The end of April was a bit hectic at our house.  Jane and I had both planned separate, but concurrent, trips.  But then, plans changed.  So I left a week prior to Jane’s trip and got home in time to take her to the airport for her journey to New York.  The day after dropping Jane off, I left for a second short a jaunt while she was having fun in New York City with her friend Gigi.  A week later all was normal again and life was back to its usual routine.

My first trip of April took me to Wisconsin and Minnesota to photography two different species of prairie grouse.  This trip was suggested by Neil Solomon, a Photonaturalist Camera Club friend, who had arranged for us to photograph from blinds set up at leks, specific locations where the male grouse come to display and compete to mate with females.  In order not to disturb the birds during their mating ritual, we had to be inside the blinds well before the birds arrived.  That meant getting up well before dawn in order to be in place as the birds gathered in the predawn twilight.

We first photographed sharp-tailed grouse in the Namekagon Barrens of Wisconsin.  The sharp-tailed grouse is a threatened species and their numbers have declined significantly as native prairie habitat has transitioned to agricultural fields.  The Namekagon Barrens has been set aside as a wildlife area by the Wisconsin Department Of Natural Resources and the blinds have been placed at the lek by the Friends Of The Namekagon Barrens specifically to facilitate viewing of the sharp-tailed grouse mating behavior.

Sharp-tailed grouse were photographed on two successive mornings.  Only about twelve males appeared to compete and we only observed one or two females.   In general, there was not a lot of activity among the males on the lek.  Most of the interaction was limited to bluffing and intimidation with little combative behavior typical among competing males. The lake of females may have accounted for the low turnout of males.  Or, perhaps we simply missed the peak time of mating behavior for this specie.

The second photo stop was at the Bluestem Prairie Scientific and Natural Area, in Minnesota, a preserve established by the Nature Conservancy.  There, again we photographed on two successive mornings.  Here we photographed the greater prairie chicken, another species of prairie grouse.  Activity was much greater with an estimated 50 or more birds, including numerous females, on the lek.  Competition was much more intense among the males as the females strutted through the lek making their decisions as to whom to mate with.  Among the younger males there were continual challenges to obtain access to the more central portion of the lek where the females congregated to select mates, resulting intense sparring and jousting with combatants flying into the air.  Consequently, the viewing and photography at the Bluestem Prairie Reserve was much more intense and challenging.

After returning home from this short bird photography sojourn, and taking Jane to the airport, I departed early the next morning for another short trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.  This trip was made with another photo friend, Bruce Hollingsworth.  The Petrified Forest National Park had been on my mind for some time as a photography destination.  I had never photographed there and it is reasonable close to home, about a day’s drive, and April is a good time, temperature wise, to be in the desert.

Through the Petrified Forest Field Institute I had made arrangements with a local guide, David Behar, to show us the more photogenic location in the Park.  Bruce and I spent our first day with David becoming familiar with the Park’s attractions.  The next few days we explored the Park by ourselves re-visiting areas David had shown us as well as other locations we discovered on our own.  The weather turned rather nasty on us with cold temperatures, rain and extremely strong winds that was not conducive to photography.  After the cold front passed we did enjoy a final day of photography with balmy conditions and puffy clouds in the sky.  On this last day we also discovered a little visited section of the Park, with lots of petrified wood, right below the Jasper Forest view point.

To see images from the these two short April trips, go to the Prairie Grouse gallery sub-folder in the Birds gallery folder on the home page and go to the Petrified Forest National Park gallery sub-folder under the National Parks and Monuments gallery folder on the home page.

ENJOY !!!

My latest jaunt was to explore the Borrego Badlands in Anza Borrego Desert State Park.  Again, for this exploration my friend Bruce came along.  Bruce has more experience navigating with GPS instruments than I have and that proved to be indispensable.  We headquartered in Borrego Springs at the Oasis Inn.  When Jane and I had stayed there a few months ago, when we were in the desert to photograph the Orionid meteor shower, we had a mouse in the room that kept us on edge most of the night.  This time, Bruce and I were not bothered by a mouse but instead a noisy ceiling fan kept us from a restful slumber.

