Caveat up front: we are admittedly kind of spoiled when it comes to hiking in our little corner of southeast Arizona. There are many times when we can be out on the trail for hours and see at most a handful of other human beings … if I’m being totally honest, we’d probably rather run into a bear or a mountain lion than another person. 🤠

But holy cow …

Standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon should make you take a big deep breath and ponder the meaning of life.

Instead, my primary thought was:

The Grand Canyon wasn’t on our original agenda

This is my 7th year in Arizona (I’ve also lived in California and Texas a few times), so there was probably no good reason I hadn’t already seen the Grand Canyon yet. It was always just a little “too far out of the way”, even on our previous trips up to Flagstaff. Well on this roadtrip to Page, we had already planned a little side quest over to Williams, Arizona.

It just made sense to route the rest of our drive up to Page through Grand Canyon National Park. It really didn’t add many more miles than if we’d backtracked through Flagstaff.

We drove up hwy 180 from Williams, then waited about 20 minutes at the South Gate of the Grand Canyon. The one unambiguous win of the day was flashing my (*disabled veteran) America The Beautiful parks pass at the South Gate. If the federal government is going to subject me to the Disneyland logistics of modern tourism, at least Uncle Sam comped the fee for life.

(*all veterans or active duty military can get these free passes, the advantage of the DV version is that it never expires … others have to be renewed yearly)

The parking lot at the main visitor center was a madhouse, and there were more people than I (naively) expected at the Mather Point overlooks. But we did stop and take a few pictures before heading east down hwy 64.

This route worked out well, since although this was Kelly’s 4th trip to the Grand Canyon, she’d never been to the east part of the park. We both enjoyed Navajo Point and the Desert View Watchtower, and I got a few interesting pictures.

In addition to the candid shot above, I did also capture a few images that may even be “hang on the wall” worthy after I edit them.

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Overall I’m glad we made this stop, and I now no longer have to say I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon.

But we weren’t done yet …

Our next stop a little later that evening was Horseshoe Bend, just south of Page.

It was a little more crowded than might have been ideal, but Kelly was still able to take the picture that we were hoping to get when we added the stop.

More confirmation that crowds make even awesome locations worse.

The only real planned outing during our 3 days in Page was the Antelope Canyon tour that had pre-booked for us. We showed up 45 minutes before our scheduled start time, only to be told they couldn’t find our names (Kelly had the receipt with a bar code and everything). To their credit, they sorted it out in about 10 minutes. We were added to a group, and later learned that we were the only two Americans among a gaggle of Chinese tourists on a bus tour.

It was a little crowded going down the ladders into the canyon, but we figured things would thin out and get a bit more organized as the tour progressed.

We quickly realized that there were three ladies near us at the front of the group who had no interest in even pretending that anybody else was also on the tour.

Some of their poses might have been amusing had they not taken turns photographing each other individually around Every. Single. Corner.

At first we were annoyed, then we just laughed at the absurdity of the whole experience. The thing is, I’m not even sure they were being “rude”. This might just be how you have to act to even get yourself in a photograph at any tourist destination in a country with 1.4 billion people.

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About halfway through, our guide noticed what was going on, so let us get out a little ahead of the pack. This allowed us to get a least a few of something pretty close to the type of shots that we had in mind when booked the tour. I’m sure she’ll share a few on her feed too once she edits them.

Funny thing is, the Antelope Canyon experience wouldn’t have felt so jarring, if just the day before we hadn’t done one of the most amazing slot canyon hikes we’d ever been on … at a location we didn’t even know existed until the previous evening (and which cost almost nothing, comparatively). Oh yeah, did I mention we only saw about 10 other people the whole time, and most of them were pretty close to the trailhead parking. 😎

That said …

Kelly has already floated the idea of hiking all the way down to the Grand Canyon floor someday … so I might very well have lied in my post title. But at least there aren’t usually bus loads of other people down there. 🙃

Til Next time,

Do you enjoy B&W photography?

Check Out Monochrome Monday

So backstory …

A couple of days ago I read a story about how you could now connect your Adobe accounts (and the tools you subscribe to) to Google Gemini. So yesterday I tried it, and boy howdy, was I initially impressed and excited.

