Star of the Show!

One of the traditional holiday trips to take in AZ is down to Whitewater Draw to see the over-wintering Sandhill Cranes. We've been there likely over a dozen times the last few years to observe and take in the sights and sounds of up to 30,000 of them congregate in the wetlands as evening approaches. My suspicion is that numbers are down this year, as is the water level kept at the wetlands. Note also there is a live "Crane Cam" that provides a live view - make sure you check it out!

However, this year, on a New-Year's Day visit, while there were lots of cranes, they were not stars of the show, but rather another of my favorites, a male Vermillion Flycatcher put on a good display. We've seen them often, perhaps a third of the time, but this time he was in a tree very close to one of the lookout posts. One of the characteristics they follow while feeding is a return to the same perch they've launched from. So by staying set up with a big telephoto on the perch, you can catch them returning by hitting the camera "motor drive" as they return. The first shot, shown at left, shows blurring, even though taken at a 1600 second. As a result I adjusted the camera to use shorter exposures for subsequent frames. And the frame at right even shows his success as hunter as he has a fly in his beak!


The rest shown here are easy to take as you are just waiting for a return. Seeing all the maneuvers they make sure make you want to take flying lessons! Make sure you click the images for the full-size version!



Finally I left him and moved on to other subjects, but he was fun to shoot! Shortly after sunset the "Supermoon" rose over the peaks to the east - another easy catch! It might have made a nice time-lapse, but the sudden onset of twilight observers moved the platform too much!

Deja Vu, And Then Some!

My friend Donna had a hair appointment in Tucson this last weekend and suggested a road adventure, and another buddy Bernie was impressed with my photos from the weekend before on the Baboquivari 4WD trip. What could I do but suggest another trip to the most sacred site of the Tohono O'odham? Neither had been to the area, so by noon we were again winding down the Sasabe Road! As on the previous trip, my new riders were impressed with the view of Kitt Peak from 12 miles away. At left, Bernie shoots the observatory - the flat peak seen on the horizon.


We didn't waste a lot of time on the drive down - turned off the paved road just beyond milepost 16 and followed the road back NW towards the impressive profile of Baboquivari. With our little later start, we found a nice spot for our lunch with a view of both the peak and vistas to the east as well. The 5-frame mosaic here from our lunch spot with the 300mm lens well-captures the peak and surrounding area. Unfortunately, with the 1600 pixel-wide limit of pictures much of the impact of these panoramas is lost. At right what I've done is crop out the peak area of the panorama, keeping it at full resolution to give an idea of how powerful the full resolution panorama is! The crop at right is the same image, just cropped, not downsized from the panorama...


The previous trip I had seen a lot of huge grasshoppers, though didn't stalk one down on that trip. This time one came walking by at our lunch, so was able to molest it and take it's photo. It is a colorful fellow, flightless, though with underdeveloped wings seen here with black spots. It didn't take long to identify it on the Google as a Plains Lubber Grasshopper, Brachystola magma. Interestingly, in that link, they find that the Plains Lubber has a 2-year life cycle. I really love the subtle but strong earth-tone colors!

A little later we did some hiking when we hit the locked gate mentioned in last week's post. We turned a corner and I discovered the Praying Mantis shown at right at eye level on a plant. It was quite patient while I twisted the plant to bring it into the sunlight to get one or two good shots...


About 1km above the locked gate, we saw a ranch house that looked a lot better-kept than I remember hiking past back in the 80s! It appeared to have newer double-pane windows and a metal roof, even as the road leading up to it seemed long-unused. I ventured a little past the "private property" sign, but only to get the photo at left. Following the trail around the house and the corral, I took the mosaic at right. It looks like an idyllic place to spend some time! Back 30 years ago when last here hiking the peak, we parked much nearer the ranch house, but was pretty run down. In my reading, about that time it was known as Riggs Ranch. I'm not sure who operates in the area now. On our trip last weekend, we saw a big truck going in, but didn't stop to talk. Did not see any cattle either trip, though saw some white-tail deer (about a half dozen, including fawns) this trip.