From the Oasis Inn, we day-tripped to various locations in the Park.  Typically, we left before sunrise, returned during mid-day, and ventured out again to capture sunsets.  Photographers are an odd lot.  For sunrise and sunset we want high, wispy cirrus clouds to capture the sun’s color, but at night we want clear skies to capture dim star light.  The rest of the day we want dramatic cumulus clouds to intensity arid desert scenes.  Well, of course, we could not have it all go our way.  Star photography was spoiled by dark layers of low, stratus clouds and some days the desert sky was devoid of any clouds.  There was sufficient variety in cloud cover, however, to make the exploration worthwhile.

In preparation for this trip, I had made a list of the areas in the Park I wanted to photograph.  We were able to find all the sites in the north portion of the Park but will have to revisit the Borrego Badlands to photograph sites in the southern portion.  A mix up with our reservations at the Butterfield Ranch RV Resort caused us to miss that part of the explorations.

All the sites we visited to photograph were in remote areas of the Park, accessed by way of unimproved, dirt trails.  We had good maps and for many locations also had coordinates.  That is where Bruce’s experience with navigating with global coordinates was essential.  With his GPS device he was able to not only point us in the right direction, but could also keep track of our route so we could find our way back.  Irrespective of this technology, at times we struggled big time to find our way.  This was especially the case when we decided to take a short cut to the Pumpkin Patch from Split Mountain Road through the Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area.  This is a vast area of the desert where ATVs, quads and dune buggies can drive wherever they want and as fast as they want.  The entire area has been traversed by recreation vehicles and established trails only exist on paper, like our map.  Since we could not discern an actual dirt road, we just followed the most likely tracks and that got us a bit lost.  Thanks in part to some helpful campers, we eventually found our way but could not really vouch that we found a short cut.

So not only was this an exploration of the Borrego Badlands it was also an adventure in navigating the dirt tracks and always being grateful that we found our way.  Some of the off-the-beaten-track locations we photographed were The Slot, Rainbow Wash, Hills Of The Moon Wash, Pumpkin Patch, Split Mountain, the Elephant Tree, Seventeen Palms Oasis, and the dry lake bed of Lake Clark.

Images from this trip can be found in the State Parks gallery under Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

Twenty-eighteen is off to a fantastic start.  I just returned from my first photo trip of the year.  Some time ago, perhaps a year or two, I came upon a description of a very unique and interesting location to photograph.  Located in a very remote and desolate area, in the far southeast section of Nevada, near the Arizona strip, and two hours south on dirt roads from Mesquite, is a section of red, eroded Aztec sandstone called Little Finland.  The name is derived from the way the sandstone has eroded into many fin like features.  I had wanting to venture out to this area after learning about it and seeing images by other photographers.  So in mid-February my photo-buddy Bruce Hollingsworth and I set forth to explore Little Finland.

Armed with maps, written directions and GPS coordinates, we started out from Mesquite full of enthusiasm and great expectation.  At the outset, the road was paved but so full of potholes it was rougher than the subsequent dirt tracks we followed.  Have you ever noticed how, in an unfamiliar setting, the way out always seems longer than the way back?  Well that is what we experienced.  It just felt that we had gone for miles and miles without reaching a recognizable waypoint on the map.  Little Finland is situated in a recently created national monument, so when we came upon the large Bureau Of Land Management sign indicating we had entered the Gold Butte National Monument, we knew we were on the right road.  It was a long, bumpy two hours, however, before we reached our final destination.

It is difficult to describe the intricate and bizarre sandstone shapes we found in Little Finland.  Mother Nature really demonstrated some of her most creative erosional work here.  With a little imagination, we could see all sort of creatures, some rather ghoulish, emerge from the sandstone.  Another name for Little Finland is Hobgoblin’s Playground and that more aptly describes the area.  Bruce and I enjoyed our foray into this strange and fantastic playground.

To find images from this trip, go to the National Parks and Monuments gallery and look for Gold Butte National Monument.

To cap off this trip, we also spent a couple of days photographing at the Valley of Fire Nevada State Park.  Bruce had not been there but Jane and I had photographed there a couple of years ago.  You can see images from the Valley of Fire in the State Parks gallery.  I have only included a few shots from this trip to add to the images already on the site.