But the first clue that something was amiss came in the form of a comment from my friend who noticed that the door frame was a different color and gumballs had been added to the edited version of the image.

When I asked Gemini, sure enough it admitted that when it couldn’t connect to the Adobe file picker, it instead routed it through an image-generation model. It turns out even the list of edits it gave me (which I took as “proof”) were not anything it had done in Adobe.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it actually did these things, just with an AI model rather than adobe tools. Also, the image it output looked really nice …

But it’s not a photograph.

So this morning I decided to try another experiment …

I found a picture I wanted to post to Notes, and decided to give Gemini another chance. I asked it to use my connected Adobe account to help me edit an image (which I had already uploaded). I watched it go through the process of “connecting” (it even had me click a button to “allow” the connection).

But then the output immediately raised a ton of red flags.

Okay, that looks really cool. But it was NOT the picture I took.

I then went back in and got explicit instructions about how to make sure my image was actually being processed by Adobe Lightroom (and no an image-generation engine). The results were unimpressive to say the least.

This is at least subjectively worse than the “straight from the camera” image. Although to be fair I didn’t spend a lot of time asking Gemini to make additional adjustments.

I then upload the same image into Lightroom and went through a quick version my normal editing process.

Not nearly as much “wow” factor as the made up AI version, but still impressive, and more importantly, pretty close to the view I actually saw that morning.

So …

The lesson I take from this is one I already should have had written on my forehead:

I do think there is some potential for integrating Gemini with Adobe and having it help with choosing which tools to use, and which adjustments to make.

But right now, it’s not ready for primetime, and it’s certainly not faster or any sort of a short-cut verses just opening Lightroom and doing it myself.

Also …

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Going forward, please rest assured that all of my images will be edited by Me in the non-AI tools that I already have available. (caveat: even Adobe Lightroom does already use AI for things like denoise and some adoptive profiles)

Til Next time,

Let’s make this fun. I’m not anything close to an expert on mushrooms, but I sure do like taking pictures of them. I think I’ll leave the captions blank though. Instead of me Google guessing, if you can positively identify any of these shrooms, please let us know down in the comments (actually, maybe it would be helpful if I number the images, instead of leaving them blank).

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I’ll tell you straight up, Kelly is the mushroom enthusiast in our family. Seriously, she takes her pictures and posts them in mushroom groups to learn everything she can about them. We’ve even brought a few home with us, ostensibly to eat, but we’ve never been that brave (or 110% sure enough about the ID) yet.

This cool little green mushroom wasn’t brought home to eat, it was brought home to study. She actually did a spore print to confirm exactly what she’d found. It was quite the exciting weekend.

Me, I just enjoy how photogenic many of these little shrooms are.

We actually went back to the same spot two weeks later (this past Saturday) to look for more little green mushrooms. She initially suspected this may be the same type of mushroom, just at a later stage of its lifecycle (sadly it appears likely not). In any case, it’s unfortunate that this one wasn’t nearly as colorful as her first find.

Speaking of colorful though. How do you like this tiny yellow guy who I found growing out of the side of a water soaked log?

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Okay, if I’m going to ask you to play and ID game with us, I might as well give you a couple of relatively easy ones …

Seriously, I might even be able to guess these. 😎

But then there were also a few that were just oddly out of this world.

Kelly has been really busy with work lately, so she hasn’t yet posted the awesome mushroom pictures that she’s taken these past couple of weeks in the mountains. But if you check out this post on Just Over That Next Hill, you’ll see that we’ve been on this quest for a couple of months now.

Just Over That Next Hill

The fun guys I found in the forest!

I love Monsoon Season in Southern Arizona. The landscape is completely transformed with the rainfall both in the desert and in the sky islands…

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3 months ago · 7 likes · 6 comments · Kelly

In addition to mushrooms, I’ve been on a bit of an insect and bug kick lately. Well it just so happens many mushrooms are a great place for other small creatures to hang out.

I think we’ll wrap up the picture sharing here, to keep this post from getting too terribly long. But with our wet and extended monsoon season, I have a feeling we’ll have at least a few more weekend mushroom hunting trips this year.

Til Next time,

Need Pictures for Your Own Posts?