We pointed the Jeep downhill about 4pm, making good time back to pavement without incident. Returning north on the Sasabe Road (the way we went out) we were rewarded with more nice views of Kitt Peak. Shown at left is an odd-looking view when 99% of the time you only see the profile from Ajo Way on the way to the Observatory from Tucson. Here, looking from the SSE, the 4-meter telescope appears between the solar and 2.1 meter scopes! This was taken with the 500mm lens...

Thankfully, one of us was thinking and we used Donna's phone to take a selfie of the three of us, shown at right. It was another beautiful, if not warm (temps still in 90s) Fall day that will remain memorable!

August finds AZ Bustin' Out!

I got back from the Midwest last week to find Arizona as green as I've ever seen it! Even flying into the Tucson valley, the mountains were a rare emerald green! Evidently the month of July had been the wettest on record - of course, the rain stopped as soon as I returned! My back yard is usually a bare dirt sort of yard, but I returned to find 2 foot high weeds in desperate need of whacking!


With all the water, many of the cacti here are blooming again, some for the second time. In front of the house I have pair of barrel cacti, both at least 25 years old. They look pretty much identical, but one only blooms in the Spring, the other in the Fall - no confusion there! The normal Fall-blooming one (well, mid-August anyway), was budding heavily with the first flowers - well mixed with the yellow fruits from last year's flowers! The image at left reveals the first flower, well-hidden among the buds about to flower and the fruit from last year, and perhaps before! At right is a close-up of the flower. As with the last post of the Katydid, these images are all focus-stacks, where multiple exposures were combined to extend the range of sharpness. This close-up of the barrel cacti flower was constructed from 28 individual frames!

Since the largest image I can display on the blog is 1600 pixels wide, both the above images were reduced in quality for display. But here at left is a full-resolution of the flower, cropped from the original image. Note how the center part of the flower (stigma?), looks all the world like hot dogs encased in buns!








Out in the back yard, my favorite cacti are the array of Cereus Repandus plants along the east end of the house. One of my favorite monsoon activities is to monitor them as they open and watch for pollinators. Seeing 5" wide Rustic Sphynx moths attack these 6" wide night-blooming flowers is really interesting! However, the problem is that my next adventure (eclipse road trip!) starts in a few days, and while the plants are covered with buds, I'm not sure any of them will open before I need to leave! Fingers crossed there will still be some available to bloom upon my return in a couple weeks!

And almost hidden behind the grill, I remembered my little potted barrel cactus, and I almost missed it even though in full bloom! It's dark red flowers are not particularly conspicuous - I'm not sure I've seen flowers less conspicuous, unless you go with the green cholla cacti flowers! Shown at right they are a quite nice shade, and I see buds for future blooms - I'm just not quite sure what I'll see next time I'm home! Will be glad to give up the 2 foot high weeks though!

Whitewater Draw Crane Cam!

The last time I posted about Whitewater Draw, the over-winter location for tens of thousands of sandhill cranes, I'd mentioned that Arizona Game And Fish has installed a "Crane Cam" to provide 24/7 coverage of cranes and other waterfowl. But it had been offline for a few days... It is now back, and provides a sometimes-amazing view, like last night, showing a spectacular AZ sunset with cranes flocking into the wetlands and their haunting calls coming out of the speaker... The remotely-controlled camera is shown at left from my last visit. Someone obviously controls its pointing and zoom setting, working diligently to keep cranes in view for a good part of the day. But do check out the live Crane Cam by clicking here!

More Whitewater Draw Thru The 500mm Lens

Folks seemed impressed with my first results through the "new" (to me, anyway) 500mm lens in its debut at Whitewater Draw. In that last post I talked about how I found the lens and showed a few of my favorite shots of cranes and astronomical objects too. I took a closer look at the images collected and have a few more to add - this time I'll restrict myself to just the bird shots - may have more astronomical ones next time.


