Circadianreflections Blog

Friday’s Feathered Friends-Scaups

When it was snowing last week my neighbor and I took our cameras for a walk and had a lovely couple of hours birding our own neighborhood. We’ve been keeping 6 feet apart and she’s in my very small group of contacts that I am seeing as we get through this pandemic.

These are Lesser Scaups that migrate and winter here. There are currently several pairs staying in a couple of the ponds at the golf course that meander through our community.

They are in the dipping/diving duck family and are the most abundant diving duck in North America.

I have no idea how much longer they’re going to be here, but I’ve enjoyed seeing them here.

Lesser Scaup Male

This is a group of both males and females that got skittish as we got closer to their end of the pond.

Lesser Scaup Males in Flight

Going for walks when I can have been great for my mind and spirit. I hope you’re all finding ways to keep your spirits up during this self-distancing and quarantine time.

We’ll get through this! 🥰

Fuji X-T3| Fujinon XF100-400mm LM OIS| SanDisk Digital Film| PS CC 21.0.3

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Peek-a-Boo!

Almost two weeks ago some friends and I went out to see the Wild Mustangs and we were delighted to find them. I think they enjoyed seeing us too.

Wild Mustangs

So, what’s been going on with me this past week? The biggest news is Friday evening we had a pretty good Earthquake. It felt like a 5.0 and when I got the first USGS report it said it was a 5, but later was downgraded to a 4.5. The epicenter was way to close to home! A few things fell off the bookshelves; nothing broke. We were unsettled for the rest of the night expecting aftershocks, but all is good. We’ve had one aftershock that we felt on Saturday evening that’s all. Too bad I didn’t leave that behind when we moved out of California!

Covid-19 is on everyone’s minds here too, thankfully, there are only 4 cases in my county none are in the hospital; I think that’s a positive sign. No new ones reported today. Knock on wood!

I’m keeping busy and looking forward to a bit better weather so I can resume my daily walk or hike. Today…which is Tuesday the day before this goes live we’ve got wind that is in 20mph range with gusts up to 36mph. I sure can feel those bigger gusts hitting the house so, I’m staying in doing some housework, working on images, and I watched a movie. I’ll be reading a chapter or two of a Sci-Fi novel I’m reading by Joshua Dazelle it’s Book 3 in his Black Fleet Saga. I started to draw an Iris yesterday which I may finish and then paint, but I’m not feeling very confident with the drawing. I’m really trying to do it free-hand and not fall back on my graphite paper or light table. If it comes out I’ll probably share it on Instagram.

There you go all caught up with me. Tell me what’s new with you?

Fugi X-T3| Fujinon XF 100-400mm LM OIS| SanDisk Digital Film| PS CC 21.0.3

more to come

Wordless Wednesday- House Finch

House Finch

Fuji X-T3| Fujinon XF100-400mm LM OIS at 400mm| 3/17/2020| SanDisk Digital Film

more to come…

Whatever Weds. 4 Points

A girlfriend and I got up early after a snowstorm in January for a sunrise photography outing and then we headed to a birding location when we came across this guy along the way.

Did you know that one the west coast it’s common to only count the points on one side of the antlers, and on Mule Deer like these you don’t count the brow tines- the ones coming above the brow?

On the east coast they count all the points. Who knew? I’ve gone with the west coast rule of thought and counted only one side. 😀

4 Point Buck

There were quite a few Doe’s too. Here’s one.

Doe Mule Deer

I hope you are having a lovely week. We’re halfway to the week-end! Let’s make a point of making it a good one! 😋

Nikon D810| Nikkor 200-500mm| PS CC 21.0.3

more to come…

Friday’s Feathered Friends-MT. Chickadee

Two more images from my time with the Chickadees.

Mountain Chickadee

Look at this one taking two seeds at a time! I love it! I didn’t realize it had taken two until I uploaded my images. Moutain Chickadee

I didn’t crop it in too much so you can see the environment we snowshoed into to see and feed these birds. It was pretty cool being out here almost alone for a good bit. As the morning wore on though more and more snowshoers started coming up the mountain. We spent an hour and a half feeding the Chickadees then headed down to venture to other places to see what we could find. I’ll share those finds in future posts.

