Category: Observation

On the Road, Off the Road, Back on the Road AGAIN

I thought I would make a quick post.  Although I have a valid excuse, I am short two posts for this month (actually 1, but trying to not count my No Internet post since it really was not a true post).  Although chronicled in posts pasts, I have been battling a knee problem which has put me in the doctor’s office a couple of times and months of therapy.  From the diagnosis, it is technically an injury at the insertion point where one of the lower hamstring muscles attach slightly below and to the inside of the left knee.  This has been a nagging injury since the Bix7 run last July and has really hampered my ability to train for this year’s running events.  I had to bail out of the Cat Power Race 5K, but finished a controlled run at the Corporate Chase in Chicago (3.5mi) running with my friend Pakage who was participating in his first road race (congrats to him on finishing that race without stopping once!!).  That race was the first test of the rehab progress and it passed with flying colors although obviously not at full speed.  This lead up to the first real test of the season which was the Steamboat 4 miler in downtown Peoria.  Somewhat regrettably I had to forgo the medal this year for the 15K, but the voice of reason came through loud and clear.  My orthopedic doctor and my therapists were quite pleased at this decision, but it did leave a small hollow part in me.  I had completed 5 training runs >4mis  in the hills at Jubilee Park by Monday of race week so I was confident my cardio was in check (for at least this race) but did not push the speed beyond high 8s and low 9s in hopes of at least getting to the start line.  An appointment with the ortho doctor was set for the Friday before the race just to get some final reassurance, but keeping with my training regiment I took a slow run that Wednesday to cap off the race training.  The heat was coming in that day, which was a blessing since the Steamboat is appropriately named seeing as how the humidity is usually through the roof that day with temps usually in the high 80s at start time.  At the end of that Wednesday slow run, something twinged in the mid-hamstring on the injured leg.  The heart sank as frustration came flooding in.  Months of rehab, hours and hours of stretching every night and another injury rears its ugly head mere days before the race.  Knowing the main race was coming up in two months (Bix7) and this being the last race scheduled before that one, I decided to let mind rule the body, told myself it was going to be fine and made a conscious decision to nurse it Saturday and let the running gods decide the fate.  Each day it felt a little better and the doctor gave me sufficient confidence the primary injury area looked to be progressing well.  So, the clothes were laid out, the bib attached to the shirt and the alarms set for 3:45am (note, the training runs are grueling, the stretching is tedious, the strength training draining but all pale in comparison to the shock to system when the buzzers go off before the sun even bothers to get up).

The good news was the leg felt pretty good and most of the mid twinge had subsided.  The race was a go!  I was pretty much locked into an internal debate on how to approach this particular race and a number of scenarios were racing through the old noggin while the traditional pre-race picture was being shot by Linda.  I wanted to get a true test of how much work was still needed to make the Bix, but didn’t want to put myself back at ground zero if it wasn’t ready.  5 minutes from gun time, I decided to hold back the first two miles and check the mechanics as well as verify all of the other joint and muscle components were working in tandem.  As a plus for the day, a major storm had blown through in the early AM leaving a fairly cool day in its wake (~73F at gun time).  After all the ceremonies were completed, the elites were given the official start signal and the masses began their trek.  As planned, the first mile came it at an 8:35 which was slow for me, but the legs were holding together.  At mile 2, my pace was maintained until I saw the split time and decided to keep tradition and hit negative splits.  Speeding up a tad it clocked in at around 8:24.  It was decision time and looked out ahead looking for some rabbits to reel in.  It was good to feel the wind again and starting picking people off one after another clocking it at a favorable 8:00 for the third mile split with the legs feeling good.  The hill work definitely helped on the cardio side leaving plenty of gas in the tank for the final push.  Finally hitting a good stride since last July, the rabbits began to fall faster.  The hamstring started to whine a little about 3/4s in, but nothing sharp so kept the pace.  Turning the last corner the running driver locked into the final gear giving me a 7:35 close.

