Bird Shots and more....

A recent acquaintance of ours told us her husband (the birder) and she (the photographer) are referred to as "Point and Shoot".  I thought that was pretty clever.  One time, at Bosque del Apache, Sraddha and I were photographing the cranes & talking with a bystander and I said "She spots them, I shoot them".  Another bystander, who overheard us, appeared to be mortified until they realized I meant shoot them with the camera.  Here are some photos I shot the past two days for your visual enjoyment.

Female Rufous Hummingbird

Anyway, I biked down to Portal Cafe in the wind to send you this blog.  Not much to say.  We felt lucky to find a spot 3 days ago as the campground is full, full, full.  Mostly returning happy campers who love this place and tend to stay for a while (limit 14 days).  Yesterday we thought our favorite spot would become available.

Maginficent Hummingbird

As we were preparing to move, we heard the current inhabitants had renewed for 4 more days.  They are 2 of our favorite people but I have to say I was a little disappointed.  Sraddha asked me whether I was and I shrugged it off thinking, "Oh well, maybe later in week".  Well that was a big hiccup! It wasn't until later, I realized how attached I was to that getting that spot.  The resultant internal kerfuffle resulted in my dropping my big camera on my new little camera and damaging it.  Yikes.  Now I have to send the 3 week old camera into repair shop and will be without it for several weeks.  Sigh.  Harsh lesson sometimes but I hope I am learning which is what life is all about.  Back to living in the moment, or at least focusing on it.

Black Chinned Hummingbird

We are meandering here in the Southwest, deciding each day whether we remain camped in our current site or move on.  We have a basic idea of the direction (SE New Mexico to Carlsbad) but won't take a straight line.  We don't know when we will depart here (sometime within the 14 day limit) and we think we will head next to Silver City less than 100 miles away.  In the meantime, we will enjoy where we are and if, tomorrow, we decide to move on, we will.  If we decide to remain, we will.  And work around the rest.  We will "develop a plan to fit the circumstances" as General Patton would say.

This last shot is of a Swainson's Hawk.  First one we have ever seen.  Flying high in the sky on the winds I was lucky to get this as it was far away so I had to crop it severely.  Beautiful bird but not a great shot.

Swainson't Hawk High up in air