture better if you click on it. The smaller sizes shown in the blog posts usually don't do justice to the images.

Bryce in Panorama

Most of the really spectacular places in the West are too large to fit into one viewfinder. Although you could make a respectable photograph in one frame, technology allows me to take multiple shots, stitch  them together and see the bigger picture. Of course, the ultimate is a 360 degree panorama, but then I have to set up the camera and take the pano and work to put it together. Sometimes what is really interesting is right in front of the camera and not behind. I do like 360s, but this photo comes out just fine as a full view of Bryce Canyon.

A Hoodoo Maze

These spires at Bryce Canyon National Park are called hoodoos. A hoodoo is a tall, thin, spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. See Wikipedia:Hoodoo (geology). These formations are rather common erosional features on the Colorado Plateau, but nowhere so abundant as in Bryce. The rocks consist of limestone, dolomite and siltstone. The softer rock erodes under a cap of harder material making the hoodoos. For the most part, the hoodoos are not carved by running water, but by the freeze/thaw cycle flaking off particles of rock. We have had several very pleasant family camps in the general area of Bryce. The summer I took this picture we were very surprised to find a nice camping spot inside the National Park without a reservation.

Mule Deer

I do not bill myself as a "wildlife photographer." I have never had the leisure to spend the time waiting for some animal to stick its head out of its hole. But I have taken some opportunity shots over the years and this is one of them. Usually, the shots don't come out as well as this one. I attribute this shot to a good 300 mm telephoto lens that got me close enough to get a good picture without camera movement. If I ever get out into the mountains or the desert again, I will always be keeping my eyes open to the opportunity shot of the wildlife. By the way, this is a mule deer, very common in Arizona and Utah. This shot was taken in Bryce Canyon National Park.

Bryce Hoodoos

Usually you see pictures of Bryce Canyon from the canyon rim looking down on the hoodoos, but they are even more impressive looking up from the bottom of the canyon. Every once and while I have to return to Zion and Bryce for a reality check. Both are so overpoweringly majestic that no memory can compare with the reality of being there. By the way, Bryce is not really a canyon at all. The hoodoos are all along the side of a very high mesa. The side of the mesa is cut into amphitheaters and small canyons but the main views of the spires and pillars are from the rim of the mesa or plateau.

Forest Fire in the Sierra Nevada

During the past few years there has been some intense controversy over the issue of forest fires, especially in Arizona. With the Wallow Fire this last summer and the previously largest fire, the Rodeo- Chediski Fire in 2002, the issues have become extremely divided. The Wallow Fire consumed 817 square miles and more than 30 structures. The damage from these two fires was entirely eclipsed by the tremendous destruction in Texas in 2011. From the beginning of the fire season to October 31, around 27,976 fires had burned 3,959,040 acres (about double the previous record), 2,862 homes (1,939 of which were destroyed over the Labor Day weekend), and over 2,700 other structures.

On one hand you have the indignation and outrage from "conservationists" who oppose all timber cutting and forest thinning projects and on the other hand you have timber industry and those involved in forest management. The controversy is far from over and the fires will likely continue as the climate changes and the drought continues in Arizona.

The above panorama shows a controlled burn in the Sequoia National Park. To see the picture, click on the image.

Needles in the Sierra

This shot taken from Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park has a huge back story. Much of of my life, for a time, was influenced by what went on hundreds of miles away in the Sierra canyons. For years I was a technical rock climber, before that became a competition sport and the in thing to do. We used pitons, carabiners and ropes to climb granite cliffs. I never did make it to California to climb but we used Lost Arrow pitons by Black Diamond. The Lost Arrow is a granite needle in the Yosemite Valley. This isn't the Lost Arrow, but the shot reminded me of many of my earlier experiences. Technically, Lost Arrow is classified as a detached pillar.

Yosemite Falls

I resist taking the iconic photo, simply because it is iconic. But some photos just happen regardless of preconceived prejudices. The contrast here does not appear in the picture. This was taken from the middle of a bridge with about 1000 people swimming, floating in the river, jumping off of the bridge, and simply walking around. It is a classic example of what a picture does not show. I was wishing, at the time, that we had more time to explore Yosemite, but at the same time I was anxious to get in the car and get out of the congestion and crowds in the Valley. We also had to sit in our car and wait just to get a parking place to take this picture. 

Goblin Valley

Here is another panorama that you will need to click on to view properly. This is one of the strangest formations in the entire world. Goblin Valley lies in the middle of Utah's eastern desert. When I first visited Goblin Valley it was at the end of an obscure dirt road. Now the road is paved, it is a Utah State Park and has a campground with showers. It is still strange.

Sierra Panorama -- King's Canyon

This is one picture you will have to click on to see. Panoramas don't view so well in thumbnail views. There was a forest fire burning down-wind of the canyon. The haze is the smoke from the fire. We had to drive on a dirt road for a few miles and then hike up the side of a hill to get to this view. It was worth it. King's Canyon is between Sequoia National Park and Yosemite. Actually, the National Park is King's Canyon/Sequoia National Park.

The power of water

Water holds a power and a fascination for anyone who has lived most of their life in the desert. This is the classic view of the power of water to compel your view. We all know that pure water is a colorless liquid, but we know equally as well that lakes and the ocean sometimes appear blue or green. Here the water is a bright green color. But it is pure and not tainted by anything making the water green. It is the light in the water.

Western Azalea (Rhododenron occidentale)

Although sweeping vistas of mountains and canyons have their attraction, there are always overwhelmingly beautiful spots that capture you attention but are limited to one tree or one plant. One of my regrets is that I cannot be someplace every day of the year to see the succession of beauty that occurs. I am certain that if I lived in the mountains, I would find a new surprise every day of the year. Here is the Western Azalea (Rhododenron occidentale) growing beneath the canopy of the giant Sequoia forest in the Western Sierra Nevada.

Into the depths, the shadow of night falls...

What can you see? In broad daylight you would never be able to see the depths of the Canyon, not because they are not there, but because you cannot see them when there is light. I don't mean that they aren't visible. What I mean is that you do not see the depths because there is too much light. You see other details in the cliffs and rocks and cannot see the huge abyss lying at your feet. Like life, you don't appreciate the light until you have seen the darkness.

The North Rim

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is a totally different experience than that on the South Rim. You are a thousand feet higher and there are almost no crowds of people. You can drive for hundreds of miles on dirt roads to remote overlooks and never see another person. When there aren't any forest fires burning, the air is clear and the weather noticeably cooler. It also takes a good six to eight hours to drive from the South Rim at Canyon Village to get to the North Rim. This is a typical very warm sunny summer day at the North Rim. The mountains on the horizon are the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona, about two hundred miles away by road and about 50 miles away by air, straight across the Canyon.

Dramatic light

If you review a lot of landscape photography, you will quickly learn that one factor is the use of dramatic light. Most of the memorable shots come in the early morning or late in the evening when the lower sun brings out more of the reds and yellows. Midday sun usually results in harsh shadows and flat colors. Time constraints create windows of opportunity, but you need to be up early and stay late to get the best shots. As I walk along, where ever I happen to be, I automatically frame pictures in my mind. That is not to say that some of my pictures do not benefit from cropping, but I try to choose a well composed subject matter initially. Let the light draw your eye into the photo. See what is really there, not what you initially think is there.