I hope you all have a good week-end!

Fuji X-T3| Fujinon XF 100-400mm LM OIS| PS CC 21.0.3

more to come…

Friday’s Feathered Friends

Last week was pretty full. I went to see Baby Girl, and the Grandson’s for a couple of days then got home and had friends from out of town over for the week-end.

We went birding. I shared with them the spot where the Chick-a-dees ate from my hand we were fortunate and saw them again and they ate from our hands. It was just as fun, exciting, and awesome as it was the first time.

Two Chick-a-dees landed on my hand to get seeds and one didn’t like the idea of sharing at. all. 😂

Mountain Chickadees

They were quite picky about the sunflowers seeds they would take often spitting several overboard before selecting one and flying off to the trees with it.

In this image, you can see the seed and its shadow in the air in my hand that the Chick-a-dee just discarded. They all did it. Perhaps they were saving some for later?

Chick a Dee feeding from my Hand

My friend Anna was wearing a beanie which was perfect to put some seeds on it and get the Chick-a-dees to land on her cap. They did!

Chickadee on Anna's Hat

This was our first birding stop for the day and it was so much fun.

I’ll share other birds and wild mustangs from the week-end in future posts.

I hope you all are having a great Friday, and your week-end is a good one!

Lumix FZ200| Lexar Digital Film| PS CC 21.0.3

more to come…

Not a Wordless Wednesday- Birds

I have been struggling with the weight of the Nikkor 200-500mm plus my tripod for sometime-well since moving here actually. Birding here requires more walking or it seems that way to me, so I decided to go to a lighter system for birding and wildlife.

I switched from my long-loved system too. I bought a Fuji X-T3 and their 100-400mm lens. I’m gaining some on the wide end, but losing some distance which I hope I don’t feel too much since the Fuji is an APS-C cropped sensor camera.

A simplified definition of Full-Frame and cropped sensor cameras- A Full-frame sensor has the same size dimensions of a 35mm film format. That’s long been the standard in film size. A cropped sensor is a cropped or smaller sensor size than 35mm film format.

Where you see the difference in an image is on a Full-Frame camera the area of view is wider than a cropped sensor, and the cropped sensor camera’s area of view is cropped in for a tighter view. So, and 50mm lens on a full-frame camera’s area of view is 50mm, but on a cropped sensor camera with a 1.5x crop the area of view is about 75mm. Wildlife and birders love APS-C or crop sensor cameras because of that added reach from the multiplier gain. It’s from that gain I’m hoping I don’t miss the 500mm end of my heavy 200-500mm lens. Clear as mud? It makes my head spin sometimes!

On the weight side. I’ve shed half the weight of what I was carrying. Nikon kit w/tripod = 11.01 pounds. Fuji kit= 4.22 pounds! Now, instead of needing the tripod to make the shot and improve my keeper rate and that added 4 pounds of weight I can leave it behind and shoot hand-held with the new kit, and be a lot quicker. That’s the plan anyway. 😀

It’s a whole new system that is going to take a while to get comfortable with after 12 years of shooting Nikon, but I am not ditching Nikon completely. I’m keeping my Full-frame cameras and several lenses as they have a place in my bag and photography needs.

I’ll stop talking, and show you an image I made with the new camera and one with my Panasonic Lumix FZ200 from a few weeks ago. FYI- When #1 Grandson heard I bought a new camera he asked for my Lumix FZ200. How cool is that! 😍

Fuji X-T3 w/Fujinon XF 100-400mm

House Finch

Panasonic Lumix FZ200 Mom and Dad American Bald Eagles.

American Bald Eagle Pair

Plus one more! iPhone 7 Plus- We’ve been painting birds for several weeks in my Watercolor class. Here’s the last one I finished. M. Graham watercolor on Canson 140 lb. watercolor paper.

Rooster_198CC240-54E4-4CD1-9795-776A44B43BBA

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and the load you carry this week isn’t a heavy one!

more to come…

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