I caught Maya and a jackrabbit staring each other down through the front door this morning. I shot about a dozen photos, alternating focus between Maya and the jackrabbit. I finally settled on this one. I love that they are both looking right at each other and that their ears seem to mirror each other’s.
I hadn’t been to the duck pond for a while so I stopped on my way home. After I’d been there a while, one of the Canadian Geese took a bit of an interest in me and started swimming toward me. I made clicking noises which seemed to attract her (him?) and she moved in even closer.
Finally, she got to the shore and stepped out. I really thought she was going to come right up to me. At this point I started to wonder if I should be worried. Geese don’t have the best reputation for being soft and cuddly . . .
She got very, very close . . .
Then she got distracted and slipped back into the water.
Known as the Pinehaven Fire, it is near Caughlin Ranch, the same area where 30 homes were destroyed last year due to a wind-whipped fire. Fortunately, it appears no structures are threatened at this point, but the fire started because of a high-speed chase by the police in which the fleeing suspect rolled the car which sparked the fire. Needless to say, the fire became the priority and the suspect is still at large.
I shot some at around 1pm, but this one was taken this evening after I left work at about 5:30. You’ll need to click on it to see the larger photo.
On a lighter note, these two doves were perched on the telephone wires above me and appeared to be watching the planes and helicopters working to put out the fire.
These cattle were oblivious to it all.
There are more photos are in my SmugMug gallery which I will continue to add to as I go through my shots and post the better ones.
While this is nothing compared to what’s going on in Colorado and elsewhere, for us in the west, fire season is just getting started.
Speaking of which….we’ve got another fire.
I’m going through my files and doing some clean-up and I came across this one of Buddy I took back in April. It must have been when I first got my 50mm lens. ISO 400, f/1.8, 1/10s. Handheld, hence the blur, and yet . . . there’s just something about this photo that I missed the first time around.
(Or maybe I’m just imagining it.)
Another Great Basin Whiptail made an appearance today, this time in my front yard. These guys are extremely skittish (and fast!), so I had to go very slowly. Still, he let me get in pretty close! As a reminder, clicking on any photo will bring up a larger version. You may want to do that with this series.
He skittered under a shrub, so I slowly made my way around.
He kept an eye on me as I moved in . . .
Here’s a shot of him blinking his eye. Their eyelids are transparent and close from bottom to top. I highly recommend clicking on the photo to get a closer look. Better yet, click over to my Desert Creatures SmugMug gallery to see the original in all it’s reptilian glory.
Here’s a view of his full length. As I mentioned yesterday, their tails can be as long as 2/3 of their entire length. His tail is nearly complete, but it appears there is some new growth at the end. For scale, the leaf right behind his tail is nearly one inch long. This guy was about 7 inches or so. Other scale info: the rabbit pellet just to the right of his forearm is about a quarter of an inch or so across.
One last close-up.
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Same shots, different treatment. I took all of these this morning about 8:30.
This?
Or this?
This?
Or this?
Personally, I prefer the black and white landscape photo. I like where it takes my eye. On the other hand, I find myself going back and forth over the withered branch shot. I’m leaning to the black and white, but . . .
Carissa Snedeker Photography 