Sure been a while since I posted anything here. Had a really nice warm fall up till about a week before Christmas. Well, I guess that's getting to be winter time, and it sure turned into winter all of a sudden. Been cold and snowy for a couple weeks now. A chinook blew in this morning and made for a dramatic swing in temps - five below at 2AM, and 52 by 1PM. Went out and shot a few pics with my new Canon SX50. I'd been curious to find out what kind of wildlife photos I could get with one of the new superzoom bridge cameras, so just after Thanksgiving for some much needed retail therapy, I bought the Canon. All the pics in this post were taken with it. It's pretty amazing. 1200mm with a small light body compared to 11 pounds or more with the 500 or 420mm. Not quite the quality as with the big glass and DSLR body, but pretty amazing. Found this pair of hooded mergansers along Clear Creek and these two canvasbacks in Prospect Lake. The mergansers have relatively thin small bills compared to the long sleek bills of the canvasbacks. Nature is so amazing. Flat lighting today, though. Pesky wave clouds have plagued photo efforts for weeks. Seems like we have a lot more mountain wave clouds than we used to.
I've been carrying the new camera with me on my daily walks down to the lake. Heard these eastern bluejays calling the other day along the way and got this shot of one. First shot of an eastern blue jay in a long time. They have been expanding their range here in Colorado in recent times. When I first moved here in the early 70's there weren't any. Now they are fairly common. There is this red-tailed hawk that has taken up residence in the field down by the lake. There almost every day. Difficult to get close enough for a good photo most the time. That is unless he's sitting on a light post over the street, which of course is when I don't have the camera with me.
Went camping down at Lake Pueblo State Park the first week of December, just before winter really set in. This flock of bushtits kept hanging around. Nervous little, gray fluffs. They were feasting on the seeds of the rabbit brush. First time photo of this bird. I've seen shrikes down at Pueblo on several occasions, but this one was really busy around my camp. It was managing to catch something from his post on the electric service box. Not sure if it's a northern or loggerhead.
Of course there are always curved-bill thrashers down at Pueblo. They and the canyon towhees always manage to clean up any crumbs. They sure have some mean looking eyes don't they? It was Christmas time and one of the few things I like about the season are lights. So, I put some battery powered ones on the Running River Inn, but I don't think anybody but me saw them. Hardly saw a soul while I was down there this last time.
Anxious to get out and go camping with my new dog, Rocky. Just waiting for a good little thaw and we'll be gone for introductory trip for Rocky. I think he'll love camping.
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