At least I don’t remember ever using anything more than the little disposable boxes that you shot, turned into the photo counter, then waited a couple of days to see if you’d even gotten any good pictures.

I definitely didn’t consider myself a “photographer” when I was in my 20s. But looking back through some of these prints I recently found, I suppose I must have always had a decent eye for visualizing a scene worth capturing.

I even somehow managed to talk my way into the boom of a KC-135 to take pictures as we passed over New York City on my way back from Desert Storm.

Hmmm. Maybe I didn’t need to own a fancy camera or take a lot of picture to be a “photographer” back then. Besides the volume of pictures, I did notice one other big difference between now and then. Back when I just had a disposable point and shoot camera and had to pay for processing, I apparently didn’t take any pictures of birds or bugs. Still plenty of my kids, but no insects.

With my older kids, when I say “plenty of pictures” there are still just a few snapshots at various ages in the prints that we saved. Contrast this with my two younger girls who were born in the digital age, and have literally thousands of pictures from every year of their life in folders on my Google Photos.

I’m not sure which is better.

Would I even have found these 35 year old images that I’m now kind of admiring if they had been buried amongst thousands of others on a digital hard drive?

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Til Next time,

Quick aside: In the summer of 2025 we went to San Diego and were going to be away from the house for nearly a week. For some reason I got the bright idea that I would hide the camera lenses I wasn’t bringing with us (in case someone broke it). Among these was the Tamron 90mm Macro that I’ve had since 2012.

Would you believe I managed to hide that lens so good that I haven’t been able to find it since?

For a while I’d convinced myself that I didn’t really need a macro lens. It’s actually possible to get some pretty impressive “quasi-macro” looking shots, zoomed in with the big 150-600mm Sigma lens. In fact, in some situations that long lens is probably even preferrable to an actual macro lens.

The problem is, it’s enough of a challenge to get good sharp images of tiny creatures with a 600mm lens in bright daylight. It would be essentially impossible in the dark.

And there are creatures in the dark that I want to photograph …

Fortunately there was a solution!

A month or so ago I got a great bargain on a used (but like new) Sony a6000 camera. I originally paired with TTArtisans 25mm manual focus lens, with the intention of using it as a light weight hiking companion.

But I couldn’t get a thought out of my head:

Enter the Tamron 35mm Di III F2.8 M1:2 lens. This thing is seriously cool (and not very expensive - directly replacing the 90mm Tamron would have cost nearly 3x as much). It’s a full-frame lens, so on the APS-C crop sensor of the Sony a6000 it’s sharp edge to edge. It’s made of plastic, but that means it’s light. So while it’s definitely bigger than that TTArtisan 25mm, it’s pretty close to the same weight. Most importantly, it’s got a very close (5.9”) minimum focusing distance, and a 1:2 (half life size) magnification ratio … macro!

With my Tamron lens, I’d always kind of wished I’d had some sort of dedicated lighting, but I was intimidated by the flash (and the cost). This time, it turns out for < $30 I could get an LED Ring Light that screws right onto the 67mm thread of the front of my lens. It’s not a flash, it’s always on, but I haven’t found that to be a disadvantage so far. To recharge it, I just plug it into the same USB-C cable that I use for my phone.

For as long as I’m on the mid-shift, a couple of times a night, I grab my camera, turn on the ring light and walk around the building. I especially love photographing all the spiders, who not surprisingly, are very active at night.

But using that always on ring-light as a sort of flashlight, I also got into the habit of checking out some of the bushes to see what might be spending the night there.

I have a lot of pictures of moths, June bugs, and other beetles. But I think that’s going to end being a whole separate post somewhere down the line.

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That said, insects are not the only photographs I’m going to share here. The other night as I cam around the corner I spied another creature that is also likely very happy about the abundance of insects around my office every night!

I even learned that my new lens works great for video too!

Til next time,

p.s. I have also used this lens exactly as intended on a hike we took last Saturday, to capture mountains vistas:

As well as close up macro shots of interesting things in the plants along the trail:

Many of those images will yet again make it into a future post all their own.