I turned to the guy to my right and congratulated him on a nice race while internally patting myself on the back for  holding off his strong charge to the finish.  To his credit he responded “Thanks, you won today, nice job”  No, I didn’t get to the podium (and not a goal for me), but I met the challenge and defeated the injury demons with a negative split race.   I think official race time due to timing chips was around 32:33 which is right there with my better times for that race in the past.  Knowing I had more to give in my first two miles is enough to know a PR was easily attainable and I was not fully back yet.  Clearly all the hard work and advice from my doctors and therapists is paying off.  Another month of hill work should get me to the Bix7 starting line ready to race.  It has been a tough year of ups and downs but it just makes completing the challenge a little bit sweeter.  By the way, I thought I would share this picture with you as well.

It seemed fitting … look behind me … there’s danger in every race, but this year I was victorious.  Best wishes for whoever required that ambulance.  Oh, and the Back on the Road part.  As soon as the race was over, we headed home, did some final packing and headed out to Acadia National Park in Maine.  Nothing like 23 hours in a car to validate whether the acid is out of the legs eh?

… posted on the go from  I90 tollway somewhere in the middle of New York

Well, It’s a Bird, but Your Guess is as Good as Mine

My typing fingers are worked to the bone, my eyes struggle to remain open and my body has become one with the office chair.  Yet, I am pleased since this post brings me to the end of the wildlife shots from the Yellowstone vacation last year.  It is slightly embarrassing to have taken this long to get this done, but we literally have thousands (yes plural) of shots from that trip.  Needless to say I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the great shots Linda took – especially the water fall silks.

This last set is an interesting one in the sense your guess is as good as mine as to what these birds are.  I probably went through the field guides about 30 times trying to pin these birds down with very little success.  As with the unknown ducks, these may be shots of females that are not sufficiently described in the guides or possibly migrated out of their standard regions and thus are not usually seen there.  If I am lucky, one of my millions of readers (you believing that?) will recognize one and drop me a comment.

Fasten your seatbelts, the mystery tour is starting.  Basically all I have to go on is the silhouette of this particular bird which is very little help when trying to identify a bird.  Based on comparing the head outline and the wider fantail, my guess is an Olive-sided Flycatcher.  Admittedly, the tail is a little wider than the guide specimen, but other than that it appears pretty close.  It also says they sit on the highest twigs.. well, that appears to match.

I spotted this particular bird out in the middle of a large field (and pretty far out).  I was unable to get a good clean shot of the bird mainly due to the impressive air acrobats that were being executed at the time.  Twisting, turning, diving, loops, it was was quite impressive.  It may have been attacking prey but it never came up with anything.  It was probably just showing off to a potential mate.  It really didn’t match exactly like any of the hawks in the various books beyond the tail striping.  There is a lot of white on the underwings which doesn’t fit with my decision to identify it as a Red-tailed Hawk.

You know, I am still not sure about this one.  The red-tailed doesn’t really have the striping this one has and in this shot, the profile looks a lot leaner.  None of the other specimens really have the whiteness shown under the wings.  There is a chance it is an Osprey, but it would be much darker on top.  Just a second, this is bugging me, let me check another reference…..  sigh, I just can’t tell.  I am less confident it is a red-tailed hawk now and now considering a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk or possibly an American Kestrel.    Note I asked Linda for her opinion and she decided it was a never before seen bird and to name it after me.  This is the kind of help I’m dealing with people 8^(

The next one is probably a Tree Swallow.  It’s a crappy shot, but decided to include it because it was clearly an inspiration for something.  Any guesses?  If you said our stealth wing planes you’re tracking with me.  It would be interesting to know if this is where they got the idea from … or maybe not interesting to know if they’d have to kill me after telling me.

If the hawk above was hard to decide, this one is downright impossible.  As with the hawk, I’ve scoured my resources looking for some clue that would lead me to the proper identification.  There were a number of these birds flying around the rising steam pools around Yellowstone.  This particular one would fly around for awhile and then land in the rocks for a brief rest.  I almost with with a White-throated Swift, but the guides says it never perches.  Never is such a definite word but my pictures never show one clinging to the rocks.

The Violet-green Swallow does nest in colonies on cliffs which checks with my visuals.  Clearly there is room for debate on this one.  Well, not such much debate as I’d probably cave in to any viable alternative (that matches that region).

Strangely enough, this bird exactly matched none of the blue colored birds in the books.  It clearly has blue wings, but the head and body are sporting a pretty solid grey.  It is this grey that makes me throw out the Mountain Bluebird (which is all blue) .  It also lacks any orange which rules out the Western Bluebird, the Eastern Bluebird, the Blue Grossbeak and the Lazuli Bunting.

