Notes To My Mother

  These are the three juvenile white-tailed kites that lived in the Laguna De Santa Rosa in the summer of 2020.  They were often perched like this in the tops of trees near the waterway.  I tried locating their nest but was unsuccessful.  The juveniles can be distinguished from the adults by the brown markings on their upper bodies.  I find the juveniles to be particularly beautiful birds and they are a joy to watch and photograph.  They will often be in unusual positions in the air and it is hard to figure out if they are doing it on purpose or if it is part of their learning to fly process.  The pictures that follow capture one of the juveniles doing a somersault in the air.   First camera frame of the somersault, above. That is the adult on the left. As it continues to roll, notice the feather that has dislodged and is just to the right of the kite in this image.   Coming back upright, notice the feather's location at about 2 o'clock from the juvenile. As he comes around a b

  Dallas Creek Road I have not spent enough time in Colorado.  It has such amazing beauty.  The one place I did spend some time was in the San Juan Mountains.  I was there about 10 days, first with a group of photographers and then with my wife, Jan.  The scene above is on Dallas Creek Road.  I had been there a few days earlier with the group of photographers but the sky was boring and the snow was missing.  One morning, after the photographers had left Jan and I were staying in Ouray.  It snowed! I was up before dawn and headed for this location.  In the dark I missed the turn off and did a bit of frantic wandering until I finally found the road.  I knew this location with fall color, snow on the mountains and a dramatic cloudy sky could be an exceptional scene to photograph.  That is Mt Sneffles in the background and Dallas Creek in the foreground right.     This is a closer look at the scene on the left of the previous picture.  I find these mountains to be especially dramatic and w

A couple of friends and I decided we would like to have some pictures of the full moon setting over the Grand Canyon.  We found a full moon date that was workable for all of us, scheduled our flights, booked our rooms and rented a car and met up at the airport in Phoenix.  We stayed in Tusayan making it easy to get to the canyon before fist light.  Most of the year, there are places to the west of the village that you cannot drive your car, requiring transport by the park bus system.  But in winter months those roads are open to passenger cars making getting around a breeze.  Shooting a setting moon requires good timing.  If you are there too early the canyon will be too dark.  If you are late the moon will have disappeared below the horizon.  On this day our timing was good, but notice the band of clouds just below the moon.  Within minutes it obscured the moon.  Good photography involves being at the right place at the right time and a bit of luck .   Shooting the moon does not take

                                                                      One of the reasons I love White Tailed Kites Looking up from photographing the coyote (in a previous post) I saw a pair of kites, off in the distance flying close to each other.  I focused my camera on them and began shooting.  It was all happening so fast and the image in the viewfinder was so small I did not fully grasp what I was capturing.  But here it is, a series of pictures with the two adult kites their talons locked together, spinning and falling toward earth.                                    Some people think they are fighting but I think that is unlikely.  They have to maneuver in the air with one of them turning onto its back for them to engage.  Seems more likely a mating ritual of some sort that involves the mutual consent and cooperation of both of them.  Or, then again, maybe they are just having fun!                              Continuing to spin about as they descend together. And now coming clos