Spring Goslings

This pair of Canadian Geese are tending their young family of goslings (1375-1425; late Middle English goselyng; cognate with Old Norse gæslingr) in the shade on a warm Spring day. I kept waking closer and closer because I didn't have a very long lens with me at the time, but I could tell that they were getting nervous and so I took the photo as close as possible.

Sculptured Collonade

There are few places I have visited that command more awe and inspire more photographs than Northern Arizona and Central and Southern Utah. I will be taking advantage of some excursions into different parts of Southern Utah this spring and summer. I may even make it into some the Northern Utah wonders. This is only a small part of a huge curving wall of eroded clay and sandstone. It is almost impossible to covey the scale of these cliffs without being there and even then, your brain refuses to grasp the scale.

An Extravagance of Color

This is another image that does not look real, but I can assure you that it is. I don't suppose that most of us will ever see such brilliant and complex color. When you are there, looking at the flowers, the total image is overwhelming.

Sandstone Swirl

There is a face in the rock. There are always faces in the rocks. There are so many forms and fantastic shapes that erode from sandstone, it could keep me busy taking photos for the rest of my life and probably will.

A Slot Canyon

Slot canyons are uncommon but not rare. There are likely hundreds of these unique canyons in Utah and Arizona and other states. I went through my first slot canyon when I was a young teenager and that set the pattern for a lot of my hiking since then. The longest hike involved the Pariah Canyon in Southern Utah across the border into Northern Arizona, but only portions of that canyon could really be considered a slot canyon. Most of the canyons are dangerous during rainstorms and some, may become flooded even though the rain is miles away. Every so often, people get killed hiking in slot canyons from the floods. If you want to see what it is like to get caught in a flash flood in a slot canyon see https://youtu.be/wj7WnkgjhM0

Dancing Poppies

Poppies have always been one of my favorite flowers. I have seen them a few times in the Phoenix area, but because of the high temperatures, the flowers generally lasted on a few days. These robust plants are here in Utah. These are very controversial plants and the status of the law in the United States regarding their cultivation is unsettled. Notwithstanding the legal issues, they seem to be quite commonly grown around the valleys of Utah.

Fancy Frilly Purple Tulip

Fancy tulips of this type are usually classified as "fringed." Even these outstanding blossoms tend to blend in with the huge plantings here along the Wasatch Front. The two most notable areas are located at the Thanksgiving Point Garden in Lehi, Utah and around Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. There are quite a few beautiful gardens on the campus of Brigham Young University also. The plants begin flowering in early April and are mostly finished flowering by the first week of May. This has been an extraordinary year for flowers, or so we have been told.