I also know the Blue Jay and the Steller’s Jay so that left me with the Western Scrub-Jay.  In contrast, it is suppose to have a bluer head the picture being compared to shows fatter in the body.  It did say it likes to hang around campsites and picnic areas which coincides with where these pictures were taken.

Here are two pretty poor shots of a interesting bird.  It is actually the first bird other than the finch I’ve seen sporting the bright yellow markings.  It refused to sit still for a microsecond in order to get the lens focused, but for the most part you can see the yellow on the rump and the second one shows some yellow on the head.  Based on those weak observations, I have officially called this a Yellow-rump Warbler.

Apparently the female is a little duller in the head (coloring fools 8^)  so the above one is likely a female.  The fuzzy shot below is likely of a male because it is smarter.. I mean sharper colored.

Okay, it’s audience participation time.  Hit the jump to see more!

Continue reading Well, It’s a Bird, but Your Guess is as Good as Mine

Just About a Wrap on Vacation Birds

As promised previously, I’m cranking through the remaining photo shots from last year’s vacation.  This year’s vacation is closing fast and since we are headed to a state I’ve never been, the assumption is the shutters will be snapping non-stop.  I have already picked up that region’s field guide and perusing it from time to time in order to set my wildlife checklist.  Last year almost all the animals on the list were checked off, with the exception of the Wolf and Mountain Goat.  Time is short today so I better get to this set of birds.  The first image is of a Chickadee that is fairly common both around my house and apparently out there.

I mainly added this picture because I liked how the little one was tucked inside the evergreen branches.  The field guide actually claims this is a Mountain Chickadee, but to be honest it looks exactly like the ones outside my window as I type this blog.  It does say the habitat is coniferous forests.  Based on this photo, they nailed it.  Wow, as I looked out the window to verify with a chickadee on my feeder, I spotted a raccoon holding onto a branch above my feeder and paw over paw pulling up my bird feeder over the squirrel baffle.  Please hold while I deal with this evil spawn.  …….  the problem is solved.  Geesh, it’s 5:44pm in the afternoon, they are definitely getting bolder.

The next set of photos is from a small pond we stopped at because it had a ton of creatures flying out and diving under a bridge next to the road.  They were flying so fast I couldn’t really tell what they were, so I decided to get out and try to figure it out.  The first consideration of bats were thrown out pretty quick due to the coloring, which led to some type of swallow.  Although I clipped this one, it did show the coloring pattern that led to the identification.  Nothing like trying to look through the viewer and try to get one of these bullets in your field of shot.

I was in the process of putting the lens cap back on the camera and closing up shop when all of a sudden one of the swallows fell completely out of the sky and landed on the water.  Finding this odd, I ended up taking the cap back off in order to use the zoom to get a better view of the scene.  There the bird remained motionless just floating on the water for what must have been at least 3 minutes.

The assumption was it was dead for what reason remained a mystery.  Eventually the little guy stirred a bit and began to come to life.  Slowly it started to beat the wings to build up momentum to escape the water.

Likely due to the extra weight from the wet wings, it was quite a struggle before it was able to gain flight again.  This shot is actually one of my favorites as it was taken just a split second after reaching freedom.

I am hoping it is just a shadow, but the shot actually looks like it might have left some blood where it landed.  Based on the amount of birds flying around at break neck speeds, the odds are it collided with another swallow and lost consciousness for a little bit.  It looked fine as it gained altitude, but eventually I lost it in the swirling mass so best wishes.

Please hit the jump to see the rest of the set.

Continue reading Just About a Wrap on Vacation Birds

Shock Me Shock Me With That Deviant Behavior

Oops, this post’s image came out a little more legible than intended.  That’s a ‘Y’ if you happen to be confused 8^).  I was feeling a little bad having barraged you with so many wildlife photos as of late and decided to throw in a recent observation.  Linda and I were eating lunch at Lou’s Drive In.  For those who may not be familiar with this place, consider it a throwback to the old A&W establishment that you order curbside and your food is brought out to your car.  Whenever I go to Lou’s I remember the days in the distant past when Mom and Dad took us for root beer and hot dogs at an A&W’s in Springfield.   I also win points from Linda since she loves eating at Lou’s.  Ironically, we prefer to walk up and eat at the counter rather than stay in the car.

