Spring – Circadianreflections Blog

Friday’s Feathered Friends- Wood Ducks

May 26, 2023May 23, 2023Posted in Birding in Nevada, Ducks, Friday's Feathered Friends, PhotographyTagged Dabbing Ducks, Fuji X-T3, Nature, Nevada, Spring, Wood Duckling, Wood Ducks37 Comments

I heard from a friend that along the river where I found the Owlets there was a family of Wood Ducks so, I went to check it out and sure enough I found some of them. My friend said there were 6 chicks, but I only saw 3.

I hope the others were just napping.

Here’s the male…aka Dad Wood Duck. Isn’t he a beautiful duck!

Here’s Mama. It looks like I caught her just after her bath. It must have been a fast one b/c now she’s after the chicks making sure they’re alright.

Here’s the first chick I spied. This is the only chick I was able to get a decent image of as the other two stayed in the reeds.

Wood Duck Fun Facts:

Natural cavities for nesting are scarce, and the Wood Duck readily uses nest boxes provided for it. If nest boxes are placed too close together, many females lay eggs in the nests of other females.
Wood Ducks pair up in January, and most birds arriving at the breeding grounds in the spring are already paired. The Wood Duck is the only North American duck that regularly produces two broods in one year.
The Wood Duck nests in trees near water, sometimes directly over water, but other times over a mile away. After hatching, the ducklings jump down from the nest tree and make their way to water. The mother calls them to her, but does not help them in any way. The ducklings may jump from heights of over 50 feet without injury.
The oldest recorded Wood Duck was a male and at least 22 years, 6 months old. He was banded in Oregon and found in California.

Fun Facts gleaned from https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Duck/

Fuji X-T3| Fuji 100-400mm| PS CC 24.5

I hope you all have a good week-end!

more to come…

Wordless Weds. Great Horned Owlets!

May 10, 2023Posted in Birds, Birds of Prey, Owls and Owlets, Wordless WednesdayTagged Birding Nevada, Birds in the Wild, Fluffy balls of puff, Great Horned Owlets, Nature, Spring, Washoe County43 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Fuji X-T3|Fujinon 100-400mm@400mm| PS CC 24.4.1

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Super-bloom: Purple

April 26, 2023Posted in California Wildflowers, Macro Photography, National Monuments, Photography, Whatever WednesdayTagged Carrizo Plain National Monument, Great Valley Phacelia, Nikon, Photography, Purple, Spring, Tremblor Range, Whatever Wednesday, Wildflowers, Yellow31 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Here and there throughout the Carrizo Plain were patches of purple flowers. The most prominent was the Great Valley Phacelia.

This particular genus is only found in California and Baja California. Per Plants.usda.gov site they can be found:

Phacelia ciliata is found only in California and Baja California in Mexico. Within California distribution includes the Northern
Coastal Ranges, the Sacramento Valley including Sutter Buttes, the San Joaquin Valley, the San Francisco Bay, the Southern
Coast Ranges and South West California, but excluding the Channel Islands. For current distribution, please consult the Plant
Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.
Habitat: Great Valley phacelia is found associated with Coastal Sage Scrub, Northern Oak Woodland, Foothill Woodland
and Valley Grassland.
Adaptation
Great Valley phacelia is drought tolerant and grows well in areas given 7 to 18 inches of annual precipitation. It grows on a
range of soil types from clays to sandy loams to gravelly slopes and tolerates moderate salinity. It is found at elevations from
seal level up to 5,000 feet (Calflora, 1997; Walden et al. 2013).

They’re considered one of the “blue” flowers and they’re a pollinator.

*Wide view of Great Valley Phacelia and Orange Fiddlenecks*

I got a wee bit behind with posts due to a trip down to SoCal to visit Big Baby Boy, and the Dark Haired Beauty. We crammed a lot into a few days, but I’m home now and catching up.

I’ll be sharing more from our wildflower Super-bloom trip in the future.

Nikon Df w| Nikkor 105mm and 35mm lenses| PS CC 24.4.1

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Spring!

