“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” ― Eudora Welty
Copyright © 2015 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Two images from Sunday morning. I was hoping to find Varied Thrushes, but didn’t find any this time.
A Goldfinch
A Dark-eyed Junco
Nikon D300s| AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4 + AF-S Nikkor 14eII teleconverter| Hand-held| Lexar Professional 600x Speed Digital Film
More to come…
Copyright © 2014-2015 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Last Friday, while sweeping the patio, and doing some general tidying up in the backyard I switched the seeds in the bird feeder because the mix I had in it wasn’t attracting any birds. I refilled the feeder with black sunflower seeds, and yesterday quite a few House Finches returned, and there was one Goldfinch Male that landed on the perch, but was quickly chased away by the male House Finches. I grabbed my camera hoping he’d make another appearance, but sadly he did not. That visit prompted me to revisit some images I took in early May 2014 of several Goldfinches.
This one pictured above looked at me then puffed himself all up, and gave me the best pose of the morning. I think he’s as handsome as he does. 🙂
I sure hope that Goldfinch comes back and brings some friends with him.
Nikon D300s| AF-S Nikkor 300mm f4| AF-S Nikkor 14eII TC| Tripod
More to come…
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I had just a few minutes to get up to my tree to capture the end of the day. I just made it! Not too much color, but the light was pretty, and the clouds moving in bringing rain tonight added to the drama.
My tree is growing up! It’s getting fuller and our hills and mountains are green again.
In Santa Clara County we’re 190% above our average for rain fall, but we still have a long way to go before we’re out of the drought. We need 6 more storms like the one we just had to get out of it the Meteorologists say. I hope we get that! Either way I’m already looking forward to Spring flowers. 🙂
Nikon Df| AF-D Nikkor 24mm f/2.8| Tripod
More to come…
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
It was a gorgeous sunny day yesterday. The temperature was in the low 80’s. Late in the afternoon I noticed clouds forming and thought the sunset might be a colorful one, so I packed up a light-weight kit and headed over to Vasona Lake.
I had another view framed, but the clouds and color didn’t drift that way, so I turned around and found the color there.
Nikon D700| AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G @ f8| 1/15s| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
While waiting for the sun to crest the mountain tops to the East I turned to look southwest and captured the Moon shining down on the little tree that sits atop the summit of The Steep Hill.
Nikon D700| AF Nikkor 28-105mm micro| Hand-held
Working out the kinks by dmzajac2004 at Garmin Connect – Details.
I needed to get up and move so went over to the hills nearby and hiked all 3 Peaks today.
Click on the link above for my hiking stats and a map of my route.
Here are a few photos I took along the route. I didn’t take my big camera today. No, instead I went armed only with an iPhone. I did miss my big camera when a Hawk came soaring over my head.
The hike was lovely. The hills around my valley are still green and lush. The peak across the valley with the trail leading to the top is Hunter’s Point. I hiked up to it last today.
There were quite a few wildflowers in bloom throughout the park like this Yarrow. There were oodles of Monkey Flower, and there was clover, Nightshade, Lupine, and oh so many Crimson Columbine! I’ve never seen so many before. I
took 3 photos and all came out blurry. It was breezy. I hope to get back again before it’s all faded. On the back slopes of Hunter’s Point there were a few Poppies, and lot’s of Spring Vetch. It’s a good time to go looking for wildflowers.
There were young girls on horseback talking with their trainer about upcoming competitions, and the sound of the horses hooves clip-clop was lovely. One horse even said “hello” to me.
Little Cairns dotted the trails to let me know someone had been this way before…
…and lastly the view from Maisie’s Peak looking east across Santa Clara Valley to the Diablo Range beyond it.
A good 4.80 mile hike this afternoon.
No editing was done to these photos and they are all hand-held. I need to practice with more I think.
I had the pleasure of hiking with the “Wednesday Hiking Group” today. I haven’t hiked with them in a really long time due to work. Today I didn’t have work scheduled so I met them.
The group split into two groups at 3.25miles. The Rabbits took a shorter route that would loop them back and give them a 6.5mile hike, and the Big Dogs continued on to complete a 10.85mile hike.
There were 5 Big Dogs, and I’m happy to say I was one of them. On the way back we took the Bayview Trail for a bit and there beside it was some wild Foxglove. I’ve never seen it in the wild before. It was a lovely surprise.
Foxglove’
A little later we saw some pretty Pacific Pea.
The fog hung thick in the Santa Cruz Mountain Range today, and several times we got rained on. It was definitely the place to hike on hot sunny day in the valley.
It was great seeing some old friends, and meeting new people today. I hope it’s not long before I can hike with the group again. There was another neat surprise during this hike I’ll share soon!
I’ve made my Hike Stats public if you’d like to see them, and the route map go here.
Info on Mount Madonna County Park is here.
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