Wordless Wednesday
Tag: nature
Jewels of the Garden
Hummingbirds are called the Jewels of the Garden or Jewels of the sky. It is easy to see why. As they flit through the colorful flowers the sun catches their brilliant, iridescent feathers giving them a gem like appearance.
These birds are some of my favorite photo subjects. I have turned my backyard into a hummingbird, or pollinator garden as I have written about in the past. I love being able to hang out in my own space, no driving, complete privacy and unlimited time to devote to these tiny subjects.
I don’t know what impacted my flowers this year, but I have very few great photos of the Hummers with beautiful flowers. This is one I like. The flowers seemed to be stressed by the heat and bloomed early and faded fast. I still had a good showing of birds but just not the number of pretty flower and bird opportunities I’ve had in the past.
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Common Yellowthroats
I was fortunate to find a nesting pair of Yellowthroats earlier this summer. They were busy feeding their young ones and the number of dragonflies that were consumed was staggering!
The males are more colorful with a bandit like mask of black across the eyes. More dragonflies in his beak for the nestlings.
I was happy to capture this interaction between the male and female while they were feeding their young.
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Band of Brothers
I was fortunate to run into this handsome herd of Mule Deer bucks just as they were leaving a field in the early morning. It isn’t often you see this many horned ones together and it was a joy to watch and photography them for about an hour before I had to move on.
These fellows got over their alarm at my presence fairly quickly and it was interesting to watch their interactions at my leisure.
Western count, this is a nice four point and three point hanging out.
This guy was definitely the biggest buck and the most wary. He dived into the tall brush and hid for a good little while until he decided I wasn’t a threat. He ran out an joined the rest of the herd and allowed me to get a few good shots. He has some pretty gnarly eye guards. Classic four point Mule Deer Buck.
These bucks did a little bit of play fighting while I watched. I was hoping they would knock their horns off it being March and time for them to be dropping their antlers. No such luck.
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Bald Eagles
February and March are prime months for seeing Bald Eagles as they migrate through the high desert. They follow the flocks of snow geese, tundra swans and numerous ducks that fly through the area on their way back north.
I like to photograph and record nature with realism. Birds of prey have to eat and that is messy. Eagles cull the weak and sick birds from the flocks. They fly over large rafts of snow geese scaring them into panicked flight. They pick the ones off the water that are too weak to fly or are struggling. Nothing goes to waste. Ravens follow the eagles and clean up any scraps.
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Some recent favorites…Wordless Wednesday
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Hungry Hummingbirds
I have been impatiently waiting for the migration of Rufous Hummingbirds to start. Finally on Saturday the birds seem to have arrived. I don’t know if climate change is affecting their timing but the last two years they have shown up about 10 days later then I am accustomed to seeing them and they have definitely been hanging around later in the fall until I am forced to take down freezing feeders. I think these Rufous make their way north in the spring up through California. We don’t see too many of them at that time.
We have locals, Black Chinned Hummingbirds, that quietly hang out in the backyard helping themselves to the feeders and early blooming flowers in spring and early summer. Then in August it gets wild with high numbers of Rufous battling over blooms and the feeders.
It is challenging and fun to try to capture all the action with the camera. The birds soon become used to your presence if you sit quietly. They are apt to fly right up to your face and examine you at close range. I have read that they recognize people and learn to trust you.
One of the challenges to getting a good photo is they are always chasing each other off the flowers. They are fiercely territorial and even though I am offering them a huge banquet of flowers and feeder choices they are quite protective of their food sources.
Better late than never. Enjoying the annual show these tiny titans are putting on.
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Providing for Pollinators
I started out modestly planting one variety of plant that would attract hummingbirds. I wanted to be able to take photos of them on flowers not feeders. I have four feeders to attract and help the tiny birds out through spring, summer and fall. Then slowly the obsession grew with wanting to create a hummingbird heaven in my back yard. Over the last few years I have replaced non native shrubs and plants with a variety of native flowers and plants. Of course lots of other pollinators profit from the pollen rich flowers as well.
I planted a lot of wild Bergamot after I fell in love with the plethora of flowers it produces. The hummingbirds are not crazy about it but the butterflies and bees are frequent visitors.
All the plants from the Astagache family are Hummingbird favorites. This variety is long blooming and the Hummingbirds love them.
After several unsuccessful attempts to grow Bee Balm I found a spot they liked and have three large examples. They are a showy flower that hummers love. I especially like the photos I get of Hummingbirds with these.
It took hard work to transform a rather sterile landscape into a colorful garden full of plants and flowers that pollinators are attracted too. I love sitting in my backyard this time of year watching them enjoy the fruits of my labor. Bees and all Pollinators are under stress as at this time. Consider planting for them when planning your garden.
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Ospreys – End of the Dive
Of course the whole point of the Osprey’s efforts are to come up with a fish! For a few weeks last summer this small pond afforded me numerous opportunities to photograph the Ospreys as they hunted. I sat for hours on the edge of the pond for many days to capture the action. In the following series of photographs you can see the Osprey almost submerged in the water as he/she successfully snags a fish, to the point it flies off with it’s prize.
I was surprised when reviewing the photos at how deep the Ospreys go into the water. I thought they just skimmed the top of the water and grabbed fish.
If you look closely you can see a trout in the Osprey’s right talon.
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Angelic Ospreys
Just like everyone else, I’m looking for things to do while the this quarantine/social distancing drags on. Going through photos is an activity I’ve been enjoying. I took a lot of photos of Ospreys fishing last year. They look angelic to me against the soft summer sky.
You can see that the Osprey is intently studying the water below.
After the Osprey sees a fish near the surface it starts the dive.
These photos don’t capture the speed that this all takes place at. I had to take a lot of photos to get it done. 🙂
Northern Desert Photography 