Yellowstone's Small Fry

During a little side trip to Sheepeater Cliffs, I saw a couple photographing something in the talus at the base of the cliffs.  Upon going over to investigate, I discovered that there were Picas and Chipmunks busily preparing for winter.

I'm shy!

What are these large beings?

I want to see too!

Yellowstone 2010

After getting back from our trip and going through and post-processing the images that I captured, I wasn't sure how best to break things up so that it didn't all end up in one humongous blog post.  I've decided to break things up by subject.  This first post will contain more of a mix of different kinds of  images.

On the way to Yellowstone, we spent a night at Craters of the Moon National Monument.   Here are a couple of images taken there.  I like the color and feeling of this image.

The setting sun interacted with clouds to produce some nice views.

We did see a fair number of elk (especially in Mammoth Village), but the main action of the rut seemed to be over.  Many of the elk appeared to be in the middle of the fall molt.

During the first evening in the park we found this Canada Goose just standing in the middle of the Madison River.

We also spotted this Trumpeter Swan.

On one of our stops, this raven was sure we would feed him something and was obviously used to humans.

We found this Bald Eagle along the Gardiner River near the north entrace to the park.

Oregon 2010

We've recently gotten back from some travel that took us up to the Portland, Oregon area for a family reunion of Barbara's siblings, then we headed across Idaho to Yellowstone National Park, followed by Jackson Hole and the Tetons, then finally back home.

While we were in the Portland area we had a chance to visit the Columbia River Gorge which is famous for all of its waterfalls.

This is probably the best known of these falls, Multnomah Falls.

This is a view of just the upper part of Multnomah Falls.

This is Latourell Falls.  I like the way the basaltic columns are hanging down from the undercut cliff.

After the family reunion, we headed east toward Idaho.  We decided to drive by and stop at a scenic area I had heard about called the Painted Hills.

Here is a panorama of the Painted Hills from the overlook area.

Here are a couple of closer up views of these formations.

2010 Photo Walk

For the past three years, photographer and Photoshop expert Scott Kelby has sponsored a worldwide photo walk.  During a single day, small groups of photographers all over the world spend a couple of hours talking photographs in their local areas.  The best photo from each group is selected by each group's leader and entered into an international competition.  On July 24th I joined with members of local photography clubs to shoot in the small town of Los Alamos, California.  Below are a few images captured during that walk.

Around the yard

Several things have caught my eye around our yard lately.  Here are a few images taken near the house.

The peaches on the neighbor's tree are ripening nicely.

The Matilija Poppies have really bloomed nicely this year.

We have some artichoke plants that have gone to seed.

There are at least two insects on this artichoke.

We should have ripe tomatoes soon.

Quicksilver Ranch

Just a couple of miles from our house is a little ranch named Quicksilver Ranch.  Quicksilver Ranch is famous for the miniature horses that they breed and raise.  They allow people to come and visit during the day.  Although we frequently drive by, we don't often stop.  Since we had friends visiting recently, we made it a point to go and spend a little time visiting the horses.  Late spring and early summer is when most of the colts are born.  When born the colts are only as large as mid-sized dogs.  Even full grown, the adults are probably only about three feet high at the shoulders (about 1/2 that of typical full sized horses).

This colt is only about 18" high!

The colts are very playful.  Besides frequently running around the pasture, this colt was also playing with this large "ball".

They also seem to spend a lot of time flopped down sleeping on the grass.

The California Quail

I intended to primarily post new photography in this blog.  But going through some older images, I found that I had taken a LOT of pictures of California Quail during a stay at Montaña de Oro State Park during the summer of 2009.  Since this is one of our favorite birds, I thought that a selection from these images would be fun.