Early Morning December

When I walked into my office yesterday, the moon was lighting up the room. It was moving down into the treetops to the west of our house. What perfect timing! I managed a few pictures…then continued with my normal routine of eating breakfast and checking the news feeds on my big monitor.

As I took my breakfast dishes back downstairs, I noticed that the east was photogenic at that very moment! I hurriedly put my dishes in the kitchen and ran back upstairs for my camera. It was about 10 minutes before sunrise…so the pinks dominate the oranges and yellows – particularly in the contrails. There are a lot of flights out of Baltimore in the early morning so if the conditions are ‘right’ for contrails to form, there are a lot of them.

I went back for a second look later to see if the blob at the end of the foreground tree branches (it’s the oak in our front yard) was a bird or a leaf….it’s a leaf!

Easy Sunrise

This time of year, it is easy to photograph a sunrise. I stopped in the turnout before the gate to Gorman Produce Farm (the Community Supported Agriculture farm I enjoy in the summer and fall) on my way to the grocery store last week.

There were no clouds in the sky to reflect the light but the silhouettes of the trees and the shadowy buildings were enough to hold my interest. I enjoyed the scene and thought about how the CSA has modified my shopping habits even when I’m buying my produce from the grocery store – some pleasant thoughts on a winter morning.

The temperature was in the 20s. I took a few pictures and continued to the store. I’ll try again next week when I am on the same errand. It will be a little a few minutes later. I’ll check the exact sunrise time for my location and adjust the time I leave the house just as I did for this picture.

When I got home – I already had my little celebration for the day to record (i.e. the sunrise over Gorman Farm).

New Mexico Finale

On our last full day in New Mexico, we got to the Crane Ponds at Bosque del Apache for our last fly out. The sunrise was brilliantly red and pink looking toward the east

And the colors were only a little muted reflected of the clouds in the west.

It seemed like there were not as many birds on the ponds – although the ducks seemed to be very active with their morning feeding.

The sun came up and I got a last picture of some Sandhill Cranes in the golden sunshine.

We went back to the hotel for breakfast and packing the car to head back to Albuquerque. After lunch, we walked around Petroglyph Nation Monument. We did the three short trails at Boca Negra Canyon. There were petroglyphs of spirals,

And birds (one looks like a duck to me…the other a macaw).

The signage and a book on petroglyphs said that the human figure with the lines flowing downward between the legs is a ‘transition to death’ symbol. I wondered how the ancient peoples depicted birth.

At the highest point on the Boca Negra Canyon trails – there is a view of a Albuquerque housing development! The architecture is quite different from what we see in Maryland.

There were some ruins (low walls) on the highest point as well. Someone had made a cairn in one of the 'rooms'. The stones are volcanic.

The saltbush along the trail was full of seeds.

We drove to the Volcanoes area on the other side of the monument and hiked to an overlook of the Rio Grande Rift Valley – that included a view of downtown Albuquerque.

It was a good way to finish our New Mexico vacation. We headed to our hotel and woke up early the next morning for our flight. The weather surprised us: a gentle rain on the way to the airport.

Third Day at Bosque del Apache

High winds were forecast for our third day at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge Festival of the Cranes. We had signed up for the ‘Walk Out to Fly Out’ bus so we were up at 4 AM again and at the refuge shortly after 5. The bus left at 5:30. It took us to a parking area on the wildlife loop and then we walked back into a managed wetland on dikes…not normally open for hiking. Everything was quiet when we first got there and we realized that we’d be facing the sunrise rather than having it at our backs like it was at the Crane Ponds.

Something (a coyote?) startled the snow geese and many of them flew up prior to sunrise. I liked this picture of their silhouettes and the curly clouds from the winds – high aloft and at ground level.

Some cranes flew over a little later. Note how different they look from the snow geese and how the feathers at the tips of their wings splay.

Somehow the bird in the center of this picture reminds me of how primitive birds are depicted. Cranes have a long lineage…and they are big. They may have more in common with early birds like robins and chickadees.

What not to like about cranes backlit by flaming colors of sunrise!

We drove around the wildlife loop after our tour wondering how the brisk winds would impact the cranes. There were some feeding in the fields. The light was right to see a lot of feather definition in these birds (click on the image below and see a larger version).

We saw mallards in one of the canals. I chose the best picture I got of the male – with the glossy green head.

And then we went back to the hotel for naps since the wind was brutal and we knew we were going to have a later evening because we’d signed up for an Owling Expedition.

When we returned to the refuge in mid-afternoon, we discovered that the location of our lecture and dinner had been moved from the Expo Tent to a Refuge building. The tent had been closed because of the wind! It had calmed down a little by that time and we hoped it would stay calm for our evening outdoors. After an interesting lecture and a hearty dinner buffet, we headed out to 4 vans. We were looking for three types of owls: western screech, great horned, and barn. The one we saw most clearly was a Western Screech Owl. My husband got this picture! I was used to seeing the red morph of the Eastern Screech Owl (Belle, the owl at the Howard County Conservancy’s Belmont Nature Center) so I was surprised at the coloring being most grays and browns.

