Tag: Colorado

Never Mind the Bullock’s

I am glad to be back home now. It was a rather long weekend with the two races at the start of the weekend and then ended with a long day at the Poodle Agility Nationals down at Purina Farm near St. Louis. By the time we made it home last night Linda and I were totally exhausted and the dogs were like potato sacks passed out on the RV bed. That is when you know you have officially got everything you possibly could out of an extended weekend – of course, that made the workday a lot longer to ugh. Luckily, I was able to get at least one post out while traveling leaving me with only one more to hit my monthly quota – might as well get that out of the way while I am thinking about it.

Take a look at this beauty of a bird…Bullock's Oriole Shot at Red Rocks Ampitheatre near Denver Colorado in May 2014

All I can say is gorgeous. It may be due to the fact I am so fond of Halloween, but this has to be one of my favorite color palettes for a bird. Please overlook the composition and technical execution of this batch of photos. This particular specimen was hanging out in clearly the most tangled branch tree it could find to thwart my every effort to get a clean shot. Not sure what kind of tree this was, but it ended up not only providing excellent protection from The Beast, but it also looks quite menacing seeing as how some of the branches look like grey barbed wire.

Bullock's Oriole Shot at Red Rocks Ampitheatre near Denver Colorado in May 2014

Hit the jump to find out what this bird is!

Continue reading Never Mind the Bullock’s

A Mellow Fellow

We are still in bonus time here at blog headquarters. I was able to get my monthly quota in pretty quick this month thanks to a strong push out of the gate. That means we get some extra time to focus on subjects that have already been featured in a previous post. I’ve typed it once, I’ve typed it a hundred times, the greatest thing about being a birder photographer is every outing is like a new beginning. Even if you have a bird in your gallery, you can always try to improve your image. Better technical, more interesting posture or even unique behavior. Note, “birder photographer” was not a typo. It is amazing how many times the question comes up as to whether you are a birder or a photographer as if they are exclusive titles. With my brother Ron on this, we are answering this question with a resounding “Yes” from now on hehehe.

So, welcome back to the blog…

Yellow Warbler shot on Colorado Trip - May 2014

… the Yellow Warbler. You may recall that this brightly feathered bird made its debut back on April 15th, 2015 (link here). Mr. Yellow from the previous post was found at Lake Andes in South Dakota. This new specimen was spotted on our trip to Colorado back in May of 2014. True to the statement above, I happen to like these first two shots better than the previous set (especially the first one).

Yellow Warbler shot on Colorado Trip - May 2014

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of the yella fella.

Continue reading A Mellow Fellow

A Sly Red at Red Rocks

Apparently just changing whether it was a +1 or not is not sufficient to officially characterize my last post as bringing you something “different” – as in something other than a bird post. I base this on the number of emails that showed up from my loyal readers essentially stating changing whether it was a +1 or not “is not something different”. I can take a subtle hint (okay, maybe it wasn’t that subtle). As a form of appeasement, I officially bring you something that isn’t related to a bird. Instead, today’s feature is likely something that would EAT a bird given the opportunity.
Amphitheatre
Decided to do a quick check and sure enough, Foxes do eat birds so we can dispense with the likely. I must admit, that my bird knowledge far outweighs my Fox expertise. To the best of my knowledge bolstered by a healthy dose of Google searches, this specimen is a Red Fox. I was also able to find a few shots on the web that had the dark leg markings. That feature was confusing me a bit since our local Foxes do not seem to display that amount of darkness. The other interesting feature can be seen in the hindquarters.
Amphitheatre

Hit the jump to read a bit more about this encounter!

Continue reading A Sly Red at Red Rocks