So, there we were sitting  and eating our hot dogs and root beer when a couple came up and sat down next to us.  The assumption was this was their first time here based on the difficulties they were having making up their minds on what to order.  They have a variety of offerings, but guessing some 90% of their customers order hot dogs and root beer…. okay, maybe more like 89%.  Eventually the counter waitress (they appear to only hire high school girls for this job by the way) tired of continually having to come back to them to ask what they wanted so simply stood there until they made a decision.  I can’t imagine the sheer terror one of them must go through when making a critical decision.  It was really this decision drama that drew my attention to them.  Wondering how this was going to play out (hamburger, no hot dog, no chicken fingers, wait hot dogs with fries… hamburger..), I noticed she had a tattoo.  Now, to know me is to know I am drawn to artistic and creative items and continually looking for inspiration for my own creative projects.  These projects are generally a self challenge to see if I can take a particular idea a little further or a new slant on an idea someone else may have already come up with.  Many fail, but every once in awhile, something makes it way on display.  Therefore, if you like art and have an affinity for observing people, tattoos are an irresistible magnet.  It is an entertaining activity to try and rationalize why an individual chose to get a tattoo in the first place and then what must have been going through their head when they selected that eternal mark.  Isn’t this really the intent of anyone with a visible tattoo anyway?

Back to the story at hand, the young woman (guessing 23-25) had a tattoo of a sun high on the back of her right shoulder.  Something seemed odd about it causing me to take a couple of looks at it before figuring it out.  The actual sun was pretty good (the post image was an attempt to provide a visual).  However, there seemed to be some cursive writing over it.  This was difficult to read since it was fairly light and looked like it was quickly done resulting in dots from the tattoo vibration instead of a smooth line.  Initial guess is the bottom word said Jeff and jumped to the conclusion it was a tribute to a loved one.  This turned out to be incorrect as the first word eventually came into focus.  This resulted in a slight internal flinch followed by a nudge to Linda to check out the tattoo (with a hint to read the words). Yeah, I lied, it wasn’t a ‘Y’.

I’ll never actually know the contributing variables that led to this decision or if there is a philosophical meaning for the image.  Whether she is a vampire with sun issues or a recovering melanoma victim, one thing is for sure, she leaves an interesting first impression.  The bet is she is fully aware of that.  I wonder if she spent the same amount of time deciding on fries as she did deciding on that permanent ink?  Just thought I would share and give you a break from the wildlife posts.  If you are curious, I whipped up that sun image freehand in about 15 minutes and thought it came out pretty good.  Anybody willing to let me try and tattoo something on them?  .. come on?  .. how about a stick fighter theater scene, nobody has one of those I bet!

By the way, extra blog points if you know the movie the title came from.

What the Duck Is It?

I’m about one day away from going completely nuts due to not having Internet access from my main computer.  This is suppose to be resolved on Tuesday when the new satellite dish is installed.  Until then, I am forced to use my wife’s computer which has to be the crappiest Dell (Studio XPS) I’ve ever used.  Not only is this ridiculously hot thanks to the bad engineering design to have the lid close off the back vent when the lid is open, but the scratch pad mouse will float the cursor randomly if you just wave your thumbs over it.

I do need to persevere though and get through the vacation pictures.  This particular set is essentially a set of ducks of which I have been unable to locate in any of my three bird field guides.  This is likely due to being females and for some reason a majority of the guides will show a male specimen and then simply describe the female version.  It may just be me, but I find this a very frustrating approach for identifying birds.  Usually I can luck out and snap a male with the female which allows me to simply verify the image with the text for the male, but without a starting point, you are basically trying to wade through every description.  After going through this process a couple of times, I have given up and will simply provide the images in hopes someone out there can help me out.

