A little typo has turned into a bit of a ‘thing’ on the Internet in recent years so here is my contribution. Harkening back to a bit over a year ago when I was able to spend some time with some long-eared owls. As always, just getting to these reluctant photo subjects was a challenge that day and getting a clear shot, well, that was next to impossible. This one proved to be surprisingly tolerant, giving some nice poses although the little bugger refused to make eye-to-eye contact with me.
The trees have eyes
I had spotted one of them surprisingly easily as it was somewhat in the open. Its mate, however, I was struggling to find. I stood there looking tree to tree, branch to branch searching for it, knowing it had to be there somewhere. Finally, much to my surprise, there it was, only about 15 feet away, peering through a little gap in the branches right at me! It made for this fun capture with one of its eyes squarely focused on me.
Bald eagle launches into a Colorado snowstorm
One of the two eagles from the picture I shared earlier this week of them riding out the storm. After a while, this one decided perhaps to seek out a less open spot and took flight. As you can see, it was snowing heavily at that time and the snow had actually accumulated on its body and talons. When it launched, chunks of snow went flying, adding to the storm. Given the limited visibility – and the cold – it was kind of tough to fully appreciate the scene when I was out there but am glad I did!
Big mule deer buck puts on his best face for a portrait
Rather than giving me a nice, regal pose, this guy decided to play the comedian for his picture. Taken this past Sunday during the crazy fog we were experiencing, the deer were almost the only critters close enough to get decent shots of. Even this shot, taken from only 30 feet away or so, required a lot of cleanup to get some detail out of it. Many of the bucks have already started to lose their antlers but, thankfully, this big boy was still holding on to his making for a cool capture.
Disappearing into the fog
This past Sunday morning, we saw some crazy fog in the wake of a snowstorm. It created some cool scenes, like this capture. At its thickest, visibility was down to 20 yards or so and when you did see something, it was little more than a silhouette. The fresh snow and the fog blended together in the distance, with no discernable horizon. I took a ton of pics but this is probably my favorite.
The fog did have a downside in that decent pictures of critters were almost impossible to be had. This was very frustrating because I was seeing all sorts of cool stuff that on a normal day would have made for great pics. But, because of the fog, the pictures were rather poor. At least scenes like this helped make up for it.
“Monday again? Yeah, I wanna kill something.”
This gorgeous dark morph ferruginous hawk clearly already had, wearing the evidence all over its face. It has been a regular in one of the spots I frequent although always perched on a utility pole in the worst position and unwilling to give me any action shots. On this morning a couple of weeks ago, it at least was perched near the top, allowing me to get a closeup without all of the manmade distractions.
While ferruginous hawks are common here in the winter, the dark morphs are pretty rare so getting to see one is a treat. That brilliant yellow beak and mouth gape stand out against its dark brown plumage.
Prairie falcon performs a flyby in the rain
Despite the cruddy weather, yesterday’s photo outing was quite good for me. I was most excited to find this cool raptor. Normally I see quite a few of these during the winter but this year, I have only seen one other and that one didn’t give me any worthwhile pictures. I spotted this one perched on a pole, riding out the rain that started the day. The rain coupled with dim lighting conditions made for difficult shooting conditions, so I was pretty surprised my pictures of it doing a flyby came out as well as they did. Not the best but far better that I would have expected. Hopefully I can find it again when conditions are better. My camera and I were pretty wet by the time we were done.
Bald eagles ride out a Colorado snowstorm
Quite an interesting day of weather here on the Colorado Front Range. Overnight some light sprinkles gave way to rain after daylight. By mid-morning, the rain switched to moderate snowfall creating quite a mess. That, of course, didn’t stop me from venturing out nor did it keep these gorgeous bald eagles from keeping watch. I have some closer captures of them but liked this one, showing them in the elements when the snow was at its worst. Yes, that is snow covering the one on the left’s back! Certainly they weather the conditions far better than I.
Above ground level panorama of a beautiful winter sunset
Jumping back to the amazing sunset we had a couple of weeks ago and this image I didn’t share at the time. Stitching together five images gives a very wide angle view of the amazing show that night from 300 feet above ground level with my drone. The field of view stretches from Pikes Peak to the south to Longs Peak to the northwest and all that is between. That was quite the show that night! Best viewed full screen.
Bald eagle focused flying head on into Friday
This handsome fellow reflects my thoughts for the day: Put in a good day’s work but stay focused on the weekend ahead and a much-needed break! This is the same eagle I shared a landing shot of last week, taken about 20 minutes after that capture. He had spent the time hanging out on a pole, relaxing, keeping watch. When his mate decided to move up the river, he chose to follow and in doing so, launched right at me. Bam! There is a lot to love about this shot I think. Hope you all have a great weekend!