“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” ― Eudora Welty
Author: circadianreflections
My name is Deborah Zajac. I'm a photographer living in Nevada at the base of the Eastern Sierras. I am a passionate nature, landscape, night/astro photographer. I shoot predominately in color and use Nikon Digital Cameras, and lenses.
I hope you enjoy seeing some of the photos I've taken while on my travels.
Please feel free to leave a comment I'd love to hear from you.
I’ve been hoping for a clear sky before sunrise in order to see the Waning Moon and four early-dawn planets, but we’ve been having cloudy overcast mornings of late. On the 26th I got somewhat lucky even though it was cloudy. Here are 3 of the 4 early-dawn planets along with the Waning Crescent Moon over the Pine Nut Mountains. Following that line of planets up above Mars was Saturn, but it was already so light out I couldn’t see it.
Waning Crescent Moon under Mars, Venus with Jupiter close to Venus.
If you’re up an hour before sunrise your time this Saturday morning looking low in the southeast Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest objects in the sky after the Sun and Moon, are going to be spectacularly close at just a 1/2 degree apart!
Can you believe we’re just days away from May!? This month just flew by! I hope your week is going well and you have a lovely day.
I hope everyone had a lovely week-end. We shared our holiday with Baby Girl and her family and had loads of fun.
We dyed Eggs for the Easter bunny to hide and the colors came out so pretty. We used Baby Girl’s fresh from the coop eggs which are mostly brown eggs. We had to leave the eggs in the dye longer but it was so worth it. Look at these colors! I love the red and green ones the best.
Dyed Easter Eggs
Instead of chocolates we took the kids cookies to paint. We found the kits at Costco and it was fun. Even the teenage Grand-daughters enjoyed painting their cookies. There was enough for me to do one so I painted along with a couple of the kids. They ate their cookies as soon as they finished painting them so I didn’t get a photo, unfortunately.
Painted Easter Egg Cookie
Later in the afternoon the youngest Grand-daughter taught me how to drive the little red Quad and after two loops I was zipping around the property having a blast. I can’t wait to ride it again. I plan to go down the harder roads on their property then!
Me zipping by on the quad. Image courtesy of Baby Girl.
Let’s go back to my camping trip and look up at the stars from Mono Lake.
” Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars.”~ Henry Van Dyke
Star Trails over Mono Lake, Tufas. 107 frames
There was quite a bit of airline traffic that night as you see. I took out a couple of airline tracks that were red and distracting I thought.
I hope everyone had a great week-end, and you’re glad of life this week and always!
I’m home from a long week-end of camping and photography with friends old and new. I’m still culling images, but here’s one from Mono Lake taken shortly after sunset. I was set up to shoot west but looking around I saw this cloud developing to the northeast so I turned my camera around and waited for this to unfold. This cloud formation and color were wonderful and a beautiful end to a fun day.
Mono Lake, Clouds, and Tufas.Friday April, 8, 2022
Nikon D810| 24-120mm@24mm| f/10| ISO 100| PS CC 23.2.2
We had #1 Grandson with us last week which was so nice. One of the things we did was visit an Animal Sanctuary in No. Reno called Animal Ark. My favorite were the Cheetahs. Here are two. One wanted to play but, the other wasn’t interested at all so, they’re just chillin.
Cheetahs
Here’s a rare look at #1 Grandson. We had fun measuring our arms comparing them to wingspans of No. American birds. Mine was the same as a Turkey Vulture.
#1 Grandson’s is as large as a Red-tailed Hawk
All too soon it was time to take him home.
The week before his visit I had gone birding locally and saw some good birds. One I was super excited about seeing was the Pinyon Jay. I’ve been waiting for their Spring arrival so I could try again getting a decent image of one. This bird was a lifer for me in 2019 but, they were flying by so fast then that I failed to get a decent shot of one. Finally, on this walk-about I got a few but, that tree on the right is in the way. I was afraid to get any closer and scare it off which I eventually did anyway. 😮 They travel and forage in large flocks- on this day I counted 17 in all.
Photograph
Spring is breaking out all over the west now. When we took #1 Grandson home I noticed Baby Girl’s Apple tree was blooming so I took a quick snap of a blossom.
Apple blossom
I’ve been doing some projects from the book by Wendy Tait- Watercolor Flowers. This is project #2 Roses.
Photograph
I’ve painted 3 of these now- 1 8×10 in. and 2 5X7in. I’m making progress getting my paint to water ratio right, and blending is definitely improving. There are 8 projects in the book with step by step directions and images. I like the book a lot. I’m moving on to project 3 hopefully I’ll continue to improve.
