Welcome to December everyone! A little less than a month and we’ll be tearing up checks accidentally written out with a ‘2023’ date. Note, as I do not handle the day to day billing, I have to admit I do not even know if the concept of writing a “physical” check still exists. The sand is definitely a blur as it moves through the hourglass and I still have a lot to get done before heading to warmer temps in the south. One of those pressing to-dos is to get converted over to a new computer. My current workhouse was growing long in the tooth. New versions of Lightroom and Photoshop were strangling every last CPU cycle, the Halloween prop related software was starting to complain about old drivers and maybe not related, but the WordPress issues over the last couple of months has been infuriating. The new behemoth has arrived and is a wonder to behold – the lights dim in the house and the local power company has to switch to auxiliary power on ignition (i9 24 core with a graphics card that cost more than my first car). Now the “mountain” of work to migrate all the system configurations, apps, preferences and data. While I’m out of commission bit fiddling, Brad is going to bring you another one of his adventures – this time from the state of “Nil sine Numine”.
Take it away Brad…
One day in late April, Jan and I were in Colorado with a bit of free time on our hands. We had just returned from the whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here). The kids were at work and we had an entire day to explore the mountains outside Denver. I know, I can hear it through the screen, “There are too many mountains to see in just one day.” We weren’t trying to see all of them. Our selection was sort of a virtual dart throw at “stuff” that was close to Denver.
After finishing breakfast at the hotel, Jan and I started driving early. We wanted to enjoy Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) without many visitors. The road from Golden, CO to the park was paved, but it was by no means straight. To call it “curvy” might be an understatement. This first road sign might be an indication of what to expect on the way to the park.
I mean, it’s not even in a straight line — it goes sideways! You’d think drivers would exercise caution on a road like that. But NO! We were passed by more than a few vehicles on the way up the mountain, even a “school bus” passed us at one point. By the time we reached the Visitor Center, I really needed to get out of the car to stop the constant motion for a few minutes. I can still get motion sick, even when I’m driving, on these very curvy roads. Think Spirograph on steroids. (Kids go ask your parents what a Spirograph is.)
Hit the jump to find out what lies ahead on Spirograph road.
Little did Jan and I know we would be the only visitors to the park that morning, at least that we could see. The Visitor Center was closed for refurbishment when we arrived. OK, that meant no park maps or flush toilets. My phone struggled to pull up a park map, with only 1G cellular service, to determine where to go next. About a mile up the road was the first picnic area named Kriley Pond. We headed there to see what we could see. For those of you keeping score at home, Kriley Pond sits at an elevation of 8,350 feet. Colorado has the highest average elevation of any of the fifty U.S. states at 6,860 feet above sea level, almost 500 feet above the second-place state, Wyoming. In contrast, my home state of Illinois averages only 618 feet, or 1/11th of Colorado’s average loftiness.
As we pulled into the parking area, I noticed Kriley Pond that was completely frozen over.
It was, after all, April in the mountains of Colorado. That should have been important information for me when we got out of the car. Once parked in the picnic area, I jumped out to ready the cameras. Having Jan’s camera assembled, and in her hands, she took off for the trail head. I started to assemble my camera for the day. Before Jan was more than a few steps from our car, there was a grey-blue streak flying to a fence rail.
A female Mountain Bluebird (Sialia currucoides) graced us with its presence. We had seen flashes of them in other parks, but this was the first time one sat still long enough to click the shutter. The sun hadn’t crested the mountain behind us which kept most of the picnic area in shadows. Remember, I said we arrived early morning.
While taking photos of this pretty little bird, Jan caught a brighter blue flash and said, “Brad!” and pointed to her left. Knowing that if there are girl birds in the area, boy birds can’t be far away. Sure enough . . .
This bright blue male was sitting still, for the moment. He had perched on a metal BBQ grille near one of the picnic tables, just at the edge of the reach of our lenses. We both started clicking off photos as fast as our memory cards could absorb them. I’m not sure if the camera noises spooked him, or he was just a bit ADHLAS (Attention Deficit Hey Look a Squirrel! A common diagnosis at Intrigued) because seconds later the bluebird flew from the grille to a low branch on a pine tree.
