We made a trip out to Coyote Hills this morning. We found the gate locked when we first arrived, but after only a few minutes someone arrived to unlock it. We had a very enjoyable walk around our usual loop. Probably our most cooperative subject was a White-tailed Kite we saw on the way out (Three photos on flickr).
I stopped on the way to work today at the Palo Alto Duck Pond. My goal was to experiment with adding an extension tube to my 500mm telephoto lens. This allowed the lens to focus more closely than would otherwise be possible, making it the perfect tool for making detailed portraits of the birds at the pond. I need more practice with this combination, but I'm happy with these results (Seven photos on flickr).
I decided to take an early morning visit to nearby Ulistac Natural Area in San Jose, hoping to find some songbirds. Mostly, I was bombarded with the crazy, tireless chatter of lonely bachelor Mockingbirds on every shrub. Still. I found this lovely Jackrabbit, and I managed to get one shot of the local Red-shouldered Hawk before it spooked. I also found what looks like a promising spot for photographing Red-winged Blackbirds on the reeds by the pond. (Five photos posted at flickr)
So, just two days after driving up to Grant Ranch, I decided to Castle Rock State Park on President's Day. Although I didn't find a lot of birds up there, I did have fun taking pictures of the sunrise, and I did find this very cooperative Stellar's Jay. Did you know he has eyebrows? [see more pictures from Castle Rock]
I returned home from Denver eager to get out in the field and make some images. With Mary at Stitches West and me scheduled to take a friend to the airport around 6am, today was the perfect opportunity. I decided to head up to Grant Ranch County Park in search of some overwintering passerines. What I found was quite a bit of snow, a lovely sunrise, and some cooperative Western Bluebirds. Take a look at the photos.
[Note: I neglected to mention earlier that NANPA is the North American Nature Photographers Association]
I concluded my Denver trip with a day at Rocky Mountain National Park, where forty of us had a chance to photograph snowy mountains, elk, magpies, and each other. The Canon sales rep tagged along and let us test out a variety of Canon lenses. I had fun with the 14mm f/2.8 L for some wide angle landscape shots, but was rather baffled by the 90mm f/2.8 tilt-and-shift. I needed to spend more time with that lens to really unlock its mysteries. If you like you can see my trip gallery.
Well, I have to be in the hotel lobby less than six hours from now, so I'll keep this short. We had a highly entertaining talk this morning from Tim Gallagher and Bobby Harrison, rediscoverers of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and long-time NANPA members. I attended a well-attended session about what Photo Editors want. Executive summary: Photo Editors want Photographers to read and follow the submission instructions. C'mon people, this isn't so hard. This afternoon we saw outstanding pictures of Great Gray Owls in Montana. Tonight at the awards banquet we heard a moving presentation from Patricio Robles Gil about conservation in Mexico. Stunning images. It's been a great weekend, I have so many todo items and things to think ahout. And I didn't even blow any money at the exhibition hall (mostly because the new Wimberley heads aren't out yet).
Mary and I had a great day trip to Santa Cruz and Monterey. We saw lots of great birds. We've been down to Monterey every January for a few years now, but always on our own. This time we decided to prove to ourselves that we could manage this trip on our own, and I think we did really well. We saw our target birds, managed our time pretty well, and didn't get lost.
The bird of the day was almost certainly this male Harlequin Duck. When first I saw this bird in Monterey Harbor, I was so excited I couldn't even say its name, I just hollered out "Ducks! ducks! ducks!"
Life bird! Life bird! Along with most of the birders in the bay area, we descended on Liberty Island Road south of Davis this morning to see the first Snowy Owl recorded in California since 1978. Here are some more photos. What a day!
Monday 1140 hours
Big glue patch from the font door. It appears they used to have tile right under the front door. Why they heck didn't they preserve that tile when they put in the carpet?
Why is there a deep curved slot cut into the floor underneath the carpet? Bandsaw practice? Slot cars?
I'm the next room when I hear Don say, "OK, now THAT's a problem". I come out to see that he's found this power wiring underneath the carpet with a big nail driven right through it. Is it live? Is it safe? Hmmmmm.
We expected to some evidence under the carpet of where the old room boundaries were before the house was expanded. We had hoped they did something tidier than this, but that was probably overly optimistic.
Monday 1140 hours.
Monday 0001 hours.
Sunday, 1700 hours.
Well, Day Three featured better weather than day two, although still bitterly cold. We had a great time at some of the now familiar sites on the refuge, as well as a great trip to a pond on the New Mexico Tech campus featuring a very approachable flock of American Wigeon. What a trip!
w00t! Bosque del Apache, day one. I shot over 600 pictures today, and managed to delete over 100 of them during lunch and dinner. There will be some keepers, including this landing goose. The sunrise and sunset light was outstanding. I'm really learning a lot on this trip about how prevailing winds influence landing direction, how to set manual exposure for flight shots, and which tripod heads to buy.
I just wanted to show off the very diverse results of our Halloween pumpkin carving party. We managed to make a wolf, a cat, a Wallace, and a TROGDOR. And some very tasty roasted pumpkin seeds.
We had really enjoyed the mountains during a weekend at Yosemite for our friend's wedding. I spent some time on landscape photography, and even processed some of them in black and white. It's a stunning valley, and trying to capture it with a photograph is _so_ hard.
Late Sunday night we found a movie at the visitor's center about the career and working style of Ansel Adams, who knew a thing or two about photographing Yosemite valley. What I didn't know is that he trained hard to be a pianist, and judging by his playing in this film, he would have been a darn good one.