One little tail feather …

I’ve gotten into the habit of taking my camera out in the backyard (Sierra Vista, AZ) every morning to the tree where I’ve seen hummingbirds. Wednesday morning I captured a few images of one that was definitely not the Broad-billed, Black-chinned, or Anna’s Hummingbirds that I normally see.

It’s most likely a Rufous Hummingbird, as they are known to be migrating through our area of the country this time of year.

The dilemma for me is that there have also been a few reports of Allen’s or Allen’s/Rufous hybrids in our area … and since I’ve never verified that I’ve seen an Allen’s on my own life list, of course that’s what I’d like for this to be. 😎

What I’m learning is that with female and immature hummingbirds it’s very difficult (bordering on impossible) to definitively differentiate Rufous vs. Allen’s.

Apparently it’s all about the tail feathers.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really capture any high quality images of this bird’s tail. The image above, and the one below are literally all I had on my SD card.

The good (or maybe bad) news is that even if I did have better quality images of the tail, I probably still wouldn’t be able to say for sure. It all comes down to the shape and size (or absence) of a notch in the R2 (second tail feather from the center). I can’t really tell from either of my images. I’d like to say that I see no evidence of notch, which might indicate Allen’s.

But that’s probably just wishful thinking.

If nothing else, this is a good excuse to keep getting the camera out every morning in hopes that I can capture a shot or ten that provide better evidence one way or another.

Update: same bird, one day later. Slight better pictures, but still no good look at the tail feathers.

Til Next time,

I walked about 2 1/2 miles on the loop trail, listening to plenty of birds, but actually seeing very few. Due to our healthy monsoon rains this year, there is plenty of overgrown brush and leafy trees for the birds to hide in.

Unfortunately, there was nowhere for me to hide from the mosquitos.

They ate me up good.

What I’ve learned about taking pictures of birds and other wildlife is that sometimes your best shots don’t come until you’re almost back to the car.

I was on the homeward trail, within site of the San Pedro House when a pair of Vermilion Flycatchers flew past my head and stopped to pose in a relatively open area not too far ahead.

At least the morning wasn’t going to be a total bust when it came to pictures.

Since the early morning light was so nice, instead of just getting in the Explorer and heading home to sleep, I decided to see what might be hanging out in some of the plants near the house.

Also turned out that the bumble bees weren’t the only pollinators in the garden.

I even got what was probably my best bird picture of the day, right there in the big fallen cottonwood tree, less than 100 yards from the parking lot.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to lace up my shoes and walk for miles when I can get beautiful backlit pictures like this within sight of my car.

At least my fitness tracker gave me an enthusiastic digital gold star for hitting 13,000 steps before most people had their breakfast. 😎

I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Til Next time,

We made it to Garden Canyon on Fort Huachuca just after sunrise. Two adults, two teens, and one very enthusiastic orange vested pup.

We all had Slightly Different Agendas.

I was carrying my big 600mm lens, hoping I might run into something unique I could add to my birding life list.

Would you believe that I only saw about a half a dozen birds all morning?

I barely got a shot of that hummingbird before it flitted away as we entered the canyon. Then a clear shot of the sulphur-bellied flycatcher didn’t come until near the end of the hike; even though I’d heard the unmistakable squeaking for hours.

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Kelly of course was out chasing waterfalls. Ignoring TLC’s sage advice as usual. She got some good ones too! Check out those long exposures. 😍

Butterflies

If I really wanted a challenge, I would give up on the birds (everybody is into birding these days) and try to start building a butterfly life list instead. We saw so many different varieties in just a few hours, and in a place like Garden Canyon, they actually sit still long enough to get some good pictures.

Note: I’m having a hard time finding anything dull about those last two Firetips

The Pictograph Site

Did you know that Garden Canyon has a pretty well preserved pictograph site? It probably helps a lot that a couple of decades back some Eagle Scouts did a project to erect a fence at the site to help discourage modern humans from adding their own initials to the rock walls.

Of course the part of the wall that wasn’t fenced (because it didn’t have ancient drawings on it) was free game for climbing … and picture posing.

We wrapped things up with a shortish trek back to the Jeep, where the dog of course ran right through a mud puddle just before we got back to the trailhead. Would it even be a hike if my jacket (which the dog sat on during the drive home) didn’t need to be washed afterwards?