April 14, 2021April 13, 2021Posted in California Wildflowers, Nikon, Northern California Wildflowers, Photography, Spring, Whatever WednesdayTagged California Poppies, Fence, Mistletoe, Oak Tree, Orange, Rocks, Spring, Tuolumne County, Whatever Wednesday, Wildflowers61 Comments

On our way to see Baby Girl, The Handsome Surveyor and the boys last week we saw a hillside covered in California Poppies, and I had to stop to make some images.

The hillside was steep, mostly on private property so I was unable to climb the hill to get a better composition. There were power lines going through the scene so after I uploaded the images I took to my digital darkroom aka- Photoshop CC to make some additional improvements in addition to my normal tweaks to white balance, whites, and blacks, and camera/lens corrections. I took out the power line using the spot healing brush, then I cropped the image to remove a big bush and some partially showing trees, and lastly I removed a tree top at the top of the image. So the image went from this…

To this…

For some reason the finished image looks a bit washed out here, but not in Photoshop. Hum?

Baby Girl asked for a print of the final image and I wanted one too so, I’m having it printed up. I hope it looks good when they arrive.

Which one do you prefer?

Nikon D810| Nikkor 24-120mm| PS CC 22.3.0

more to come…

Friday’s Feathered Friends-Nesting

April 24, 2020April 23, 2020Posted in Bird Photography, Birding in Nevada, PhotographyTagged Broken Branches, Canada Geese, Fuji X-T3, Great Horned Owl, Hawks, Nesting Birds, Nevada Birding, Spring, Trees57 Comments

I’ve been doing a lot of birding lately and I’ve come across some nesting birds.

The first one is a Great Horned Owl nesting in a broken branch of a big tree near the river. I call her Sleepy Eyes.

Great Horned Owl Nesting

Not too far from her is a nesting goose. She too is nesting on a broken branch. I worry about her because I never see the mate nearby and I wonder if she’s eating? I sure hope so! She’s usually tucked into the wood there so if you didn’t know to look you’d miss her. On this day she felt like sunning her face.

Goose Nesting

This next nest has been empty all winter and the other day while driving to my birding location I spotted the top of a head and pulled over to see who moved in. A Hawk!

I don’t know what kind of a hawk, but guess a Red-tail since they’re most populous of the hawks here.

Hawk in the Nest

I’ll be keeping an eye on them hoping for chicks soon!

We’re supposed to hit 80 degrees on Saturday! I think Winter may have let go here.

I hope you’re all doing well, and have a nice week-end!

Fuji X-T3| Fujinon 100-400mm| SanDisk Digital Film| PS CC 21.1.1

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Spring in Stanislaus Co.

April 10, 2019April 10, 2019Posted in California, Landscape Photography, Landscapes, Nikon, Photography, Whatever WednesdayTagged grass, Hills, Knight's Ferry, landscape, Lupine, Nikon, Photography, Rocks, Spring, Stanislaus County, Stanislaus River36 Comments

I’m waist deep into packing paper, boxes, and all my stuff.

I spent almost my entire adult life amassing stuff, and now I just want to get rid of most of it! I’m not really into the Komari (sp) thing, but I’m all for me having less stuff to worry about and pack! But, I have this nagging feeling I’m getting rid of things I’ll regret, and keeping things I should let go! It’s agony!

I spent the morning packing up most of the kitchen and getting our homeowners, and car insurance set up for NV. Next up will be getting our mail set up over there, and the list goes on and on, but we’re making progress. Fifteen days and the movers come to get all our stuff and really it’s mostly my stuff and take it to the new house! Well, they’ll be there the next day so, we will be sleeping on the air mattress, and have the stuff we’ve already taken over to get us through a few days should it snow or something and the truck can’t get over. Winter is hanging on. The major Interstate they’ll probably take over the mountains has closed a few times recently because there have been two. Two avalanches in the last two weeks on that Interstate.

This is how I remember winters being when I was a girl and a young adult. I’ve always felt the weather is cyclical and has a pattern here in CA. Really good skiing winters, followed by long dry, thirsty spells. We’re in the great skiing season now, but my head is saying, Drought is coming prepare! I’m saying that with the Game of Thrones tone of Winter is Coming. 😃 I’m staying in the west so drought is probably going to be in my planning for the rest of my life.