In processing the photos from the trip, I had one or two moments where I thought the black and white image looked righht, and those were electric moments. Perhaps that feeling was what kept him going, too.
Every few years I venture out onto the ocean to look for birds. I generally get pretty seasick. Then, the Albatross shows up, and it's so friggin' amazing that I forget about everything else. Only a few years later, I'm ready for more. This time, for the first time, I took a camera with me, and tried to take some bird pictures. You can read about our weekend at birdWalker, it was fabulous.
Tonight was my first time to participate in Member Slide Night at the Bay Area Bird Photographers club. We saw images from about six or eight photographers, including Doug Cheeseman. I showed about 28 images from my laptop, including this Red-tailed Hawk which I just shot this morning. A slight majority of the images came from the Dell 3300 DLP projector; the rest were good old fashioned 35mm slides. The slides people had to contend with focussing the projector and not putting their slides in sideways; the laptop people had to contend with video connector adapters and wacky brightness/contrast/color settings, so everyone had their challenges. Altogether, though, it was an impressive body of work, and I came home wired and inspired.
With only hours left before our Photo Challenge deadline, Grant took me along on a visit to CoffeeTec, a local engineering firm that advises and outfits coffee roasters. Jay, the proprietor, was very generous with his time, spending almost an hour showing us around the shop and helping us take pictures of glorious old roasters he's restoring. Thanks, Jay!
My friend Ashok took me to the Hayward Regional Shoreline yesterday, where we discovered that the shorebirds are back! Woo! I had a great time and shot over 200 pictures. The new lens is working great, even delivering sharp images with the 1.4X teleconverter.
Well, I took the new lens out for a test drive this morning. I didn't get to the duck pond until nearly 9:40am, by which time the light was already rather harsh. Still. The lens performed perfectly, the weather was delightful, and this little guy posed very patiently. Woo hoo!
We had a swinging rehearsal at our house tonight to officially welcome the Hammond C3. Afterwards, Pat showed me how to perform the required annual maintenance of the organ by putting the prescribed amount of official Hammond Oil into the reservoirs in the back of the instrument.
Pat Smith invited me up to Healdsburg for the Healdsburg Guitar Festival this weekend. This festival brings together an impressive collection of high-end luthiers and guitarists from bluegrass to classical to jazz for an intense weekend of concerts, workshops, and exhibits.
We performed for an hour in the Cabaret (a respite for those overwhelmed by the exhibit floor), after which I was Pat's teaching assistant for a workshop entitled "Stuff about the Blues". The next day we were the host band for Tom Ribbecke's legendary festival party, hosted at his nearby workshop. Despite the long drive, we had a great time!
Does this seem like normal pet behavior? I've known about Izzy's prediliction for corn, but never before had the opportunity or inclination to acquire such graphic photographic evidence.
Hey you all, it's time again for the annual KKUP Jazz Marathon in Santa Clara. Come hear me perform with the Pat Smith Trio on Sunday, July 10th, at 5pm. We'll be playing out in front of the KKUP studios at 1241 Franklin Square in downtown Santa Clara. The music starts around noon and runs all day, so grab your lawn chairs and get on over there! See the KKUP website for more details.
Last night I went to see The Tubes playing at a park in downtown San Jose. They played a great show! I was particularly impressed with the guitar playing of Roger Steen. His soloing can be virtuostic, but more often has instead that thoughtful, melodic quality that I so admire about Eric Clapton.
We just had a quick trip to Cape May (see details for day one and day two) where we worked on familiar east coast birds like this here Gray Catbird. Hot and humid, but well worth the trip.
I love the part where I can get in a few photos after work and the light is just getting good. On this particular tuesday I was practicing flight shots, and these guys were moving slowly and predicably, so I got them in focus.
After many years, University Church in Palo Alto, California blessed its new Rectory on Saturday. I served on the Pastoral Housing Committee for at least five years, and to be honest I had many doubts we would ever get to this point. Many thanks to our outstanding project manager Duane Bay, without whom this would never have happened.
Well, the time has come to return Pastor Foster's piano. At least he has a parsonage with a lovely Great Room that accomodates the piano very nicely. I was a very fortunate to have had the use of this vintage Steinway D for several years, and I bid it a fond farewell.
How do I come by this cool photo of me, my Mom, and my brother? Because my mom made this cool scrapbook from when I was thirteen. And this is just one of several big volumes of really cool stuff from my childhood. Thanks, Mom!
I've put together a slide show from the South Texas Tripat at flickr. You can watch an automatic slide show, or page through at your own rate. Enjoy!
Well, we're back from Texas, and I'm finally starting to sort through all the pictures I took, including this cute lil' Inca Dove who seemed to be nesting in the Frontera Audubon parking lot.
Yes, that's right, we're headed back to Texas. Bright and early tomorrow we're headed through Dallas to McAllen for five days of glorious birding. Groove-billed Ani here we come!
It's time once again for what we like to call Big Trash Day, where once a year Santa Clara picks up darn near anything you leave on (or near) the curb. I always enjoy photographing the interesting juxapositions I find walking to the train this time of year.
Last night I attended the monthly meeting of the Bay Area Bird Photographers club, where I saw an excellent presentation by local photographer John Cang. He had many interesting suggestions about how to go beyond traditional bird portraits and make more interesting photos. I also heard that the rookery next to the Palo Alto Duck pond is getting busy again. I've got to get back out there some morning. This egret is one of my favorite shots from last year's rookery shots.