Til Next time,

Right up front: I love this pictures (taken with my 14mm manual lens) and thought about sharing it just on its own as a “BloomScrolling” Note.

But then I started thinking about all the cool and interesting pictures I captured of the creatures within this field. Also, this is starting to have me rethink my wish to find my macro lens. I wouldn’t have gotten most of these shots if the Tamron 90mm macro had been attached to my camera at the time. But the 600mm end of the big Sigma was perfectly up to the task.

I didn’t realize Grasshoppers came in so many different colors.

The Pollinators

Beetles and Ants

Of course, I wasn’t the only one who was happy to find a field full of insects.

Til Next time,

It’s amazing what you can see (and photograph) right in your own backyard if you just pay attention and have some patience. These are all images that I’ve captured over the past couple of weeks either right in my neighborhood, or in the area just outside my office at work.

Birds

Let’s start with the birds. I love to grab my camera and head to Ramsey Canyon, Huachuca Canyon, The San Pedro River, or my favorite little pond on post. But the reality is, I can get some pretty cool bird pictures right outside my door.

Insects

I love dragonflies, and lately they’ve been hanging around our backyard. The first picture below of the red flame skimmer was taken one morning right next to the pool. The grass at work was also really high lately with all the rain we’ve been getting, so that made for some nice encounters with other insects.

Butterflies and Caterpillars

I could take tons of butterfly and moth pictures almost every day. But for the purposes of this post, let’s look at my favorite pictures of three different stages of development.

Mammals and Reptiles

I unfortunately have no recent lizard or snake pictures good enough to share. Also, while I know there are fox and javelina in my neighborhood and skunks at work, the only mammal picture I managed to capture was this waskily wabbit.

Til Next time,

I went for the hummingbirds, and was not disappointed. Of course the challenge is trying to get good shots away from the feeders. These are two that I liked:

The volunteers mentioned a Costa’s Hummingbird had been frequenting a couple of the feeders earlier. Naturally, it vanished the moment I unhitched my lens cap. Had I caught it, I definitely would have compromised my "no feeders in the photo" rule for that one.

Of course there were other birds in the yard. I can never pass up a shot of a Curve-billed Thrasher (this is one of my favorite Arizona birds).

I also like running into groups of the Mexican Jays:

I even got to add a reasonably good image to my Woodpecker collection:

Finally, a reminder that free seeds will attract anyone with a free morning … feathered or otherwise.

If you want to visit Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary yourself, it’s pretty easy to get to. About 20 minutes south of Sierra Vista down Hwy 92 (GPS directions are accurate). Once you get there, it is a suggested $10 donation. But that pays to keep the feeders filled. There’s a bathroom, drinks, snacks, and exceptionally thoughtful volunteers who offered me bug spray … about ten minutes after the local mosquitos had already feasted on my legs. 🙃

Let me know if you’re planning to visit. Maybe I’ll grab my camera and drive back down there again too.

Til Next time,

It’s always nice when you stop at your favorite after-work bird spot and are immediately greeted by an interesting scene almost before both feet are out of the car. I opened the driver’s door of my SUV and as I was grabbing my camera out of the passenger seat, I heard a hawk calling.

I switch my autofocus to servo and started taking pictures of a Red-tailed Hawk doing relatively low passes over the parking lot. But what was more interesting is that there were also another 5 or 6 hawks in a big circle, all at different altitudes

.

Maybe there is a downside to my 150-600mm lens, in that I don’t actually have any shots with all six birds in the frame. I suppose if I was thinking, I would have grabbed the Sony with a wider lens on it, or at least snapped a shot with my phone. But since I didn’t you’ll just have to take my word for it. 😎

I thought this was kind of an unusual sight, so I did a quick bit of googling when I got home. It’s possible this was “flight training” for juvenile hawks. But a more likely scenario is it was just a group of red-tails all enjoying the same intense summer monsoon thermal to do a little effortless soaring.

I suppose I could have just gotten back in my car and come home to edit pictures. But I was at my favorite little pond, so I decided to walk around for another 15 or 30 minutes.

I didn’t see many other birds, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t take a few pictures.