I was impressed with the brightness of his blue feathers. However, the female was not as impressed; she appeared to show little interest in the male. Oh sure, she was sort of following him at a safe distance. But the female was also trying to play hard to get by turning her back on the male for a minute. She was also giving us a great shot of the bright blue tramp stamp on her tail.
I don’t think the female was very impressed with his flitting about. The male obviously wasn’t paying enough attention to her. Or was it the other way around?
She turned around long enough to see he was gone, and then quickly departed.
The male, not really paying attention to in the first place, flew towards the beginning of the trail. He perched momentarily on the trail marker sign.
Maybe this was the signal to begin our morning hike. The bluebirds were only at the picnic area for a few minutes. The must have had important bird business because they were off in a flash of blue. Bummer. I turned back to the car to find I had been in such a hurry to catch the bluebirds that I hadn’t even closed the rear hatch. Luckily, we were the only car in the picnic area. Well, other than the park ranger checking the park permit machines and probably wondering if we had a daily park permit or not. Just like with the P-dog adventure a few days earlier (here), I suddenly noticed how cold I was because I hadn’t taken the time to put on my jacket or gloves.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Mountain Bluebird photos, please visit here.
Credits:
Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing. Allyson is still on assignment. Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.
Wildlife Intrigued 
What a thrill to come upon this pair of mountain bluebirds. The blue on them is absolutely striking. Sounds like a fun day for you and Jan, Brad, thanks.
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Yes, it was a fun day, once the motion in my ears settled down. We were surprised the bluebirds stuck around that long. Our usual experience with them is fleeting, followed by Jan pointing and saying “did you see that blue thing?” and me quickly swiveling with the camera. Thanks for stopping by Jet.
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What a gorgeous bird!
Where I live in the UK we are about 10ft above sea level, the thought of those mountains and them twisty roads makes my palms sweat and head go dizzy!
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Even from where I live in the plains of the Midwest, the mountains do offer a sense of, trepidation isn’t quite the right word. Maybe “respect” is a better word? There are plenty of “B” roads in the UK that make me sweat; barely 1.50 lanes wide with cars passing in the opposite direction. And driving on the wrong side of the road. 😉 If I’m driving them I’m OK, but if the locals are driving, I best keep the Dramamine handy.
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I’ll take those any day to trying to drive in your part of the world. Imagine I’d be pulling my hair out just trying to figure out how to turn left.
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I didn’t have a problem learning to drive on the “wrong” side of the road when we were in the UK last time. The problem came when I tried to convert back to the “right” side of the road at intersections and roundabouts. I kept finding my body position in the lane of travel to be wrong. I also kept looking the wrong way at intersections. Jan had to keep reminding me the first few days.
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Beautiful Mountain Bluebirds. You still write checks? I hardly write checks anymore. Although, I recently wrote a couple of large checks to the local governments to pay my property taxes and irrigation taxes.
I have all but stopped using Adobe products since their last updates of Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop are broken. Bridge and Camera Raw do not read most of my photos now, but there’s no rhyme of reason for it since they read some of the photos. But then, when I try to open the few photos they read in Photoshop, I get an error. That is after I’ve adjusted the photos in Camera Raw.
I’m using On1 Photo RAW 2024 now. I started using On1 plugins back in 2009 and have kept up with their releases of plugins and their Photo Raw apps over the past few years. I’m really happy with Photo RAW 2024. I’m considering dropping my Photoshop subscription.
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Ditto on the check writing. Intrigued Corporate probably writes them (darn Legal requirements probably). I’ll let Brian comment for sure on that part. Bummer on your RAW difficulties, I’ve not experience that. Mostly because I don’t shoot RAW very often, and probably don’t even notice the Adobe changes.
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It’s my phone photos the updates don’t want to read. They read my Canon raw files just fine, but I hardly use my DSLRs these days.
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I have similar problems importing from iDevices to LR. So now I just copy them with Windows Explorer and import from there. Much less painful for me. No issues editing iPhotos . . . I’m just not as happy with their clarity and resolution as my DSLRs.
