Blue Skies, Bluebirds

As my old friend, Helen, in Memphis says, Bill's been out sleeping in his tin box again.  Yep, the weather finally moderated after a month of real winter, so Rocky and I headed down to Pueblo.  Weather was beautiful - hardly a cloud in the sky for two days and temps in the 60s.  A few patches of snow behind the cedars, but pretty dry already.  There were tons of mountain bluebirds in the campground.  They were busy catching something.  Got a number of good shots.  Bluebirds are so beautiful.  Other birds seen were the usual suspects: northern mockingbird, curve-billed thrasher, and canyon towhee.  The thrashers were starting to sing a little bit.  Very pleasant songster took up in a cedar bush right next to camp.  The scaled quail were on the move, but had a difficult time getting close to them this time.  They can really run, and not bad at flying for short distances.  Odd little creatures.  I've gotten better shots before, but it's always fun to watch them.  There are always lots of great horned owls hooting down at Lake Pueblo.  One started up early the first evening, and I managed to get a long-distance shot with the SX-50 before it took off.  They serenaded us all night.  A couple of the bluebird and thrasher shots are with the old D200 and 300mm+1.4teleconverter.  Don't know if you can tell the difference but they are quite a bit sharper than the SX-50 images.  The SX-50 sure has more reach and certainly much smaller and lighter, but the bigger gear still makes superior images.  

Some folks have asked why I don't label the bird pics so they know what the birds are.  I did do that for awhile, but it's an extra step, I think it detracts from the images, and besides, I want you folks to look up the ones that aren't obvious.