I love a good lizard picture, especially to post on Facebook for my mom. I also have a hard time ever passing up a nicely posing dragonfly.

I did get one more good bird picture on my way back to the car. This female vermilion flycatcher decided the reserved handicap sign was the perfect place to stop and have a little sing.

Til Next time,

I don’t have to imagine, I can remember. (Ha! … sometimes anyway)

I lived in Hawaii (aka paradise) three times, but by far the best was when I was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s.

I had a great group of friends, and on any given summer day my parents probably had no idea where I was from sun up til sundown … and sometimes later than that.

• We would ride our bikes over to Pearl Harbor to look at the ships.

• Go to AAA baseball games at Aloha Stadium (future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn played for the Islanders in 1982).

• One time we rode The Bus to downtown Honolulu and got out at Hotel Street to see hookers and bums 😲 (we were 10)

• Other times we’d just go fishing at the harbor for 11 or 12 hours, trying to catch the big Tiger Shark that was rumored to be trapped in the reef runway lagoon. Luckily we were never successful.

But those are all tales for later posts.

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Today I want to tell a story about the time we were sure we’d found a way to cheat the system, or at least the only “system” we knew about at 10.

In the course of our daily adventures, we’d often ride our bikes around the neighborhood, or even the whole base.

Sometimes we’d end up down at the BX (base exchange … department store for you non-military types) after it closed.

We were usually thirsty.

Luckily there were vending machines.

But did I mention we were ten?

Yeah, we didn’t have money.

What we did have though is a friend with a long skinny arm.

Through trial and error, over the course of many evenings we discovered that if we hit the side of the machine just right, then our friend (let’s call him Mikey … he would eat anything) could stick that long skinny arm up into the machine and extract a “free” soda.

Yes, we were technically stealing. But we were thirsty, broke 10 year olds.

This trick would work over and over again; as many cans as we wanted.

One minor technically …

Only one specific type of soda ever came out of the part of the machine that Mikey could reach with his long skinny arm.

.

.

.

.

Yep, it was TAB.

If you’re too young to know why this was horrifying, imagine the most disgusting metallic-aftertaste diet soda you can think of …

But …

We were 10, and it was “free”, so of course we all drank one almost every night for about a month. 🙃

Decades later, I still drink diet soda. But it’s definitely not TAB.

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Til Next time,

When I asked Kelly what she thought her Spirit Animal might be, she answered (a little too quickly, if you ask me):

Praying Mantis

I suppose this shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

She does have a long history of trying to kill me.

Okay, maybe not “trying”, but still …

She would call me “dramatic” and I think she’s a bit too cavalier sometimes.

But I suppose she’s right, we haven’t died … yet. 🤠

For Kelly’s perspective on our hiking adventures you should definitely check out her newsletter Just Over That Next Hill

The first time I lived in Arizona, Kelly and I were just friends. But for about 6 months in 2016, we hiked together three or four mornings a week.

One day she suggested that we head to Fort Huachuca to check out McClure Canyon, and maybe even try to get all the way up to Huachuca Peak.

Note: back then I was in no shape to try to get to the top of any mountain. But that morning I was blissfully unaware of this potentially very relevant fact.

I was just going for another walk in the woods with my friend.

Just around the corner from that trailhead sign, we started to go UP

… and UP

… and UP.

My heart was beating so fast that I thought it was going to jump right out of my chest and dash back down the hill to the car.

At one point I may or may not have instructed Kelly:

Yep, completely rational, not dramatic at all. 🤪

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By some miracle I survived that first mile or two of the hike, and eventually the trail flattened out at least a little bit.

At this point I should probably tell you that Kelly had heard about an abandoned helipad at the very top of McClure Canyon, and she was determined to see it.

One problem …

As we got closer to the top, the “trail” quit looking anything like a trail.

But she could see the top. That helipad had to be there.

So on we pressed. Bushwhacking our way higher and higher.

Eventually I looked to my left and noticed that it was a good 200-300 foot drop off right next to the “trail”.

Oh, and did I mention that the “trail” just kept getting thinner and thinner, until at one point I asked if we were on a no shit mountain goat trail.