But first, here is one I could actually identify due to how common it is where I live.  We walked up to Nymph Lake in Rocky Mountain National Forest.  Unfortunately, the trail is actually uphill the entire way which did not win me any points with my wife.  I think she was just about ready to beat me over the head with the tripod when we finally reached the destination.  One of the first things we saw coming up to the lake was:

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a mallard with its head in the water, but the interesting thing was how long he maintained this position.  He would literally do a beak stand in the water for over a minute before bringing his head back up.  5 seconds of rest and he would go right back to that position.  It seemed like some kind of inside duck joke on visitors (or an inside joke between Linda and I if she won the lottery which will remain a secret).  This went on for the entire time we were at the lake.  Still intrigued as to the reason, I happened to pan to the right a little and it all came crystal clear.

The dude was just showing off for the ladies.  This is probably the duck equivalent to Val Kilmer doing stupid muscle poses during a sand volleyball game (except Val was with all males by the way).  A quick funny story.  On the way back down, I saw a small little snake dart into some rocks from the side of the path.  Knowing Linda is deathly afraid of them, I calmly mentioned she should go ahead of me (while I blocked vision from the snake).  She somehow put two and two together and started freaking out which included grabbing my shirt and literally ripping it to pieces.  Next thing I know, one of my favorite shirts now has its sleeve seam completely ruined.  Let that be a lesson to myself – next time, she’s going to have wished she hadn’t stepped on one and I’m keeping her hands off my clothes.

Since there a few unknown duck shots, I’ll put them after the jump.  Again, if you recognize any of them, please drop a comment.

Continue reading What the Duck Is It?

Hoofing It

I just noticed my WordPress dashboard is indicating I passed a milestone of such.  Apparently a couple of posts ago I hit my 200th blog post.  Seems like yesterday when I started this whole blog thingy, but in reality it’s the middle of the third year.  Yeah, it has been work at times, but it gives me a change to show off some of my photos along with things that happen to catch my attention.  I definitely appreciate you taking the time to peruse my ramblings and offer up comments from time to time.

Apparently, Linda and I have been poisoned by the Par-A-Dice deli tonight.  My money is on the cheese fries, but the jury is still out – well, the stomach jury has definitely provided a verdict.  While waiting for this to pass, I figured a bonus post was in order.  This one will close out the large mammals from the Yellowstone trip last June.  Still trying get caught up in preparation for the upcoming vacation, this should leave me with some bird shots and a collection of water themed snaps that stood out while reviewing the vacation portfolio.  Ironically, Linda and went out on a shoot yesterday and now we have about 10 more blog topics… guess there is really no such thing as catching up.

This is a miscellaneous set and not all tack sharp by any means.  Let’s start with an Elk.

These animals are simply majestic to look at.  Although not the largest rack of the ones spotted on this trip, it was definitely up there based on size and weight.  Not being an expert on antlers, it is hard to tell how mature this one was.  The antlers were still covered with velvet and for all I know still growing.  According to the guide, they can grow 5′ long.  Oh, and they can run 35mph.  They are also called Wapiti which is Shawnee for Pale Deer.  Come for the pictures, leave a little smarter 8^).  Amazingly, these beasts were not bothered by us and generally just focused on grazing.  This buck happened to look over resulting in a perfect pose.

If you caught the previous Bison post, you know there are plenty of them out there.  Another plentiful animal is the Pronghorn.  By the time we got to South Dakota you couldn’t go 5 miles without seeing them off the side of the road.

Not one of my better pictures, but for some reason I didn’t take any other photos of them.  This is a buck per the short black mane.  Contrasting that with the elk, the male pronghorn antlers only reach about 6″ (with a extra 9″ sheath that is shed in the winter).  Although slightly slower than the elk, these guys can run 30mph for 15 miles with bursts up to 70mph making them a tough prey.  Another interesting piece of information is, thanks to conservation, they are more abundant than they were in the 1900s.  By the way, they are part of the antelope family if you were wondering.

Go ahead and hit the jump, there are two other specimens for your viewing pleasure

Continue reading Hoofing It

Well, It’s a Critter and It’s Furry (Pt 2 of 2)

As promised, this is the second part of my two part post on furry critters.  If I was guessing on some of the categorization of the critters in the last blog, then I’m pulling them out of certain somewhere with this set.  It is hard enough to classify birds, but these animals are about impossible to distinguish one from another especially when they have essentially the same fur coloring.  So, I have taken some liberties.  Due to limited references and numerous inconsistencies on the web, there is a high probability that the animals are not properly named.  Take for instance this creature.