Finally, on January 31 of this year, there was a lunar trifecta, a full moon, blue moon and blood moon (as a result of a total lunar eclipse).  The phenomenon was observable in San Diego, so Jane and I got up very early that morning in order to be in position to photograph the event.  The image below is the result of that early morning effort.  Only the first half of the eclipse is shown, from full moon to blood moon.  The second half of the eclipse, from blood moon to full moon, occurred as the sun was rising and images from that portion of the eclipse did not blend well with the others.

It is the last week of 2017 and I’m composing my last blog about our adventurous travels for the year.  This narrative is about our very exciting trip to New Zealand. It has been nearly a month since we returned and I’m finally putting my memories down on paper (so to speak).  The trip to New Zealand was such an amazing experience that, even now after nearly a month, Jane and I will stop what we are doing and reflect on the wonderful time we had.  So let me begin this tale at the beginning.

New Zealand had been on our unofficial “bucket” list for some time.  There is just something mystical about New Zealand.  Anyway, about a year ago I happened upon a New Zealand photographer’s website that offered a fifteen-day guided photography tour of New Zealand’s south island.  After some discussion and a review of our finances, Jane and I decided to go for it.  The entire trip, from when we left home and returned home was 22 days.  New Zealand is a long way from San Diego.

Our tour started in Christchurch.  We arrived a day early, in case of unanticipated travel delays, and enjoyed sightseeing around Christchurch.  There was still plenty of residual earthquake damage to be seen around town although much reconstruction has occurred since the devastating earthquake of 2011.  We sauntered about town to take in the sights and spent an enjoyable afternoon in the botanical garden, after all we were in the southern hemisphere and it was late spring in New Zealand.

Our photographer guide was Petr Hlavacek, an immigrant from the Czech Republic, who has made New Zealand his home.  Petr resides on the west side of the south island and specializes in panoramic landscape photography.  Since landscape photography has been a challenge for me, this tour was a perfect opportunity to both savor the scenic beauty of New Zealand and attempt to capture it in photographic images.  Jane and I were not disappointed!  Petr guided us to some of the most amazingly scenic locations on the south island and helped me tremendously in visualizing panoramic compositions.

We photographed at six of the south island’s nine national parks.  Even though all the parks had stunning landscapes, Petr let us know that there were three outstanding locations which he referred to as the “three jewels” of his tour.  The three jewels were a stay on Fox Glacier, an overnight on Doubtful Sound, and a visit to Mount Cook Village.  Mount Cook (renamed Aoraki/Mount Cook) is the highest mountain in New Zealand.

Fox Glacier

The sojourn to Fox Glacier involved a helicopter flight and was totally weather dependent.  Fortunately for us, New Zealand was experiencing a warm dry spell and we experienced no inclement weather during our entire stay.  So, the helicopter flight to the Fox Glacier was on.  Briefly, this first “jewel” of the trip involved an afternoon flight up to a mountaineering hut on Fox Glacier, an overnight stay at the hut, a flight the next morning to a lower portion of the glacier, and then a final flight back down the mountain.

The flight up the mountain was an exciting experience as the helicopter hugged the mountain side on its way up the glacier.  After only a few minutes of noisy flight, there was nothing but snow and ice below us.  The Fox Glacier icefall (where the underlying bedrock steepens causing the glacial ice to flow faster and chaotic crevasses form on the glacier surface) was a majestic and unforgettable sight.  All too soon we arrived at our destination, the Pioneer Hut, situated on a steep ridge high atop the Fox Glacier névé (the snow field at the ahead of the glacier).

Pioneer Hut is a Spartan mountaineering shelter at the head of Fox Glacier operated by the New Zealand Alpine Club.  The hut has bunk beds that can accommodate up to 16 people.  Counting our party, the hut was fully occupied with mountaineers.  Some of the men were eating, or studying their maps, and others sleeping in preparation for their treks onto the glacier.  Going onto the glacier was not a simple matter, as we learned firsthand.  You don’t traverse the glacier on your own.  Even hiking the short distance from the helicopter landing area to the hut, we needed to fit into climbing harnesses and be tied to each other with ropes.  Snow shoes kept us from sinking into the snow as we trudged, single file, to the hut.