It took another 5-10 minutes of inching forward a little at a time before Kelly finally agreed that maybe we weren’t going to see the helipad on that particular day … although she would get there about 6 and 1/2 years later.

We weren’t quite done just yet …

Due to our precarious position on the side of a ridge, we had to literally slide on our butts back down to a place where it was safe enough to stand up.

Oh, and remember that super steep part of the trail at the beginning?

Yeah, we had to run down that hill because Kelly was going to be late picking her boys up from school.

Ten years later, if you ask her about that hike, it was all about the “great views” and we only turned around because we ran out of time.

Goat trails? What goat trails? You’re being dramatic.

Til Next time,

Instead of getting out, I just rolled down the windows, drove really slow, and started capturing images right from the driver’s seat of my Jeep.

Poor grasshopper.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Cassin’s Kingbirds in the forest lately. But these Western Kingbirds like the open fields a little better. I know we sometimes get the larger Tropical Kingbirds in this area as well, but I haven’t photographed any yet this year.

Now that I know all these Kingbirds are there, I’m sure I’ll go back to this location again. But they weren’t the only thing I took pictures of that evening.

Another Red-tailed Hawk encounter

As I was one my way back towards home, I was still driving slowly, so I noticed this hawk perched on a tall century plant. It was backlit with the mountains in the background, so I was pretty happy that it sat still for a few minutes so that I could capture a few images. Eventually it got tired of me sitting there though.

It flew across the road just behind me and landed on a different tree in a field on the other side. I think it was hoping for a little harassment.

But alas, it was not meant to be.

A Northern Mockingbird already in the tree (or at least close by) was not happy at all about the hawk’s presence. I don’t know if this little bird was extraordinarily brave or really dumb. But it proceeded to accost the hawk until it left that tree too.

The hawk images were also taken from the driver’s seat of my Jeep. Not sure I’ll do this often, but it’s nice to know that I have the option.

Til Next time,

But I’m a middle-aged white guy.

It’s silly to ask me what my “spirit animal” is.

Nonetheless, that’s exactly what happened at a work event last week.

I wish I could tell you that I was quick on my feet and came up with a brilliant response that not only got a few chuckles but also nodding heads thinking “yeah, I can see that”.

Instead I just demurred: “I’m a civilian now, I don’t have to play this game”.

Perhaps ironically, that did get a few muted laughs.

But me being me, and my brain being my brain, of course I spent the next couple of days thinking about how I might have answered that question for real.

In the end, I landed on …

Yep, a Cat.

(Not a majestic mountain lion or a sleek panther. Just a regular old house cat)

Basically …

I’m not sure exactly what this does or doesn't say about me.

But since we’re here, and the topic had been brought up:

If you ask my loved ones, they’ll tell you I’ve reached the stage of my 50s where my default state is 'grumpy housecat.'

I don’t mind being in the same room as other people …

But if anybody glances directly at me, or tries to start small talk, I may flick my tail in annoyance, and maybe even give them a dirty look.

Then there’s my selective hearing.

Someone can be talking directly to me about weekend plans, and my brain just registers pleasant background noise. I remain completely motionless and oblivious in my chair by the computer.

But if that same person mutters (even quietly to themselves) “Fine, I’ll just go move those boxes in the garage myself,” I’m suddenly fully aware and attentive.

Not because I want to help, mind you. But because I know if I stay still for another five seconds, my quiet morning is officially over.

… of course there is a non-zero chance that I’ll just make my way to a different room and find a quiet corner to curl up in.

Don’t even get me started on affection.

One minute I might be rubbing up against your leg, and even purring if you respond and pet me just the way I like it.

But then 15 seconds later (seemingly for no reason), the mood shifts and I just want to be left alone again.

Very confusing, I know.

Oh man, in the end, I guess I did find my spirit animal after all.

I’m a tad disappointed in myself that I’m not a majestic eagle soaring over the mountains or a noble wolf leading the pack. Just a housecat who wants a quiet room, a comfortable chair, and affection strictly on my own terms, is almost certainly the more honest fit.

But hey, it could be worse.

At least nobody expects me to fetch anything. 😎

Your Turn:

How would you have answered if it was you put on the spot at a conference?