Based on the Rocky Mountain Guide from Audubon (region where this photo was taken), the closest I can tell is that it is a Rock Squirrel.  Am I sure about this… NO.  However, if looks like a Rock Squirrel, walks like a Rock Squirrel and unable to squeak English to correct me, we’ll be going with Rock Squirrel.  On the size scale, this was the largest off all of them I was able to snap a shot of.  Based on the glint in his eye, he seems ready to rip me to shreds.  And then there was this squirrel.

Now there were two options for this fur monster.  It has a distinguished grey color and a distinctive white outline of the eye.  After spending hours scouring the Internet and reading the paltry paragraphs in the field guide, the options are either an Abert’s Squirrel or a Red Squirrel.  The Abert’ Squirrel is suppose to be grey (check), has a white underbelly (check), tufts of hair coming off the ears (uhh, hmm) and white highlights on the end of the tail (crap).  In contrast, the Red Squirrel has a rounded ear (check), white underbelly (check), pale reddish grey coloring (uhh, hmm).  Playing the odds, the money is on Red Squirrel.

Wait a minute, now we have the pale reddish gray we were expecting in the last picture, but the tufts are there now which were more indicative of the other squirrel.  So do we have two different squirrels here or is one in some kind of disguise to hide his super squirrel ninja skilz.  One minute innocent cute and cuddly creature, the next chopping nuts with a pair of squirrel chucks.  Okay, probably not a likely scenario so sticking with the Red Squirrel option.  Oh, and based on about 40 minutes of searching the net, there appears to be a lot of images labeled similarly showing a creature with the same dark grey coloring as in the previous photo.  Maybe the fur coloring changes with maturity or seasons.  This was not confirmed with the weak descriptions in the field guide.  Although this may be the missing link.

This appears to be the transition specimen.  The fur coloring blends in between the deeper grey and the reddish hue.  It also has a similar posture (and eyeliner) along with the tufts from the first picture but still showing the rounder ear structure mentioned in the guide.  For the record, I do like this particular shot since it has both foreground and background depth (nicely blurred) and hint of symmetry with the rock.  After about 5 different cropping experiments, the center crop won out since that allowed for keeping the foreground indicator and still showing the round of the rock.  To critique myself, next time I’ll move about 15 degrees to keep the background limb from impaling the subject.  For snicks, here’s another shot of what appears to be the perfect specimen for a Rock Squirrel based on the Audubon guide.

Makes you want to reach out and pet it doesn’t it?  Wait, two words… Squirrel Fu.

Hit the jump to see a couple of other squirrel like creatures captured in the Yellowstone region.

Continue reading Well, It’s a Critter and It’s Furry (Pt 2 of 2)

Two for the Furry Critters (Pt 1 of 2)

If you read my last post, this one should not be a surprise at this content. I was just relaxing a bit before my race in Chicago tomorrow. This will be the first race since experiencing an injury on the right (inner) side of the left knee back in July (during the Bix7 race). It has been a pretty long journey back to this point with an MRI, x-rays, two-a-week therapy sessions and a regiment of 1.5 hours a night of stretching and strengthening. I will not be pushing the pace, but still hoping everything makes it through alright. The flexibility has definitely improved, but unfortunately, the cardio has taken a hit being only able to crank out 2-3 miles every couple of days. As a lesson to all the kiddies out there, don’t be taken by the latest BS articles against stretching.

As you can tell by the title, this is a two part series focused on the rather cute looking squirrel/chipmunk families. We came across a number of these critters during our vacation and they always seemed like they were living the Carpe Diem. There didn’t appear to be intimidated by my constant picture taking and in some cases it seemed like they were actually posing for the camera. Of course, they are probably all cute and cuddly on the outside while plotting world domination at night in their dens. First step: act cute, second step ehhhhh, third step, world domination.

In all honesty, I had a difficult time actually distinguishing the various types of squirrels and chipmunks so ended up making some educated guesses on what was what.  This particular post will focus on the dominant grouping call Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrels.  There appears to be some similarities with other species, but the stripes all appeared similar on this set and the similar critter (White -Tailed Antelope Squirrel) had white underneath the tail.