Inside, the hut was austere with an outer anteroom for storing boots and hiking gear, a long cooking counter, a small eating area with a table and bench seats, and taking up most of the space were the bunk beds.  The bunk beds, however, were not individual bunks.  They were bunk platforms with each platform having space for four people to sleep.  So Jane and I found ourselves huddled together sleeping with two other mountaineers on our shared platform.

It is difficult to describe the sense of isolation and awe generated by being on top of a living glacier.  Jane and I were enthralled with the experience and captivated by the scenic beauty of shear mountain peaks protruding above the glacial snow.  In the afternoon we were harnessed, tied together, and shod with snow shoes by our mountaineer guide and led onto the glacier for sunset photography.  The sun cast long shadows of our small group that were mere specks on the vastness of the Fox Glacier névé.

As a glacier is slowly pulled down a mountain valley by gravity, the snow that caps the glacial ice is slowly melted away at the lower elevations.  This results in hard, glistening, blue ice being visible at the surface of the glacier.  That is where we were transported to next.  After some early sunrise photography at the hut, the helicopter returned to relocate us lower on the glacier to photograph ice caves.  This time we were shod with steel crampons to secure our footing on the hard and slippery ice.  Our mountaineering guide shepherded us cautiously around dangerous crevasses and weak arches in the ice.  Keeping our footing, even with the steel crampons securely fastened to our boots, was a challenge as we attempted to photograph the colorful blue ice caves.  After a couple of hours scrambling over the hard ice, the helicopter returned to take us back down the mountain ending our unique adventure on the Fox Glacier.

Doubtful Sound

The second adventure in Petr’s jewelry case was an overnight expedition on Doubtful Sound.  This was a more civilized “jewel” with an all-inclusive menu and bar.  This adventure began at a small village on the eastern shore of Lake Manapouri where we boarded a ferry to transport us across the 55 square mile lake.  At the western side of the lake, we disembarked and were loaded onto coaches that carried us some thirteen miles, over the Wilmot Pass, from Lake Manapouri to Doubtful Sound.  There we boarded the Fjordland Navigator for our overnight expedition.

Actually, Doubtful Sound is not a sound (arm of a sea) at all.  The waterway is a deep and narrow glacier-formed fjord.  Our ship navigated through these steep, u-shaped, canyons quietly.  The canyon walls were densely covered with rain forest vegetation and rose abruptly from the calm waters of the fjord.  Clouds of mist shrouded the high peaks, adding mystery and drama as we ventured farther and farther towards the Tasman Sea.  Calm winds and mild temperatures made our trip, and photography, most enjoyable.  The food was good, the wine tasty, and this time we only had to share our cabin with two others.

As we neared the end of the fjord at the Tasman Sea, we encountered a small colony of New Zealand fur seals basking and frolicking on some rocky outcrops.  Here photography was more difficult as the swell from the sea was more severe and the seals were some distance away.  And, on our way back to the head of the fjord, the on-board naturalist announced the spotting of the rare and endangered Fjordland Crested Penguin.  Fortunately, I had the proper lens on my camera and was able to get a few images before the birds wandered into the dense undergrowth where their burrow was hidden.

Mount Cook

Petr’s third tour jewel was Mount Cook.  Mount Cook is New Zealand highest mountain at just over 11,200 feet and is where Sir Edmund Hillary honed his climbing skills prior to ascending Mount Everest.  Like Mount Denali in Alaska, Mount Cook is frequently hidden from view due to storm clouds coming from the Tasman Sea.  Mount Cook is a sacred mountain in Māori culture.  So, like Denali (formerly Mount McKinley) the mountain’s name has been changed to Aoraki/Mount Cook.  For us, the good weather we had experienced so far in our trip held and we able to see and photograph Aorkaki/Mount Cook from afar and close up.