Ah, but I digress. Since I’ve been preoccupied with the packing and moving and feeling the need to share some images and stay connected to you cause I’ve missed you I dug into my earlier images from just about a month ago when Big Baby Boy and I took a ride out to Knight’s Ferry.

The hills are still this green.

Early Spring on the Stanislaus River

and the Lupine was just beginning to bloom. I had the wrong lens for this shot, but I like the way you can see the environment that these were blooming in. These Lupine were huge bushes. I bet they’re gorgeous now.

Spring Lupine Stanislaus County

We’re reflecting a lot about all the things we’ve experienced while living in this house 37 years. Big Baby Boy came home for 5 days to help us move some stuff over to the new house, and say Good-bye to the house he’s always called home. We treasure the memories here but we’re taking them with us. We are looking forward to new beginnings, new memories to be made, and to blooming in our new home.

Happy Wednesday!

Nikon D810| Nikkor 20mm f/1.8G| Hoodman Digital Film| CS PP 2019

more to come…

Wild Weds. 11/52 En Media Res

March 14, 2018March 13, 2018Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature Photography, Nikon, Photography, Wild WednesdayTagged Butterflies, hiking, Insects, Love is in the Air, Santa Clara County Open Space, Silvery Blue Butterflies, Silvery Blue Butterfly, Spring53 Comments

I went hiking both Saturday and Sunday hoping to find something interesting in nature as well as stretch my legs, but I hoped to see wildflowers. Saturday I saw flowering trees looking lush and pink in their full bloom and not much else in the way of flowers. I did see a pair of Does resting in the grass near the creek at the bottom of the trail. I really do think Deer are my Spirit Animal. He-Man and I stuck to the wooded area trails and did the steep switchbacks to gain some elevation. We hiked over 2 miles and gained approx. 500ft in elevation. I also rode the Fit Desk for 4 miles on Saturday which did not burn off nearly enough calories! 😦

On Sunday I proposed a different route that would take us along meadow and grassy trails, but still be hiking uphill, and if I didn’t run out of steam I’d even go up the wall. Our mileage wouldn’t much over two miles, but the elevation gain would be close to 600 ft having to go uphill to the top of the mountain/hill then down to the valley and back up the steep hill, and WALL then down the back hill to the car.

I saw several wildflowers in bloom, there were fiddle necks, Hounds Tooth, Pacific Pea; Lupine; and a few others, but the best came when hiking up the hill leading to the WALL.

He-Man was well ahead of me because I kept stopping to photograph flowers, new pine-cone buds, a lizard in camouflage or so it thought, so I was making tracks trying to catch up before he hit the WALL- which is the last section of this hill, but it’s nearly vertical. I’m not kidding it’s really steep. The grade must be 9 or 10%. Everyone calls it the Wall. Thankfully it’s fairly short from there to the top.

Anyway, I was looking high, low, and sideways for flowers, birds, insects, etc, and in a thicket of dry and dead thistle or teasel I spied something like leaves, and kept going up the hill a few steps then my brain said, ” uh, no there shouldn’t be leaves like that on those, back up!” So, I did and look what I saw when I really looked at it! A pair of Silvery Blue Butterflies en Media Res!

Silvery Gray Butterflies en Media Res 2

I have never seen this type of Butterfly before and never in this position! I was so thrilled and excited; doing my happy dance!

The Silvery Blue is in the Gossamer-Wing Family. Its habitat is varied but, not in deserts, but there is an exception as they are found in the Mohave Desert. They are found where there are Lupine, Pea family, and Vetches. All of which were present when I saw these two. Their season here is Feb- Aug.

He-Man missed it completely. 😦 I was tired and running out of gas so took the cutoff right before the wall so, gained a little more mileage, but a wee bit less elevation. Next week I’ll take my hiking poles and claim the Wall again! 🙂

I was so grateful to have seen this. I’m still Wowed by it!

I’ll share some of the wildflowers in future posts.

Happy Hump Day!

Nikon D810| Nikkor 105mm @f/5.6| ISO 400| 1/1250s| Handheld

more to come…

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