Tuesday, July 31, 2018

7/31/18

This is a pretty old shot I got of a Preying Mantis.  I was goofing around with the background to make the Mantis stand out better.  It made it a little funky but I liked how close I was able to get to the Mantis.


Monday, July 30, 2018

7/30/18

This is an image I was able to get on a trip to Yellowstone.  I may have shared a very similar one before.  It fit a theme over on G+ so I used it for that too.  This is the only time I have ever seen a bear in the wild during the day and have been able to photograph it.  I saw this bear on our trip to Yellowstone a while back.  I had seen them at night before raiding trash at a campsite in Colorado once but too dark for photos.  It was cool to be able to see one.  Not sure what type, looks big even far away.  😃


Sunday, July 29, 2018

7/29/18

My image today was taken the morning of my ride on the Cumbres & Toltec this past May.  I took this image of the locomotive just before boarding the train.  It was a beautiful morning and a great day for a train ride. 


Saturday, July 28, 2018

7/28/18

This is a close up image I was able to get of the Snapping Turtle I saw up at Tamarac Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota this past June.  They have quite the different textures on them and are even more ferocious looking up close.  😊


Friday, July 27, 2018

7/27/18

I captured this Dragonfly hovering over my pond one evening last week.  The low light was making it a bit difficult so I kept upping the ISO till I got a clear capture.  It was neat how it was just hovering in one spot for a while over the water and the water made for nice bokeh. 


Thursday, July 26, 2018

7/26/18

My new pond has a Water Lily plant in it and it bloomed last week.  I was able to see that it was a lovely yellow variety.  All the little green dots around it, providing some bokeh, are called Duckweed and are common in ponds in Kansas I have found out.


Wednesday, July 25, 2018

7/25/18

I captured this Pronghorn Antelope on the way home from Colorado and New Mexico earlier this year.  I had seen them a number of times while traveling but had not been able to get a good image of one.  This one posed so nicely for me even which was great because I had made it a goal of the trip to get an image of one.




Tuesday, July 24, 2018

7/2418

This is the bird photo that I shared on last Sunday while hosting Bird Poker.  This is a Northern Flicker that I captured at the in-laws in Missouri early this year.




Monday, July 23, 2018

7/23/18

I photographed this Daylily last week.  It has really been blooming lately.  I liked how this image turned out with a slight vignette.  


Sunday, July 22, 2018

7/22/18

I took this image the day after riding the train.  This is at Windy Point and the train is climbing up it to Cumbres Pass.  The grade percent is the highest here and it climbs quite a number of feet in elevation in a short time and you need a good fireman and engineer so it does not slip on the rails while climbing and even then....  It was very windy in this area and I was glad I wore a jacket that day as it was quite cool as well.  It's kind of hard to image these days with the heat we have been having.


Saturday, July 21, 2018

7/21/18

Well, we missed out on some rain chances but fortunately not in the 100s for a bit.  90s are bad enough.  I captured this Skipper, which is a Hesperiidae but commonly thought of as a butterfly, on the Zinnias this past week.


Friday, July 20, 2018

7/20/18

Today is the last day of my hosting the Bird Poker theme and my one for today was Bright Birds with Bokeh.  I thought this image of a male Baltimore Oriole that I captured earlier this year fit that theme pretty well.  I love the kind of bubbly bokeh behind from tree leaves and sky.


Thursday, July 19, 2018

7/19/18

So on the hottest day of the week I am posting a photo from winter.  Hope it cools you off.  My theme today was Bright Birds and in winter, male Cardinals are wonderful pops of color against the blah.  I captured this one during a late snow this past winter. He was all puffed out against the cold.  With this heat we are experiencing, I almost miss winter.  Almost.  😉


Wednesday, July 18, 2018

7/18/18

A bit of rain yesterday and a nice cool morning today, very nice after the heat we had been having but it is coming back for a day tomorrow.  Sigh.  This is from cool days in June when I was in Minnesota.  This Red-wing Blackbird was flying from pad to pad to eat something out of these Lily flowers.  I am not sure if it was nectar from the flower or insects inside that it was after but I enjoyed watching and photographing it.  I had seen this type of behavior once before a couple of years ago, but still don't know what it's after.


Tuesday, July 17, 2018

7/17/18

I captured this image in Missouri this past winter at the in-laws.  They have a Hawthorn tree out back and this male Cardinal posed so nicely in it.  Luckily I had my big zoom lens and I also cropped it in some.  It fit for my Bird Poker theme today of Bird's In Their Environment rather well I thought.


Monday, July 16, 2018

7/16/18

July is just flying by.  Wish summer didn't go so fast.  My image today was taken on a walk one evening in Chama New Mexico.  This is a Magpie which we don't have here in Kansas, I am betting they don't like the heat.  I'm not fond of it either. I think they are lovely birds and I enjoy seeing them, I just wish I could have gotten a photo of it in a tree that was this good.