Not only was Aoraki/Mount Cook one of Petr’s jewels, this majestic mountain is also the crown of New Zealand’s Southern Alps.  During most of our photography tour we traveled along the west side of the south island parallel to the Southern Alps.  Aoraki/Mount Cook and the Southern Alps, though not extremely high compared to the Rocky Mountains, are snowcapped and very rugged.  The Rocky Mountains are, in geologic terms, rather old and eroded.  The Southern Alps, on the other hand, are geologically very young and erosion has not rounded their peaks or filled their valleys with sediment.  Glaciers left over from the last ice age are still present in large numbers in the Southern Alps, unlike Glacier National Park in Montana where glaciers have almost totally disappeared.  For anyone who loves mountains, the Southern Alps and Aoraki/Mount Cook evoke a deep sense of wonder and awe.

After the photography tour with Petr Hlavacek, Jane and I rounded out our New Zealand adventure with a short side trip to Dunedin on the southeastern side of the South Island.  We had learned from friends in San Diego that Dunedin was the location where some of New Zealand’s most unique wildlife could be photographed.  Before leaving home, we arranged with Elm Wildlife Tours in Dunedin to visit an albatross colony and observe endangered yellow-eyed penguins on the Otago Peninsula.  Sunny skies again favored us as we boarded a sightseeing boat, sailed past the Taiaroa Lighthouse and into the calm water of the South Pacific Ocean.  From the boat we were able to photograph several species of ellusive albatross.

Yellow-eyed penguins spend most of their day foraging for food in the ocean, coming ashore only in the evening to spend the night in their burrows.  Our Elm tour naturalist brought us to a permanent wooden blind from where we could see the penguins, one by one, waddle up from the ocean onto a sandy beach and make their way slowly to the grassy slopes where their burrows were hidden.  Penguins are a delight to watch and the yellow-eyed ones were no exception.  Just the way they sway side to side while strutting across the sand makes me smile.  Negotiating an obstacle, or jumping among boulders, with their short, stubby legs, the penguins seem totally uncoordinated, yet they always manage not to fall over.

With the frolic and humor of watching rare and endangered yellow-eyed penguins, our New Zealand adventure pretty much came to an end.  All that remained was the long, long flight home.

Images from our New Zealand adventure can be viewed in the New Zealand gallery.

Normally, around the end of September Jane and I would find ourselves up north in Montana enjoying the grandeur of Glacier National Park.  This year, however, we were forced to make a last minute decision to cancel that autumn trip due to the devastating wildfires in and around the Park.  The consequence of that unfortunate cancelation was that we now found ourselves in the unaccustomed situation of being at home for a bunch of weeks rather than traveling and photographing.  What was I going to do with all that unexpected time on my hands?  I’m not terribly good at being at home for too long.  Not that there are no “projects” to be done around the house, it is just that I’m not a handyman and rather good at procrastination.  So, as Jane watched me get more and more bored and restless, she came up with a brilliant suggestion.  Why don’t I try and get a timeshare trade somewhere so we can take a bit of a trip?

That is how our consolation trip to Sedona, Arizona, came about.  Turned out we were able to get a last minute timeshare trade to Sedona for the first week of October.  The long way to Sedona, up U.S. Highway 95 from Yuma and over the mountains through Prescott and Jerome, is only about a day’s drive from San Diego.  So the consolation trip to Sedona was an easy one week vacation and, needless to say, I was a happy camper to be on another journey.  Sedona is surrounded by picturesque red rock formations and I looked forward to making some panoramic landscape images.  In addition, it turned out that the 2017 Harvest Moon, the full moon nearest to the start of fall, or autumnal equinox, was to occur during the first week in October.  That meant some more moon photography practice for me.

For a consolation trip, this short hop to Sedona turned out to be a truly astonishing junket. The timeshare unit was spacious and homey, there was a wide variety of restaurants to choose from, and numerous trails to hike.  We enjoyed all of it, eating sleeping and hiking.  We also explored some of the backcountry on dirt tracts to ancient Hopi cliff dwelling sites.  All in all, we much appreciated this last minute consolation trip to Sedona.

I have not made a separate gallery for this trip to Sedona, so don't worry if you can't find any additional images from this trip.

