Wait

One Word Sunday: wait

Opposite and opposing

for One Word Sunday: opposite/opposing

Lens-Artists Challenge #139 – Special Moments…Arizona

This week Tina has set us a daunting task: to share special moments with the Lens-Artists community. Just the thought of trying to choose only five or six special moments out of all the years of photos almost made me give up in despair. Instead, I decided instead to limit my special moments to moments since moving to Arizona just under a year ago…and believe me, that’s hard enough!

Not long after we arrived at our new rental house, the torch cactus in the backyard bloomed with beautiful flowers that have a fleeting life of only about one day. I was stunned by their beauty and thrilled that they bloomed a number of times in the ensuing weeks. What a welcome to the desert! But like much of the desert, be careful how close you get! Beauty and danger have a habit of co-existing here.

On several visits to the Riparian Preserve, I’d spoken with a birder from, judging by his accent, either Boston or that part of the world, about the harrier hawk (he pronounced it “hairyah”) that he was an expert on. This day I followed him down a back path where he not only pointed out the hawk but told me about where he thought her nest was, her usual flight patterns, and so on. Here’s one of my shots of that special moment.

This pollen-covered bee ecstatically dancing in a poisonous datura flower was definitely a moment that brought joy to my heart.

Me finally catching a cormorant catching a fish was pretty exciting as was catching him drop it and an egret snatching it away a few minutes later.

There’ve been so many more special moments since we’ve moved: in Sedona and Saguaro National Park, seeing a vermillion flycatcher at Tuscon’s Sweetwater Wetlands and seeing alpine growth at the top of Mt. Lemmon. The most special moments though don’t have any photos…being here to spend time with and help out my aging parents and, weirdest of all the special moment, the three of us getting our second Covid vaccinations as well and my husband getting his first. What a year when getting shots is probably the highlight!

This last shot may not seem special but it’s of the only squirrel I’ve seen in this area since we moved here. Small joys.

Everything is black and white

Although when in the sleepy pod the first day I saw them these American pelicans looked, with the exception of their exceptional beaks, completely white, on this day they were showing off their underlying black decorative touches.

“Life is better in black and white!”
― Avijeet Das

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!”
― Ted Grant

Does this count for birds, too? Stretch those wings!

“The most colorful thing in the world is black and white, it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all.”
― Vikrmn, 10 Alone

Little photo bombing snowy egret in the background.

Photo bombing again, but in aggressive cormorant black. Doesn’t the middle pelican look as if it has its proverbial hands on proverbial hips in annoyance?

It’s also Pearl Harbor Day here in the U.S. as well as my mom’s and good friend’s birthdays. Can you imagine living in California and having your birthday on Pearl Harbor Day? Not the best birthday my mom ever had!

The cormorant and the egret…a fishy tale

Once upon a time I hunkered down by one of the lakes at the Preserve to relax and keep an eye (and lens) on one of my favorite birds–the cormorant. I’ve previously called the the U-boats of the bird world. They’re silent, deadly, and can hunt underwater for long periods of time, coming up a completely different place than where they dove. As usual they were fishing and my camera was clicking, although the first round wasn’t quite in focus. But the second round…

…gone fishing and…strike! Oh, yeah, I love Fish Fridays!

I’d be happy to help if you need it. 🙂

Going down. No, I don’t chew my food! What of it?

Hmmmm. Didn’t go down. Let’s try repositioning.

And it just keeps getting better.

Tuesday I shared the excitement of seeing my first roseate spoonbill at the Preserve. Those in charge put out a map (I still don’t know which lake is which number) with a list on the back of all the birds that might be/have been seen there and indicating whether or not the bird is there year-round and how rare a sighting is. “A” is the last, rarest sighting designation for “accidental”, meaning it’s very unusual and that’s what the spoonbill is.

Even though I would have considered my day complete with that sighting, I had yet another surprise in store. As I wandered along a small back path, another hiker told me that back and just across the path was a falcon. I hustled over, finding the spot easily by the several birders with binoculars, long lenses, or fingers all pointed in the same direction.

The “falcon” turned out to be an osprey, another bird that’s been on my mental list of birds I’d like to see and this handsome fellow with the piercing gaze didn’t disappoint. He seemed happy to pose for us on a nearby branch. One birder was unhappy not to get a shot of the osprey in action while another regaled us with the description of a photo he got of an osprey catching an enormous fish. Me? I was thrilled to add this to the spoonbill sighting! Quite the looker, isn’t he, even though not rare or unusual here.

P.S. I’d love to see a falcon one day, too, and they have been seen. 🙂

Movement

for One Word Sunday

One Word Sunday…muse

There’s a dead tree by the river in the park where I walk.  It’s often inhabited by birds of one sort of another: a siege/sedge of herons, an exaltation of egrets, or a gulp of cormorants…fish hunters all.  One unusual time, there were two types of birds there simultaneously.

I check each time I walk, hoping to catch a glimpse of as many as six or seven perched on various branches.  I think they muse about fish: those they’ve caught, those they plan to catch.  I muse about getting close enough to get a decent photo.  Even with my telephoto, it’s a bit too far away for a really good shot.

But there’s a path winding its way not far from the base of the tree and when the ground is wet or there are no crunchy leaves, it’s possible to get close enough if I move very, very slowly, to see them high above me in the tree.  This time I finally had my Nikon, not just my phone, and was thus able to immortalize this musing cormorant.

These birds are in some ways my muses.  I think about them, wonder whether they’ll be there, if I’ll get a photo of them.  And I enjoy seeing them muse about whatever it is they think about while sitting on a dead tree overlooking the river.

On a personal note, I’ll be taking a blogging break for most of the rest of the month as I travel to France to visit my s-i-l and b-i-l.   I pray for each of you a wonderful time and many blessings while I’m gone and promise to share thoughts, adventures, and photos with you when I return.

for One Word Sunday  (This week one word and then some!)

One Word Sunday…tasty

This week, Debbie’s word for One Word Sunday is “tasty.” In this case it could be last week’s word, “fish/y” or even “sushi.”  I don’t do raw fish, but this diner seems quite content.

Ice fishing

After powering through all that snow without a sight of any wildlife other than small birds, I headed back towards where my van was parked.  Crossing the dam, I looked down the river to my left and saw what appeared to be large grey spot quite a distance away in the snow by the water.  But I wondered whether it might be a heron, as I’d seen one some weeks earlier.

Taking out my camera with the telephoto, I focused.  Yes! It was a heron, hunched over, balancing on one leg while looking cold despite his nice and puffy down coat.  I guess he must have been ice fishing.  It was the view that made me morning complete.

(Anyone else having issues with WP formatting some of the words differently in the final post, even though they don’t show up that way in the original?  I didn’t change “nice and puffy down coat” above, but there it is.)