Essentially, if they had the dual colored stripes on the side and the white outlines of the eye they were labeled golden-mantled.  If you see any images that are incorrectly identified, please make a comment so that can be corrected.  Of all the pictures we took during the trip, a shot of the Raven and the following shot are my two favorites.  We also had these images blown up for entries into photography contests and are now proudly displayed in our house.  You know the drill, the image here isn’t nearly as nice as the non-reduced version, but hopefully you will appreciate the coloring and the cute pose.  This is also one of the few pictures that I didn’t follow the thirds cropping rules.

Well, to be honest, I did follow thirds since the floral in the lower left and the texture and coloring in the log in the upper right were the features that really make the image appealing to me.  The living, the dead and the cute all rolled together in a nice package.  Just to give you a better feel for why I like this particular photo so much, I cropped another version for you.  This one is closer to real size of the photo.

A smile crosses my face every time I pass by this picture.  With that said, the critics apparently hated it probably due to their overly rigid rules about only good pictures are taken in the morning or night and the thirds violation yada yada yada.  Rather than get myself lathered up on that topic, I’ll just let it go and let you decide for yourself.  I love opinions on any of my photos so feel free to let me know what you think – don’t worry, I’m a big boy and can take the bad.  While we are there, let’s toss out a similar picture.

This picture has essentially the same subject, the same background and foreground setting with on exception.  The foliage was cropped out in the zoom.  As a result, it is still pretty cute, but just doesn’t seem as appealing as the full shot above.  You will be happy to know I did follow the thirds for that crop and it does honestly help in this particular picture.   I probably should have reduced the light some on the little one’s head to pop it a tad more, but overall I have taken a lot worse… and yes, I know it was not taken in the morning or the late afternoon.

Hit the jump to see the rest of the shots featuring this furry critter.

Continue reading Two for the Furry Critters (Pt 1 of 2)

Bison: They’re Pretty Cool for the First 50 Times

I have a small Blog crisis.  Linda and I have just decided on our upcoming vacation destination.  I’ll keep that location a secret for now, but I can tell you it involves another National Park.  This means we will be burning through our camera batteries again.  Unfortunately, I STILL have to get through some wildlife sets we took on our last vacation to Yellowstone.  In an attempt to resolve this backlog, the next group of posts is probably going to be dominated by wildlife pictures.  Hopefully you won’t mind too much.  I do have some interesting observations as of late and will try to sprinkle them in where I can -heck, I might even exceed my standard output… although running season is kicking in now so the training hours go up as well.

Enough whimpering, let’s get to the big dudes in the forest.  Today’s set is a collection of Bison captured at various times throughout Yellowstone and likely a few from the Grand Tetons and Rocky Mountain parks as well.

At first, these large beasts are unique and exciting.  The camera comes out, you take about 50 pictures while marveling in their size.  The one above actually caught me a little off guard.  The real shot was slightly to the left capturing the water, the mountains in the back and a nice clump of evergreens off to the right.  Unfortunately, that shot didn’t make it up to the blog site (not exactly sure why, but it wasn’t there when went to link to it), but trust me it was pretty cool.  In an effort to give a couple of crop options, I took a few pan shots.  On the final pan right shot, the bison came into focus.  This caused a slight internal jolt realizing that not checking the surroundings when on a shoot could get you in some serious trouble.  Mental note taken to scan the area before bringing the camera up to shoot position!

I really like the original version of this image.  The cropping and zooming took a little of the life out of it, but I like the multiple depths through the pines and then back to the lake and beyond.

After awhile, you realize that Bison sightings are not that rare in that region.  In fact, at one point along the trip, we basically never stopped, but simply admired them as we drove by.  Although, one funny thing did happen while admiring this set of bison.  With the long glass on, we could still get nice photos from the established paths through the park.  A lady with a point and shoot apparently needed to decrease the distance between her four legged subjects and proceeded to walk out towards them.  Catching Linda’s attention, I pointed to the scene and told her to keep her camera ready for America’s Funniest Videos.  I blogged on this previously, but the interesting part of that eye witness was the fact some bison offspring were hidden right behind one of the bison on the ground.  Having no idea how protective bison parents were of the young, I assumed this was NOT the thing to do.  It went off okay, she got her shot and returned without ever realizing the potential danger she was in.  Darn, no videos for AFV.  By the way, here were the young from a different angle.

