Raptors, Bosque del Apache, New Mexico

I love taking images of birds. If I have a choice I would much rather capture a bird in flight, just taking off or just landing rather than sitting on a perch. I find these images more interesting than a still image. Small birds are the hardest to catch in flight because they fly so fast and often with irregular flight patterns and because they are so small you have to be fairly close, all of which adds to the difficulty in getting decent images. Raptors are a different story since they are normally larger, have smoother flight patterns, and are often quite elegant even when sitting still. Where I have a problem is in identifying which raptor is which. So if I get the name wrong please correct me. The first two images above are, I believe, of a Red Tail Hawk just coming off its perch.

This is a Northern Harrier. He seemed to have a nest near by and worked this same field every evening, flying characteristically low, hovering, and descending to the the ground as he is about to do here.

I think it is best to get images where you can see their eyes, but this Harrier just looked too good to me not to share it. Hovering during its evening hunt the light caught it beautifully.

Sharp Shinned and Coopers look very similar. My first take was that this was a Coopers Hawk, what do you think?

The best guess I have with this one is that it is a juvenile Swainson's Hawk. I believe the light eyebrows are the giveaway, but definitely not sure. In any case, I love the boldness of his stare. Could it be a male Northern Harrier?

Art Display At The Center For Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

The Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa, has a wonderful program that encourages artist members to display their work. The work is hung in the Social Hall and typically has about twenty pieces hanging for two months at a time. On March 1rst I will be hanging several images taken in Iceland, along with some wildlife images, including foxes, coyotes, eagles and kites. I will also have some paintings by my mother and two of my own. I am pretty excited about this showing. One of the pictures I will have in the show is of Godafoss, a beautiful waterfall in Iceland. When I first saw pictures of this waterfall I knew I wanted to go to Iceland to take pictures of it. This composition required gettin into some very cold water.

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The Aurora Borealis, May 10, 2024

This last May, my wife, Jan, and I were on vacation in the San Juan Islands, WA. We were there for a week staying at the Trumpeter Inn, a B&B on San Juan Island. Mid way through our stay we heard there was to be a Northern Lights display and that we would likely be able to see it since we were at a latitude just north of Victoria, BC. The excitement was immediate. The conditions were just right as the sky was cloudless and the moon was in its crescent phase and would be low on the horizon (and therefore not overly bright) during the expected good viewing time between 10 pm and 2 am. The image above was taken that night and is what I was expecting to see, a green Aurora. Little did we know what was to come! Early on the was the first hint that something special was about to happen as color in addition to green began to show. I found this very exciting as I had seen green auroras before but never one with the purple/blue colors an...

Notes To My Mother

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