Sunday, July 15, 2018

7/15/18

Well, I said my photos would be birds everyday and I lied.  😁  Sunday is for steam trains so this is another shot that I took while riding the Cumbres & Toltec.  Here the train was just beginning to cross Lobato trestle.  Lobato is the area where the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed.  The part where Indy is on the Circus train.  Indy's home is in Antonito, CO, the one end of the C&T, and is now a bed and breakfast.


Saturday, July 14, 2018

7/14/18

I am hosting New Bird poker over on G+ again this week.  I had a good time the first time I did it and they needed someone again so I thought, sure.  So my photos this week will be birds.  Starting off is another image of a Bald Eagle that I was able to capture in flight in Minnesota this past June.  There were 2 of them flying above me and it was quite beautiful.  Oh, and nothing to do with the photo but, we got an inch of rain!  Woohoo!  It was so horribly dry here, we needed it so badly.


Friday, July 13, 2018

7/13/18

I don't think I have ever experience such a hot and incredibly dry summer like we are having now.  I think we are turning into a desert.  It's not good at all, everything is struggling, even me.  I am thinking of cooler days in New Mexico.  I captured this Lupine in some evening light during a walk back from dinner.  I loved the bubble type bokeh in it on the left. 


Thursday, July 12, 2018

7/12/18

So we are still living in the core of the sun as I saw someone else say and found it rather appropriate.  Very dry too, it drags you down, it's so oppressive.  I am thinking back to cooler days in New Mexico and Colorado during my vacation.  At our campground there were these Golden Banner wildflowers.  I got lucky and captured this Bumblebee coming in for a landing as well.


Wednesday, July 11, 2018

7/11/18

I captured this image at Tamarac Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota this past June.  There is a spot where I have been able to view the state's flower, the Showy Lady Slipper several times.  On this occasion I was able to capture one of the many Dragonflies that were around that day on one of the flowers.


Tuesday, July 10, 2018

7/10/18

So I messed up a bit and forgot a day.  Ooops.  I blame the heat.  I took this image in Minnesota on the way to dinner one evening.  There is a large pond or I guess one of the 10,000 lakes that we go by that usually has some kind of wildlife at it and this evening a Great Blue Heron was standing on a log overseeing the pond.  He stayed there so I could get a few shots but flew off into the reeds when i tried to get closer.


7/9/18

I am hoping to find a field like this one this year but people do not seem to be planting them very much these days.  Soy Beans and corn must be more profitable.  Anyway, this is an image from a Sunflower field south of me from a while back.



Sunday, July 8, 2018

7/8/18

I posted the companion shot to this one last week.  The Cumbres & Toltec Railroad is a unique one in that it is operated by 2 states, Colorado and New Mexico.  When you ride the route of 64 miles you pass over the border 11 times.  The majority of these border crossings are not too far out of Antonito Colorado.  We started on the New Mexico side and here we are crossing back into it.


Saturday, July 7, 2018

7/7/18

So we missed out on rain till who knows when now.  Very sad.  Plus, very hot again, high 90s F or 36C plus.  Sigh.  Thinking of cooler days in Colorado.  I was these lovely White Violets on an outing looking for waterfalls.


Friday, July 6, 2018

7/6/18

I have seen several Monarchs around my property this summer.  They have not been on the Milkweed I planted for them but they are enjoying the Echinacea or Cone Flowers that I have planted in several areas.  I captured this one last week enjoying one.


Thursday, July 5, 2018

7/5/18

I shot this image earlier this year of a female Baltimore Oriole on the Grape Jelly feeder.  I have still seen them around but they don't come as often since the Mulberries are ripe and available.  Now that the Mulberries are ending they may be back more.


Tuesday, July 3, 2018

7/3/18

I took this image of another of the Waco Bi-planes that came to the annual Bi-plane Fly-In held at the beginning of June.  Waco is apparently producing planes and I didn't get any info on this one so not sure if it's new or restored.  It was a beautiful example whichever.  


Monday, July 2, 2018

7/2/18

Thought I would start off the week with something cute.  I saw this little guy under the bird feeders at the Tamarac Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center looking for dropped seed I would guess.  This is a Thirteen Lined Ground Squirrel.


Sunday, July 1, 2018

7/1/18

Welcome to July where it looks like it will be hot and dry still for us for a while.  We missed out on some good rain last night, it's disgusting now how it all dissolves when it gets near.  
Anyway, my image for today is from my ride on the Cumbres & Toltec.  I mentioned that it goes in and out of Colorado and New Mexico.  On one stretch of track not that far from Antonito, CO you go in and out 11 times.  I was riding up from the NM side.  The mountain in the background is an inactive volcano.