What can be said about the great American total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, that hasn’t already been voiced all over the internet, television and printed media?  This spectacular astronomical phenomenon, visible across the entire nation, from coast to coast, was indeed all it was forecast to be.  Jane and I traveled from San Diego to Rexburg, Idaho, to be in the middle of the “totality” experience.  The accolades expressed by the pundits from NASA, the Science Channel, and NOAA for this unique interaction between the sun, moon and earth were confirmed by us for the two minutes that we observed the magic of the sun’s corona erupting into space.  Being awash in the darkness and chill of a total solar eclipse, while captivated by the dancing light of the sun’s coronal flares discharging from behind the moon into the atmosphere, was an exhilarating and exciting event.

2017 Solar EclipsePanoramic Composition of the 2017 Solor Eclipse Photographed at Rexburg, Idaho

Astronomers predict another solar eclipse will travel through the middle of the country, from south to north, in 2024.  Who knows, perhaps we will travel to Texas to catch that one also.

August found Jane and me in Denali National Park and Preserve.  We took advantage of an Alaska Airlines two-for-one ticket deal.  I had wanting to go back to Denali National Park to try for some of the iconic wildlife to be photographed there.  The last time Jane and I were in Denali I was still photographing with film, so you can imagine how long ago that was.  Anyway, after the high peaks of the Colorado Rockies and Ancient Puebloan sites of Mesa Verde, we packed our bags for a short trip to Alaska’s premier park.

From previous trips to Denali, we knew that access to the interior of the park was restricted to busses only, no private vehicles beyond Mile Marker 15.  There are a variety of bus tours available and our strategy was to use the Shuttle Bus that allowed passengers to get off and then get back on another Shuttle Bus, provided that there were seats available.  We purchased Shuttle Bus tickets that allowed us to travel to the end of the line, some 85 miles and five hours one way, into the park, on three separate days.  We left on the early morning bus each day but our strategy of getting on and off did not work out as anticipated.  For one, the weather was always threatening and it rained pretty much every day, although not continuously throughout the day.  Then, even though the bus left each morning with plenty of empty seats they were quickly filled by campers picked up along the way.  We feared that once we got off the bus, it would be difficult to get back on another without having to wait a long time, potentially in the rain.  So we pretty much rode the full busses from beginning to end each day, photographing from the bus as best we could.

Since the Shuttle Bus rides took all day, we had allowed a couple of days for exploring on our own.  Those explorations proved to offer some fairly good photo opportunities.  At Horseshoe Lake we encountered a beaver that had just felled a branch from a birch tree and was dragging it from the forest to a small pond where he commenced eating the fresh green leaves.  We found a colony of pika near the Savage River Loop Trail head and spend lots of time watching and photographing these small little rodents as they foraged among their rocky habitat.  Further along the Savage River Loop Trail we noticed arctic ground squirrels digging for roots and eating seeds from wilted flower stalks. 

Even though we had gotten glimpses of Mount Denali from the bus, the high mountain peaks were obscured by clouds and overcast skies most of the time.  Consequently, we decided to treat ourselves to a scenic flight thinking that the plane would be able to fly above the overcast and allow us to experience the grandeur of Denali.  Our thinking turned out to be correct.  Taking off under cloudy conditions, with not much prospect of clear skies at all, when we approached the mountain we were above the clouds and Mount Denali appeared in all its glory as if floating on billowing cushions. 

To view images from our Denali trip go to the National Parks and Monuments gallery and then find Denali National Park and Preserve.

It is not often that I get to toot my own horn, but here goes.  Nature Photographer magazine, my favorite for finding great photography locations, has recently published three articles I had written about great photo locations in Wyoming, Utah and Nevada.  The Wyoming article featured the wild horses of McCullough Peaks near Cody, Wyoming.  The Utah article highlighted the Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument established in 1996. The Grand Staircase is often overlooked by photographers in favor of the more famous parks in Utah, but it has some really outstanding photo locations.  Finally, Great Basin National Park was the topic of the Nevada article.  It is a wonderful park to visit in the fall when the aspen trees are in blazing colors.

You can probably find the magazines at Barns & Noble, or perhaps online.