Interestingly, last year they (AZ Game and Fish) installed a webcam providing a live HD view of the cranes. This was a wonderful idea for the crane observing season as you could tune in several times a day to observe and even in the middle of the night you could enjoy their rattling calls to each other. Unfortunately, since my last post a couple days ago, it has been offline, but I will keep an eye on it and provide a post providing it comes on again soon. The crane season typically winds down after Valentine's day, so it may not get back again this season. Anyway, shown here is the camera, solar cells and little transmitter. The shot at left shows it right after sunset at the wetlands, but the sun was still shining up in the Chiricahua Mountains - at upper left you can see the profile of "Cochise's Head", a well known landmark from Eastern Arizona... At right is a closer view of just the camera on my most recent trip...


The cranes have been keeping their distance from the viewing stations, so the images can't compare to some of the images I've taken on foot from a few yards away in Illinois! There seems to be a lack of water this year, and they tend to congregate where the water is located to protect themselves from predators. But sometimes you can catch flocks of them against the sky which can sometimes be striking compositions. Shown here are a pair of shots of profiles against the twilight after the sun has gone down. As a result, they are only silhouettes, but hey - still striking profiles! I particularly like the left shot as it isn't quite dark enough to obscure the "purple" mountains, which occur for about 15 minutes before and after sunset. And the shot at right, the birds seems consciously to stagger their wingflaps to prevent interference! In actuality, they are likely offset along their direction of flight to prevent that...


But on my most recent trip a week ago, there were a lot more water fowl than the mid-December trip! With the lack of water, these birds stayed close to viewing stands too where the water was located, so was able to get some decent shots. While not uncommon, they are striking. Most have appeared here before in previous trips, but still fun to photograph and show off!

I love the striking color difference of the eyes and body color of the Cinnamon Teal at left. This was just about the first photo taken on last weekend's trip. Hadn't seen these for a few years, likely last time at Sweetwater Wetlands, a manmade retreat off of the water treatment plant on Tucson's west side. At right, the Green-Winged Teal has some similar colors, but quite striking patterns on its head and neck.


And this one might be a new one for us! At least in Melinda's birding book, where she meticulously notated where we first saw each species, this entry is blank - a Northern Pintail. There was quite a gang of them feeding together here, but I don't recall seeing them before, so snapped a few shots, but usually can't trust my memory if we've seen them before. Good thing I did!

And there are a few things besides birds at Whitewater. My first trip there in December, well after sunset there were a couple peering thru their binoculars at something, whispering to themselves. When asked what they were looking at they said they had been spotting some deer, so again, recorded it for posterity. Sure enough, I counted about a dozen white-tails venturing across the west side of the property - the dark shapes with birds in both the foreground and in the fields in the background too. It was actually quite dark, but the fast lens was able to pull them out of the dusk...

That's about it for now - some more astronomy shots next time...

Newish Glass!

The past few years, whenever I would suggest a purchase, Melinda would usually respond with "when I'm dead you can spend my life insurance money", which usually brought any discussions to a halt - you can't argue with a cancer patient! She did agree to a new TV when the old CRT set died, and she eventually came around after flat out stating that the 48" screen was "too big" at the beginning. Watching our Cubs win thru the summer became our favorite pastime...

Anyway, now that she has passed, and now there IS insurance money, I've tried to be responsible and spend it on what she would approve - paid off the AZ mortgage, and still debating on the IL house... Invested most of it so retirement should be more pleasant... But I did buy a little "toy" - one she even might have approved of if we had some disposable income! We were both fans of birding at Whitewater Draw and elsewhere, and also of astronomical imaging, so when I saw a Canon "super-telephoto" lens on Craigslist, I had to check it out. Shown at left, it is a 500mm F/4 - very fast optics allowing short exposures for astronomy and pretty good reach with fast autofocus and image stabilization for birding. It is an older first generation, but was a good deal including the camouflage-cover, the Wimberley tripod head and a Canon 2X converter. Note in the photo that most of the large diameter part is the sun shade!


I got the lens in the closing days of November and have had it out a few times and it is impressive in it's performance... If you do a Whitewater Draw search on this blog, I've hoisted a few telescopes along for birding a few times and while the images for a distant crane is impressive, the very fast autofocus and image stabilization it is a whole 'nother ball game! I can now focus and follow birds in flight and have them come out tack-sharp! I've made 2 trips to their over-winter home and have gotten a few favorites already. At left are some cranes in flight at that "magic time" just before sunset. And at right is a straight shot taken with the lens of cranes at rest.