Are they not the cutest things?  Life must be great in the wild when you know your parents are at the top of the food chain.  I doubt the wolves would venture into this danger, there are too many elk and less aggressive prey out there for them.  Sure, the adult bison became somewhat of a bore after the frequent sightings, but I’m a sucker for wildlife with their young.  Linda and I didn’t pass up an opportunity to shoot a few cute family scenes.

Hit the jump to see a few of those shots!

Continue reading Bison: They’re Pretty Cool for the First 50 Times

Views on the Move

Howdy everyone.  It has been a very busy weekend so going to crank out a quick post today.   That is if my fingers hold out long enough to get all the words typed out.  I am literally sitting here too exhausted even to get up and turn the channel to something other than golf.  The cause of this discomfort is the 3 hours on Friday, 12 hours on Saturday and 8 hours today spent finishing off the bridge decking.  The good news is, this completes the last major task on Operation River Kwai.  There are some odds and ends to complete, but the stress is basically over.  The bad news is I can barely stand at the moment and the arms are like Jello.  There will be a future post covering the progress in more detail.

It was a definite struggle to come up with the graphic for this post and opted for the easier way out and just set up quick picture with the two key components of the observation.  It also provided a great reason to show off my favorite toy car.  Not only is it a replica of my dream car, it is painted up as my favorite comic book theme.  Not positive anymore, but pretty sure Pakage got this gem for me!  Lately I have been checking out the various drivers encountered while motoring around the city of Peoria.  Apparently, there is a serious problem with wrecks occurring due to someone “texting” when they should be watching the road.   Strangely (for being so prevalent), I have never encountered a driver actually doing this.   There are plenty of distracted cell phone users and makeup appliers out there, but no one doing the thumb olympics.  While doing my investigations, I came upon two very interesting scenes.  The first one involved a green Cherokee that came up alongside me.  Catching my eye was a huge prescription bottle that the passenger was raging war with to get open.  Finally outsmarting the child proof locks, the lady took a large yellow pill and handed it to the driver.  Fairly mundane.  However, the lady then took one out of the bottle and washed it down with water.  This I thought was odd, since I can’t remember anytime where a prescription was given to a party of people.  This was either another buried feature in the healthcare reform, a rare case of two related people needing the same medication or something that likely was not legit.  It could have just been a handy storage container for over the counter drugs, but that would have been an interesting discussion should they get pulled over since it still had the medical label on it.  They drove away when the light turned leaving me still pondering a situation I had not encountered before.  Eventually, the Sixteen Candles quote “Now we are both on the pill” came to mind giving me an internal chuckle.

The other interesting visual I had was when a blue GMC Jimmy came up next to me on the right at a stop light.  As soon as the car came to a stop, the driver turned toward the passenger seat (away from me), grabbed a 6 inch by 4 inch by 2 inch piece of white plastic and started blowing heavily into it.  After one long breadth he brought it down and looked at the top and then repeated the whole process.  On the second read, he put it down on the seat and exploded off the line when the light turned green.  My best guess is he had a portable breathalyzer.  This seemed odd and a little troubling that he felt the need to check it at 4pm in the afternoon leading to the assumption he had spent a good deal of time drinking and was concerned enough to check it.  On additional scrutiny, a thought occurred that it was a contraption for convicted drunk drivers that prevented the car from going unless the breadth was clean.  I had heard of contraptions to get the vehicle started, but didn’t think it was required to get the car going again it came to a stop.  If this was the case, that could be a serious safety risk above and possibly beyond actually driving drunk.  Obviously, I’ll never know the actual reasons, but like the first situation, this still seems like it would be an interesting discussion if he was pulled over by the police.  “Look officer, I’m not legally drunk, my handy breathalyzer says .0799999999, which means I’m still legal!”.  “Why do you have that?”  “Because I need to know when to drive really fast to avoid being pulled over when I’m drunk.”  “Please step out of the car…”  I cleverly let this individual get a number of car lengths ahead of me before leaving the stop light, no reason to take any chances.

Good news, Linda just showed up.  Hopefully I can convince her to get the remote (sitting 2 feet from me) and change the channel.  Be safe out there!