Monday in Nature, April 3, 2017

 

Basic Guidelines: In the strictest sense, nature photography should not include "hand of man elements". Please refrain from images with buildings or human made structures like roads, fences, walls. Pets are not permitted. Captive subjects in zoos, arboretums, or aquariums are permitted, but must be declared, and must focus on the subject, not the captivity. Images with obvious human made elements will likely be deleted from the thread, with an explanation to the photographer. Guidelines are based on PSA rules governing Nature photography which also cover the Nature Forum. Keep your image at/under 1000 pixels on the long axis for in-line viewing. Note that this includes photos hosted off-site at Flicker, Photobucket, your own site, etc Are you new to this thread? We post one image per week.

 

 

Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna)

 

Ostrich ferns in the wind, Newfoundland

Bewick Wren found in Austin, Texas.

Joshua Tree National Park:

 

Sun (not Shun!) over the mountain

Backside of displaying peacock.

 

Coyote Hunts In Snow

 

Coyote Hunts In Snow (Explored) by David Stephens, on Flickr

Excellent coyote, David. The hoarfrost/snow and the grass really complement the colors of the coyote. Heard a bunch of them yipping the other night. Dogs went nuts. Were you in a blind? Can you give some details about the setup, situation and capture etc?

My dog discovered this raccoon snuggled away in a hole. He wasn't at all perturbed by our presence. I got one shot, then he turned his head and curled up and that was that. :)

 

Excellent coyote, David. The hoarfrost/snow and the grass really complement the colors of the coyote. Heard a bunch of them yipping the other night. Dogs went nuts. Were you in a blind? Can you give some details about the setup, situation and capture etc?

 

Thanks Edwin. I was in my car-blind. It works amazingly well.

 

Here's an Album of my coyote shots, almost all taken from my car-blind:

 

Best Coyotes

Spring sighting

Very nice. Thanks Shun for starting the thread, just beautiful.

 

This Grand Teton image was one of many shot some years ago. Always love this beautiful park!

 

Magnolia blossom.

Good morning. I do miss the morning stories and inspiration, though I still enjoy the photos. I will add a Peninsular Rock Gecko (Cnemaspis peninsularis) today. This fellow was hanging out just outside a cave on Bukit Timah, but each time I approached, he would scurry up and behind the rocks. While hiking back down the hill, I thought I'd give it another shot and see if he was still there. I had to use the on-camera flash, and only had time for one picture before he was gone again. From the literature, these lizards are now restricted in Singapore to the central part of the island, in the hills and remaining rainforests.

Imagine needing an 8' stepladder to peer over the top of the downed redwood in the foreground and you will get a sense of the scale of this scene. Now look up at your 8' high ceiling and realize it would be too low to house this log. The largest standing trees were from 7' to 10' across, big enough to fill many rooms wall to wall, and the lowest branches were over 100' in the air (about 10 storeys). The apex in the centre was taller than my 2 1/2 storey home (about 40').

 

Locals told me this log triggered 6.2 on the Richter scale when it fell and that they all thought they were finally experiencing 'the big one'. Apparently the crash could be heard for 6 miles. It involved three of these trees and the damage still evident since the '90s was the most violent scene I have ever seen. Tons and tons of hundreds of thousands of board feet of stunningly beautiful redwood just wasting away on the forest floor. Splinters reaching dozens of feet into the air as large as the beams supporting modern country homes.

 

It was about a half hour off the road and a very humbling site that I was directed to by a young woman who lives nearby.

 

I used a D800E, AF-S 17-35mm, f10, 1/60, ISO 6400.

 

Edited April 3, 2017 by Gup

Thanks for starting the thread, Shun. I was only able to access the site by about noon today EST.

Brewer's blackbird

Delete my raccoon post

At Antelope Island, only found bison. Way too close for the lens.

Thanks for starting the thread, Shun. I was only able to access the site by about noon today EST.

 

No problem. If I am available, starting this thread is not a big deal. I go out and take new pictures often enough that I normally don't have problems coming up with new images. I just wish we had the capability to automatically start new threads at a fixed time every week.

 

I am not sure we can pre-determine who will start the following week's thread ahead of time. If nobody volunteers beforehand, someone, anyone, can be the first every Monday morning.

hundreds of thousands of board feet of stunningly beautiful redwood just wasting away on the forest floor

 

Gup, surely it is not 'wasting away', it is being recycled into nutrients to support further growth.

Good point, Tony, of course. I guess it's the builder in me;)

 

Just yesterday I was sitting around a fire with some friends and one was telling us all about his new chain saw/sawmill jig. He can now transform fallen trees into dimension lumber for construction purposes and had 20 or 30 new 6x7" hemlock beams stacked neatly waiting to become dock cribs. These represent about $3500 worth if purchased locally. The hemlocks would eventually become nutrients for the forest too but in this case we just saw the value in producing our own lumber rather than buying it. After all, the boards we buy at the lumber store would also have created nutrients had they been left to live and die naturally.

 

I've bought dozens of fir beams from western Canada and had them shipped here over the years so I guess I saw the downed trees as a huge cache of potential material 'wasting away'.

 

I would NEVER be on board with cutting trees and have taken a great deal of abuse in my life for my attitude regarding that, but I'm also the first to recycle or re-purpose something if I see a way.

A springtime grouping of slender false Solomon's seal and thimbleberry foliage.

Posted this last week in Nikon forum, but I don't recognize many of these folks as in that forum so posting it again here. Originally posted it there because it took a second photo to clarify this one. I like to include a surprise in my photos if possible and the background in this one surprised me as I was target fixated on the wood duck even during editing . Those are 2 heads in the water in the background, not rocks. One of which had appeared in my garage as I was waxing my Jeep, but with Maguiar's wax,not Turtle wax.