Tomorrow I’m meeting friends down in the Mono Basin to do some photography and camping. I’m hoping for good weather, and clear night skies. I hope you all are having a good week, and your week-end is fun!
Way back in 2016 a couple of good friends and I took a long week-end trip to Sedona, AZ and during that trip we went to the Grand Canyon and one of the things we did was taking a helicopter tour of the North Rim.
I was just telling someone recently that these images have been marinating on my hard-drive for a long, long time because I really didn’t like the images too much when I got home. My aerial photography “eye” needs a lot more practice. That got me thinking that I hadn’t even looked at these images in years so I dug into my archives to look at the images. With the passing of time I’m not as disappointed in them. Here’s one.
Grand Canyon, North Rim, Aerial View via a Helicopter
I’ll be working on more images from this trip so, you may see more in future posts.
I’ve been staying close to home these last two weeks because while visiting our Grandson’s we took them to the park and Littlest was afraid to go down the tube slide by himself so I went down with him. The second time we were going a bit fast so I tried to slow us down by putting my foot along the wall, but we didn’t slow down my body kept going something went crack and both my knee and ankle hurt. My knee is still tender and I haven’t made it as far as the mailbox and back yet. I may have to go see the doctor if this keeps up.
Did you happen to see the recent full moon? I did but, didn’t photograph it. I did go out to look at the moon close to its setting a couple of mornings later and made this image from my street.
I did go out for a little bit birding yesterday and saw some good birds. I’m still culling images, but will have a few to share in upcoming posts.
That’s all that’s new here. What’s going on with you? I do hope your week is going well!
At the end of February I met up with some friends one of them Gordon from https://undiscoverdimagesamongstus2.wordpress.com/ We met up in Oregon in the Klamath Basin region to do some birding. We were hoping to see American Bald Eagles and the other usual winter suspects.
What we didn’t expect was to see 17 American Bald Eagles around and on the first pond we went to!
You know we hit that pond several times while there mornings, and afternoons.
The first morning we were all together was Saturday we rose early and headed to the pond. It was a chilly 14 degrees Fahrenheit, but we saw Eagles. Later that afternoon we went back and saw an Eagle trying to retrieve its prey from the icy pond water.
American Bald Eagle- Incoming!
It missed, but oh, it was so cool seeing it try.
Missed!
It landed in the water then pulled up and swung around again for another pass.
Landed in icy waterPull up!
This time it tried a different approach, and missed again!
American Bald Eagle over the Target!
Then it just flew away leaving us wondering if this was just retrieving practice?
American Bald Eagle Adult in Flight
It was quite exciting and entertaining to watch and one of the highlights of the week-end.
Fun Facts:
The American Bald Eagle has been the national emblem of the United States since 1782.
These magnificent birds aren’t really bald, but their white-feathered heads gleam in contrast to their chocolate brown bodies and wings.
Rather than do their own fishing, Bald Eagles often go after other creatures’ catches. A Bald Eagle will harass a hunting Osprey until the smaller raptor drops its prey in midair, where the eagle swoops it up. A Bald Eagle may even snatch a fish directly out of an Osprey’s talons. Fishing mammals (even people sometimes) can also lose prey to Bald Eagle piracy.
Had Benjamin Franklin prevailed, the U.S. emblem might have been the Wild Turkey. In 1784, Franklin disparaged the national bird’s thieving tendencies and its vulnerability to harassment by small birds. “For my own part,” he wrote, “I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. … Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District.”
Sometimes even the national bird has to cut loose. Bald Eagles have been known to play with plastic bottles and other objects pressed into service as toys. One observer witnessed six Bald Eagles passing sticks to each other in midair.
The largest Bald Eagle nest on record, in St. Petersburg, Florida, was 2.9 meters in diameter and 6.1 meters tall. Another famous nest—in Vermilion, Ohio—was shaped like a wine glass and weighed almost two metric tons. It was used for 34 years until the tree blew down.
Immature Bald Eagles spend the first four years of their lives in nomadic exploration of vast territories and can fly hundreds of miles per day. Some young birds from Florida have wandered north as far as Michigan, and birds from California have reached Alaska.
Bald Eagles occasionally hunt cooperatively, with one individual flushing prey towards another.
Bald Eagles can live a long time. The oldest recorded bird in the wild was at least 38 years old when it was hit and killed by a car in New York in 2015. It had been banded in the same state in 1977.
Once endangered by hunting and pesticides, Bald Eagles have flourished under protection.
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