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Til Next time,

We are rapidly approaching that special time in the American election cycle where everyone on the internet suddenly transforms into an uncertified political scientist. Over the next few months, we are going to hear an awful lot from people about not only how they plan to vote, but exactly why you and I are wrong if we don’t vote the exact same way, for exactly the same reasons.

But it does come with a few distinct caveats …

There is an unwritten but well defined inverse relationship between how often someone posts about politics and how likely anyone is to actually read it. It’s the Car Alarm Effect. The first time you hear a car alarm, you look around to see if someone is stealing a vehicle. If the alarm goes off every single afternoon at 2:00 PM, you don't look for a car thief; you just look for a new neighbor.

Think about it:

Which is more impactful?

Or …

When every single news cycle is treated like an existential crisis, the human brain naturally tunes out to preserve its own sanity.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes (and these days maybe even often) it’s perfectly understandable to be outraged about many things.

But what is your goal in expressing that outrage?

• Do you just want people to know you're mad? (Hey look, I'm screaming into the digital void, and I brought receipts!)

• Or do you want to inspire actions that might change the thing(s) you’re mad about? (local and in person > anything on the Internet or your phone)

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Personally, I’ve found that my own record for changing someone's mind via a heated internet comment section is roughly zero percent. Which is why, as the political temperature rises over the next few months, you can mostly find me out on the trails. The local wildlife might occasionally mock me, but at least the lizards never try to debate me about the why the price of gas is so high.

p.s. on a more serious note, please check your voter registration: vote.gov and make a plan to vote in your local primary and the general election on Nov 4th.

Til Next time,

Taking pictures of wildlife, birds in particular, is kind of like fishing …

This morning was not like that for me.

After editing, I have exactly one bird picture that was worth keeping.

But don’t cry for me …

I was out in nature for about 2 1/2 hours right after sunrise.

And of course there were things other than birds to photograph … mostly things that were mocking me for my lack of birds. Like this guy:

Near the end of my walk, I thought, 'Oh, look, a chubby little bumblebee!' (Its mimic worked perfectly). Nope. It was actually a western bee killer, which is a type of robber fly.

It turns out I wasn't photographing a gentle pollinator; I was taking pictures of a tiny, winged horror movie villain.

So remember how I told you that I only got one good bird picture?

Well, prepare to play the world's smallest violin for me, because this is how spoiled I am:

Rough life, right? Truly a devastatingly 'bad' day when your consolation prize looks like a flying emerald. 🙃

Oh yea, one last thing, the post title …

I really did run into a skunk.

Thankfully, no tomato juice bath will be needed. 😎

Til Next time,

If I answered: “I’m in the Air Force”, the inevitable follow up question was:

“Oh, do you fly planes?”

Me: “No, I’m a weather forecaster”

Them: “Oh cool, are you on TV?” lol, again, “No”.

This did get me thinking though. I’m not sure I have a really good elevator pitch to answer that question with. Maybe (much younger) Joey and Jaiden can help:

I think they nailed it!

Daddy takes lots of pictures.

He also goes outside, then comes in and tells people what the weather is.

What’s your “elevator pitch”?

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I had the 600mm Sigma lens attached to my camera, so I was hoping to see some birds. I was not disappointed.

Almost as soon as I got out of the car, this little female Vermilion Flycatcher was sitting in a tree almost right in front of me, in pretty nice light. Off to a good start.

I then happened to look up behind the pond and there was a Red-tailed Hawk soaring above the hills. I’m not sure I’d say I ever got a really good shot, but it did eventually get a bit closer.

There was also a Turkey Vulture circling overheard.

I walked around the pond a little bit, then found a good spot to watch and see what showed up …

About the most interesting bird that showed up during the 20 minutes or so I was at the pond, was of course the one that I didn’t really get a great shot of.

If I was a real birder I would actually plan some trips to find birds that aren’t yet on my list. Apparently at Miller Canyon which is only like 10 miles from me, someone saw a Black-vented Oriole (normally only in Mexico). Maybe I’ll head over that way one morning this coming weekend.

But in the meantime, I still enjoy that I can make a short detour on my way home from work and get decent pictures of almost a dozen birds in 20 minutes.

Til Next time,