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I like using DSLRs for birds, but I haven’t been photographing birds much lately. I’m reduced to clouds, skies, stuff like that.
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Some say the best camera to use is the one you have with you.
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Absolutely. Which sometimes is simply your eyes and memory.
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Don’t tell Brad that, we require physical proof before we believe him ha!
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You need to show those birds some love too!
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This one falls on the Accounting Department and as I sleep with the head of that department they pretty much get free rein – the Legal Department, now that is a completely different story and that unruly group is on chokers hehehehe.
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We do have to write a check from time to time to the smaller suppliers..correction, not me, I personally haven’t written a check (or paid a bill) since I started sleeping with our accountant. I am doomed if she leaves me ha.
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Laurie can say the same thing.
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As they used to say in the corporate office.. it wasn’t what you knew, it was who you knew that was willing to help you.
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And don’t piss off IT. That’s the difference between “Oh yeh! That’s easy!” And “Take a number, then go read the freaking manual or look it up on the web until I can get around to helping you!”
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Tim’s lived the IT life hehehe. There were definitely people you made sure to buy Xmas gifts for every year.
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Ooops, forgot to comment on On1. My brother uses that software religiously and really likes it. I do not know much about it, but he is as discerning as I am when it comes to process images so I can only assume it is pretty good. We finally broke down and went to the cloud subscriptions for the Adobe products. Not exactly happy about it, but it is what it is at this point. Hate to give up the familiarity I have with all their tools gained over the many, many years.
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The cloud subscription isn’t bad, but by the time I find the features I’m used to in the new release, an even newer release has come out.
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The “change the UI” whenever we want is a major pet peeve of mine. I remember what is like to get an update in our previous career and flabbergasted at the constant pushed I get.
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I’ve learned to hold off on updates and do them all at once to minimize the unrequested changes. I like installing new versions from CD’s better than having updates pushed to my PC. At least I could “control” the amount of change happening, and had a chance of learning new features that didn’t impact my workflow.
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Smart
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I don’t let Adobe push them any longer. I let the alerts for new versions pile up then review what change, or was fixed, before wholesale updates. I try to keep PS and LR in sync, so I make a day out of it. 😉
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All new fresh Adobe installs for the new Alien. My local PS install on my old computer was waaaay out of date and now I get to use all the cool background removal and subject isolation tools. I have been staying somewhat current on the LRc installs as I like the new AI masking and denoising tools especially in the dark shots.
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💯
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Thanks.
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Nice that the birds gave you such a welcome after the drive in. And accommodating to fly to a branch for few “beauty” shots.
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Thank you. And that’s what I thought Jerry. Most of the time I just see a blue flash (hence the title) out of the corner of my eye. This time they took pity on me and held still for a few photos. Glad you liked them.
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Love these little blue beauties, they almost perfectly echo that famous Colorado blue sky. The female’s demure bright blue rump is a delight. I was tickled by your story of running off leaving the trunk open – been there, done that!
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I left the hatch open twice that day. And once in Devils Tower with the P-dogs all around. And once more in an upcoming story. Hey, you gotta take photos while the birds are there. Luckily we hadn’t wandered too far away. The only other person around was a Park Ranger, and if you can’t trust them . . . Thanks for coming by Sam.
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I really love the bird photos. So great!
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Thank you.
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Terrific photographs!
Terrific location!
Good job on getting priorites correct. Get a pic first, all that other stuff will wait patiently.
Incredible blue.
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Thanks Wally. At least I’m learning not to wander too far from the car right away, in case I left the hatch open. The blue was stunning; I didn’t enhance the colors at all for this story.
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What a beautiful blue, how cool was that to find right away. I hope to get to Colorado some day. I have not been there yet. I am thinking more around July going 🙂
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Thank you. July is a great time to visit the mountains in Colorado. There will be very many more people/tourists in July, but everything will be green and in bloom.
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What pretty birds! Nice photos!
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Thank you Sharon.
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Great photos of those blue jewels, Brad! We’re lucky, they nest in our yard. 🙂
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Very nice to have calling your home their home also. We only get slate-colored versions during the winter here. Thanks for coming by.
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