In my most recent trip this last Sunday, I
caught some distant flocks of cranes coming in from miles away where they were likely feeding on grain fields in the area. Over the same mountains shown at upper left, here at left are 127 cranes (by my count) coming in for the evening. There is "strength in numbers" as they spend the evening together at Whitewater, using the water pools as protection from predators (usually coyotes). Click on the image to enlarge to full scale to see the multitudes of cranes... And at right is the standard shot of LBT glowing in the last rays of sunset from the Observatory near 11,000 feet elevation. At 80+ miles away, it is still eye-catching as it is usually parked at an angle that reflects sunlight to us birdwatchers... This frame is actually a focus-stack of 2 frames, otherwise either the birds or observatory would have been out of focus. But here 2 shots were combined to keep the sharp part of each image.


This last trip out there was a larger variety of smaller water-birds from a month ago when there were mostly just cranes. They also cruised closer to the observation platforms, so were a natural to photograph with the 500mm! At left is a long-billed dowitcher that was difficult to freeze as it was in constant motion marching and picking thru the shallow waters... And at right is an eye-catching killdeer - a common bird, but a beauty nonetheless!






And even though we're suffering through what seems like the cloudiest Fall and Winter in recent memory, I've gotten the lens out on a couple occasions for astronomical imaging. The first time I was fighting thin clouds and wasn't a good test for its capabilities. But the next time I shot a few objects and got some promising results. At left are a couple nebulae that shine by fluorescence of hydrogen resulting in a reddish glow. Commonly called the North American nebula at left and the Pelican Nebula at right, they are analogous to the glow from a fluorescent bulb, but excited not by electricity but from a bright star out of the field. This image is a stack of 17 frames totaling about 35 minutes of total exposure. The lens is extremely sharp from corner-to-corner across the full-frame 6D sensor, and I did stop it down to F/5.6 to reduce vignetting at the corners a little. But overall the results are quite good! At right is another glowing cloud of hydrogen - this one known as the Rosette Nebula, looking almost like a ghostly Christmas wreath! This one is only 10 minutes of total exposure!

So I'm impressed with the overall performance of the lens for both birding and astronomy! It will be one of my standard tools when going out on excursions, and might be just about perfect for the upcoming solar eclipse in August! But it is a sobering reality to know that it is a product of a life insurance payout... Would much rather do without it and have the presence of my bride back... But it will give me a chance to remember her every time I have it out with me!

Monsters at the Door!

Late Summer is prime time for observing our other "little pets" - the gecko colony in front of the house! I've posted about them last year - you have to be quite observant to see any of them - they are quite shy and retiring. Walking up to the house when arriving after dark, you might spot one or two behind the glare of our porch light before they scurry off. I had to go to great lengths to capture the family portrait at left - do NOT go out the front door, but rather out the side gate from the back yard, walk around the car parked out front, and sneak close enough to take a flash picture. But I was rewarded by capturing 10(!) of them! My previous record for visual spotting was 5. You can play "where's Waldo" by clicking the left image to view at full size before going to the labeled version at right where they are all marked. They can penetrate quite narrow cracks, so have plenty of places to hide around the eaves of the front door, and will all disappear in seconds as they are approached.

I also mentioned in the above post that these are Mediterranean House Geckos - not native to Arizona. They are evidently imported for the pet trade, and after escaping or being released, set up shop in the urban areas, like in front of my house, feeding on insects attracted to exterior lighting. At left is a wide shot of another before he scurried away for the nearest opening. The eave vent hole at bottom is about 2 inches in diameter, providing a bit of scale - these aren't large at all, topping off at about 5" long or so. Because they are so shy, I've never been able to observe their hunting technique. While they were all running for cover, this little fellow paused at the rear end of a Moneilema gigas - a cactus longhorn beetle. I can't tell if it was considering taking a bite of it, or was attempting to hide behind it, but he continued scurrying away after taking the photo at right.

Anaglyph 3-D - get your red/blue glasses!

Anaglyph 3-D, get your red/blue glasses!

