Arivaca Cienega

Anticipating high winds today, we ventured out early this morning to walk around one of the better birding places in area just west of beautiful downtown Arivaca.

Looking west through Arivaca to the Bobquivari Mountains from the Cienega

Anticipating we would see some little birds, I decided to try out the big 200-400mm zoom lens and camera. S had returned from Oregon with it's strap and assembled on the lens which weighs 8 pounds (11 with camera). I was excited to head out in search of prey to shoot (with my camera of course). I shot most of these at 560mm fully zoomed in with 1.4 extender enabled. Most were 1/1000 or more, ISO 1000 or so. F5.6.

Note: that these photos were all jpg's processed on my iPad so they aren't as rich as usual. Check my flickr page for some better ones.

As we began our walk we spotted a couple Kestrals high up in the cottonwood tree, their backs to us. As we cautiously approached they looked around, the finally the male Kestral darted over to the female and before I could raise up the camera to shoot, the mating season was over. He flew off to have drink wiht his mates no doubt, while she put her herself back together and adjusted her makeup before flying off in search of a nest.

{Photo of kestral to go here.}

Further along the path we heard the melodious sounds of a Bewick's Wren. He darted all around us, eventually landing in a high snag where I finally shot him singing merrily away. S remarked with wonder as to how so much joy and beautiful song could be sustainably emanating from such a little tiny creature tinier than a housefinch.

Bewick's Wren singing in a high branch

My mistake was not taking the monopod because, upon viewing some of the photos, I immediately saw they were not as sharp as I could have liked. As we strolled, ever so slowly, around the trails of this refuge, we saw at least 15 different species.

Bewick's Wren singing in a high branch

Song Sparrow

Photographing little birds is difficult. They hide in the thickets and behind trees. ID through binoculars easier but catching them in open to photograph takes patience. I was hunting a green tailed Towhee for 20 minutes and finally spotted him out in open (see shot below) where is flitted for a bout 4 seconds. Just enough time to raise up the camera and photograph into the darkened woods.

Song Sparrow

Green Tailed Towhee in thicket

We saw Red Tail hawks, Cooper's Hawk, Grey Hawk. We saw several little birds in thickets.
Even a pair of Coyotes hunting the tall grass for breakfast. We happened onto this pair out in the tall grass. Heard them yipping and digging and scurrying around. They didn't see us at first but when I popped off 4 shots in quick succession, the noise made by the high speed camera clicking alerted them we were present and they bounded off. This shot below was the only decent one I got and then some tall grass blurred its face a little.

Coyotes hunting in tall grass

We saw these really cool butterflies, too. Can't you tell I don't know butterfly names? They fly fast and dart around in the Willow trees so it is hard to catch them. Finally one landed to feast all alone on the willows seeds and I was able to get a decent shot.

Cool looking Butterfly

A fun 2 hour walk. next time I bring my Monopod.

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New Paintings!

Betcha didn't know I could be an artist let alone a painter did ya!

Our Campsite at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge

I have discovered a new technique that cannot fail. Just take some good photos. they don't have to be great, just good. Add them to your iPad, then open in either Waterlogue or Brushstroke app. ($3 each).

Wildflowers on the open plains

Three Pots at Tohono Chul

I have lots of time these days while waiting around for that late afternoon sunsets here in the desert, so I began playing around with these apps using stuff in my camera roll. Only one photo was with my iPhone, rest were with a bigger camera. Here they are. Let me know what you think?

Arch in Alabama Hills. Mount Whitney in background

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Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge

Imagine packing your home in 30 minutes, driving 90 minutes, parking, unpacking and being in a place that has no people and is totally quiet?

Well, here we are in a wide open spaces of the wild, Wild West.  About 12 miles north of the Mexico border with only the birds, butterflies, border patrol and occasional illiegal drug runner nearby.  This place gets busier in other seasons,  like hunting season and holidays.

Entering on the north end from Tucson, we found an introductory kiosk with information about the refuge and a primitive map of campsite locations.   Campsites are identifiable spaces with campfire rings but no toilets or tables like you would find in a National Forest.  This is pure boondocking at its best.  We are self contained and set up for this so we hunted around and easily found a campsite, actually the first one we came to on the first dirt road on which we turned.  Hmm.  Might there be better ones further up the road?  Maybe, but no one else is here, we are 1/4 mile off the main drag, so to speak. (Main drag is a relative term, in this case meaning the blacktop highway that occasionally has a motor vehicle passing by once every hour or so).  My philosophy here is "a bird in the hand".  