We saw the great horned owl in a tree top – just before it flew onward.

The Barn Owl we heard…but didn’t see.  The wind had picked up again and we declared ‘success’…headed back to the Visitors Center.

Sunset and Sunrise at Staunton River State Park

Being on the field at the Staunton River Star Party was an opportunity to observe sunsets. It is a time when the telescopes being readied for the night – everything in place and ready to go. The first two nights there were almost no clouds at all and the sunset was boring. I took a silhouette picture of a telescope with some sunset color behind it.

The next night – the last one we were staying – was a little more interesting. There are pine trees on the horizon that look great in silhouette.

As it got darker, the activity on the field picked up. Everyone was watching the sky and hoping the clouds would dissipate. Evidently they did. The dew was the bigger challenge.

I only saw the sunrise on only one morning – the last one we were there. The mornings were cool (even cold) and the sleeping bag was comfy. I was glad I got up early enough on the last morning because the sunrise was spectacular. I took pictures as I walked down to the bathhouse/café to dress for the day and get hot tea. Five minutes or less…. the walk at sunrise started the day off right!

March Sunrise…and Sunset

The horizon around our house becomes blocked by trees after March – so this is probably one of the last sunrise/sunset posts from our home until late fall/winter rolls around again. Even in winter the bare tree branches are pretty thick between our front porch and the sunrise but the colors are good through their silhouettes.

The robins like our oak and generally seem to be facing the sunrise while they sing the morning awake.

The sunrise is visible from our back porch – and my office window. The trees are mostly tulip poplar – very tall. On the other side of the trees is a horse boarding area…so a relatively thin forest that still lets the color through as long as the trees are bare.

Somehow noting the colors at the beginning of the day – the clouds that add definition to the sky…is always worth a photograph.

Zooming – March 2016

In February – birds dominated the zooming post. This month there is more variety. The first two collages are from Brookside Gardens – and are all plants in the conservatory.

Outside the plants were mostly dried vegetation from last falls – but the collage below contains a feather too.

And then we get to some birds: snow geese and a yellow legs. I liked the shell within a shell shape.

Shelf fungus and pine codes --- pine needles as background for heads of a Great Blue Heron and an egret.

A splintered tree trunk – a physical reminder of how power storms can be. Tundra swans with sunrise colors in water and sky as background.

Close up of two birds revealed the red in their eye. The frog looks happy to be surveying the pool with lots of eggs already laid. The daffodil is just the beginning of the spring flowers.

Chincoteague Sunset…and Sunrise

Chincoteague was the only refuge on our 4 refuge trek that the weather was good for late and early day photography. We chose a place with water and pines for sunset and got there when the color was just starting in the sky and the reflections in the water were very clear.

I adjusted my camera to get the color and let all the vegetation be in silhouette just as the sun was at the tree tops.

And then it was in the trees.

Two Great Blue Herons flew to a snag behind us and waited there while the light faded still more.

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The next morning we were up an entering the refuge when it opened at 6 AM (this was before daily light savings time and the refuge was on winter hours). The sky was already rosy by the time we got to our spot – a little further along the road that we had used for sunset.

There were birds already busy in the water that took on the color of the sky.

A contrail was reflected in the water closer to us.

The light became more yellow and the geese continued their morning grooming and breakfast.

Then the color turned to orange. The sun was above the horizon.

January Sunrise

January is an excellent month for photographing the sunrise from our front porch: the days are still short so sunrise happens well after my normal time to get up and there are no leaves on the tress to block the view. A little over a week ago – I was lucky enough to catch a sunrise with the moon and Venus visible!

A little later on the same morning I focused on using the sunrise color behind some of our trees. This is the oak. The buds look large for January. They may have started swelling with the warm weather we had in December and early January.

The crepe myrtle has a lot of dried pods that make it look ‘decorated’ all winter long. It makes a good morning silhouette.

Happy New Year 2016

Another beginning…a new year with lots of potential….places to go…friend and family to enjoy…experiences.

I did my traditional picture of the 1^st sunrise of the year. It isn’t a hard thing to do this time of year since happens around 7:30 AM where I live and all I have to do is step out my front door. It always seems like an excellent way to celebrate the start of the new year – better than staying up until midnight and messing up my normal sleep cycle! Unfortunately the clouds were too thick this year. It is a gray day. So I photographed a robin that seemed to be watching for the sunrise with me.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to think about changes we’d like to make. I am focusing on my soft drink habit as one I would like to change (i.e. stop). I started afew days before the New Year so now I just need to continue the focused willpower and behavior change strategies that are working (so far).