But fortunately for me, when they hide in the latticework of our security door or look out from one of their hiding cracks, they seem secure, allowing me to ease in for some close-up images. Of course, you know me - one of the things I go for are the 3D stereo images! With a subject quite still and used to me taking flash images of it, I took a pair of images from slightly different vantage points. Presented as anaglyph images here, you need your red/blue glasses to see the 3-D effect. In these extreme close-ups, they lose a lot of their "cuteness" and appear much more reptilian! Both of these 3-D images are from the same image pair, but with different crop factors. The left image is displayed at full camera resolution, and the image at right made from a larger section of the image. The eyes are quite amazing - instead of eyelashes, they have a row of inclined scales that can be spotted in the closer version. They evidently don't blink, licking their eyes to keep them moist, though I've not seen that action...


Their feet and pads are equally amazing. While the local lizards we've had the privilege of imaging close-up have little fingernail claws - like the horned lizard shown here, these geckos seem to have little scale-covered fingerlets. This effect is shown in close-up at left, showing one of his front arms from shoulder to toe-tips. This is a 3-frame focus stack to extend the zone of sharpness over the full image...   Similarly, the image at right used 10 frames, all with a slightly different focus point, combined to make a sharp image.


I'm closing with one of the favorite photos taken this week - a 6 frame, hand-held image stack in close-up of a gecko hiding in a crack about a quarter inch wide between our security door and adobe bricks. The detail in the eyes and head are quite amazing, taken with pretty simple equipment - my nearly decade-old Canon XSi, plus a few cm of extension tubes with the 100mm macro lens and on-camera flash. I'd use the newer 6D, but I don't have a flash unit for it and it doesn't sport the standard on-camera unit... It would be nice to get this close to all of them w/out them hiding from me, but themz the breaks! We love our little bug-eating reptilian monsters, and I like the challenge in catching them in photos!

More Buds N' Bugs!

Even as our monsoon season winds down, we've still got some flowering cacti. I've still got a couple buds from the Cereus repandus on the east side of the house that will go off in a couple days, and the Fall barrel cacti are blooming. We've got a pair of fishhook barrel cacti in front of the house - while they look very similar, even down to the orange flowers, one of them blooms in April, the other in August.

I've had a small potted barrel in the back yard, and just this year started blooming with the most beautiful deep red flowers. I believe the generic name is Ferocactus wislizeni. At left are the buds about a week short of blooming - well protected by the dangerous-looking spines of the cacti. At right are the open blooms this weekend - here a close-up taken with the macro lens - a 7 frame focus stack. Each of the 7 frames were focused at a slightly different position to extend the depth of sharpness through the area of interest. Here you can see most everything is sharp - even the pollen scattered about the flower petals... This is nearly at the full camera resolution - about the best I can do without adding extension tubes for additional magnification...

3D - Parallel View

3D - "Cross-eyed" View

Of course a pair of lovely blooms is worthy of a 3D stereo pair. Unfortunately, the use of anaglyph glasses transforms the flower into a gaudy bluish-purple flower and I'm not even going to show it here. So I'll have to resort to the old-school method of viewing the stereo images like I used to present! Here you don't need any equipment at all, but it helps to be able to have nimble eyes! At left is the "parallel view" pair. Look across the room, then down to the image to look at the left image with your left eye, and right image with your right. Your brain will put them together to make a 3D image!

Similarly, the right image is a "cross-eyed" view. Clicking the image you will notice that this is a larger size. In the parallel view, you typically can't "uncross" your eyes to view images larger than your eye separation, but if you cross your eyes, to look at the right image with left eye, and left image with your right, you can get more resolution as you don't have the same limitations! You can practice with the thumbnails here before clicking to load the full-size images - good luck! At least they are in natural color!

And now for the fun stuff! On Saturday, I set up the camera after taking the above shots for a time-lapse. Since I was lazy and didn't set up till after lunch, it shows the flowers closing, though you see the evidence of bees swimming through the forest of anthers in the flower! At an image every 2 minutes, you don't see a lot of pollinator action, more the evidence of them being there as the flower parts move around. Five and a half hours of flower action played back here at 10 frames per second... Check it out!