This location offers 360 vistas, is elevated a little,  flat, wide open, so we pulled in, adjusted the direction and put down the levelers and slide outs.  What a view out the window.  Nothing to hook up today.  Full tanks of propane and fresh water, full fridge of yummy food, empty waste tanks so we are good to stay here for 5-7 days.  Elevation is 3700 ft (1000 ft higher than Tucson) so cooler.  Temps in the 70's and 40's rather than 80's and 50's this time of year.

While I set up the interior and putzed with things, Sraddha went in search of fire wood and found a bunch of leftovers nearby campsites.  Easy peasey, although we chose not to have a campfire last night due to the late time of day and we were pooped.  Had spent the morning at Desert museum while waiting for a package from Amazon to arrive then packing up.

This morning, we set up the solar panel to replenish the house batteries and now we are heading out to scope out the visitors center, then over to Arivaca to find wifi, then Tubac to meet Steve and Vicki for late lunch.  

The benefits of the wide open spaces but nearby to fun things.  How great is this.  

Bonus.  It is so so quiet here.  Our place in Tucson was great, however, set against the din of city traffic, and trains.  There is a marked difference.  We have our cell phones turned off and limited internet connection which is fine as we just sit outside meditating on the natural surroundings and enjoying the view. 

Today the weather changed a little with winds coming up.  

testing new way to show photos photos

Update: It works!!!! What do you say? Any comments? can I do better? should it have a border? Below is a test.  I am tired of NOT being able to put two photos in same row together so I am experimenting with adding a table in the HTML code.  I am not a coder or programmer but am somewhat familiar with this so hopefully will be able to figure out something that will work again and again.  Bear with me.  Any thoughts would help (Peter???).

Spring has Sprung, Time to hit the road and.....One more thing....

We are ready to get back on the road again.  this Mobile home park has grown on us a bit so will be in our itinerary in future years when we want a longer term solution in Tucson. We love Tucson and feel SW (and CCT)  will be in our future winters for foreseeable future except next winter which will be in SE USA hopefully where the flipflop barometer is in positive range. hehe.

Also, check out my photos at

http://photokent.com

http://flickrkent.com

ONE MORE THING

Olympus EM-D OM-10 Micro Four Thirds Camera

I just received the Olympus OM-D EM-10

 Micro-4/3 camera

 last week.  Called micro four thirds because the sensor size is smaller than my Canon 7 D crop sensor but larger than tiny little compact cameras.  Also the magnification is 2X which means the 14-42 mm lens in picture actually focuses at 28-80 mm. It also has interchangeable lenses which I like.  I have the camera with the small lens above.  I plan on getting a 75-300mm zoom lens for other things.   Great little portable camera for our hiking

and I can stick it in my pocket

 to always have around

. Love this little pop out lens.  It shoots raw and has Wifi.  Not too expensive.  Lusted after the OM-1 but budget held me back.

  

No, I am not switching away from my Canon Big system, just adding to repertoire.

For your consideration here, let me know your thoughts on photos below. All were shot on tripod. There seems to be good detail in each.  Click on photos to see larger one then you can click on right or left of photo to scroll through others.  Let me know what you think.

Here is a couple pix I shot in jpeg with the Oly OM-D EM-10 and tiny 14-42 lens. Oly JPG's adjusted in LR, then exported to small jpegs for email, since I cannot import the Olympus raw files yet to Lightroom(next version. 5.4 I am told), so I just used the jpeg files. Then I made same shots with my Canon 5DM3 full frame camera, in raw format.  Both were adjusted a little in LR and Photoshop. then exported as small jpeg's.  Yes, I did remove a few little things from last photo in Photoshop (the miracle software).

 Detail good in both, however, I think the Canon delivers a little more rich photo.  I photoshopped the Canon raw files and only had jpegs for Olympus at this time. Will do more tests later. I hope to use the Olympus more for this blog as it has capabilities of easily transferring photos, via Wifi, to my iPad and iPhone for blog posts.  Will see how it works.

Canon 5D Mk III 

Olympus OM-D EM-10

Canon 5D MkIII  (and photoshopped)

Olympus OM-D EM-10 with Lightroom adjustments