Video of autumn in the Park. Looking forward to next weeks return visit! Be sure to subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss this year’s adventure!
Tag Archives: Rocky Mountains
A Glorious Fall Day
It was a glorious day for an amazing autumn hike in the Pike National Forest of Colorado. The hard part was figuring out just exactly which hike to take! Eventually photo associate and I decided upon the Anne-Marie Falls hike on the western slopes of Pikes Peak which we had done in the spring and discovered the home of a friendly and colorful Wilson’s Warbler. Many Thanks to Kevin for shooting this picture of me hard at work in the midst of the icy water!
Well the warbler appears to have made the flight to more temperate climates for the winter but there was still plenty of color to be found! The aspen groves on this particular hike are in peak color right now 🙂 It was a bit chilly to start with, the pond was actually frozen over in spots and there was still frost on the foliage when we arrived. I’m sure I lost track of time as we moved around the pond to different vantage points, but I imagine we were there a couple hours for sure! The frost was soon replaced by the heat of the day as we worked the scene and I was glad that I had dressed for a warm day and not the cold.
The entire trail was surrounded by golden aspen and I photographed various locations all the way back to the trailhead. I also tried a few more images using the HDR setting on my camera which takes three images at different exposures and merges them in camera. Looks like I used a bit too much intensity today so I am going to need some more practice before I have that method down.
I have uploaded a few of today’s images to my website and a bunch more to my Instagram page if you would like to see more! Please feel free to follow my page there if you don’t want to miss future projects!
For your enjoyment I have created many short multimedia videos for my YouTube channel! Feel free to watch and be sure to subscribe to my channel if you would like to see more of our adventures! Also feel free to follow my Instagram page where tons of my images are displayed!
As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal!
Elk Rut Season Coming Soon!
https://youtu.be/IJVIICuYIpE Video of last year’s elk rut season in Rocky Mountain National Park which I’ll be going to again in a couple weeks! Subscribe to my channel if you like and want to be kept apprised of this year’s adventures!
My Best Day with the Osprey
It was without a doubt my best day ever with the osprey since finding their nest in Eleven Mile Canyon earlier this summer. The two little ones were already hatched by the time I learned of them and it was pretty special to get to watch them grow, learn to fly and now learn to catch fish for themselves.
One other time when I was set up along the river further downstream I spotted one of them trying to fish in the calm waters where the river widens, but I wasn’t able to capture a very good picture… it was just too far away. My buddy and I have been regularly camped out at the nest trying to capture all the action, including the daily feedings as the parents bring fish to the nest. It’s quite an exciting event for little ones, they begin squawking loudly and flapping their wings when they see the parents approaching and it is a blast to photograph the delivery of the fish. It doesn’t take long and if you can get high enough on the other bank you can see them ripping off strips of meat with their powerful hooked beaks.
But since the little ones have learned to fish for themselves the feedings are few and far between and there is little action at the nest. I have been noticing that they are flying downstream and I surmised they were probably fishing in the calm water on the south side of the dam. So yesterday I decided to take a chance on hanging out at the dam, the risk being that none of them ever show up and I get no reward for my efforts.
I arrived at sunrise and went directly to the dam, biding my time photographing the peregrine falcons that frequently fly over the river to attend to some kind of falcon business on the other side of the river. Then I heard it, the loud call of an osprey. It was one of the juveniles and I grabbed a few images of him as he flew a few laps around the calm water. Eventually he landed on top of a dead tree overlooking the glass like early morning water of the South Platte River. He probably perched for about a half hour, looking all around and occasionally letting out a squawk, I assume to let his sister know of his whereabouts. Osprey can turn their heads completely around so you have to be careful if you are photographing them in the tree to make sure they aren’t looking backwards!
Then all of a sudden he took flight, making another lap and then descending toward the water. I desperately tried to follow him with my long lens but I lost him as he neared the water. I just kept moving my camera and shooting until I found the water and there was the majestic bird in a great struggle to catch is breakfast. At one point he was almost completely submerged, which caused me a bit of concern. If he were unable to escape the water he would be carried over the dam where he would surely perish 😦
But as it turns out the young bird had everything under control and soon burst out of the water in triumphant flight. Unfortunately it appears that he only managed to capture some seaweed so breakfast would have to wait. He returned to his perch in the tree and soon his sister arrived and took up a perch in their other favorite tree. One more unsuccessful attempt was made before the pair flew together downstream where I know they have had success in the past.
The osprey weren’t my only success on the day, I was astonished as a doe mule deer and her fawn crossed the river in the beautiful light of a Rocky Mountain sunrise. Fortunately both of them in the light at the same time, as I set my exposure and focused on the pair for a perfect capture 🙂 Then to top it off on my way out of the canyon I spotted the Great Blue Heron walking in the calm water as if he were striding through a mirror. And much to my surprise there was a purpose to his slow stroll through the water. Apparently the huge birds slowly walk along until they find a fish which they quickly grab and eat with their powerful beaks.
With over 600 images to process I will be working on this adventure for a while! But these are a few of my favorite ones, many of which I have uploaded to my website for purchase.
As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal!
El Quattro
El Quattro, my son Chris’s idea… when a new buck joined the “Three Amigos” band of buck mule deer. Not sure, I’m just calling them the “Three Amigos + 1”. I was near the end of my hike this morning and it was looking like they were nowhere to be found. But as I was walking down the mountainside rolling around ideas to avoid a photographic shutout, I looked across to the next ridge and spotted a lone buck. he was looking right at me so I quick snapped a picture.
Soon however others began meandering up the steep hill so I just found a place to sit and watch to see how this scene was going to develop. Two of the band of four drew closer together and I was able to capture a couple images of the friendship before they wandered over the hill and down into the valley.
I decided to go around the ravine and see if I could spot them on the downside but I could only find one of the majestic fellow. He was posing against a very nice rugged backdrop though, nicely rounding out my morning! Any thoughts of a long drive to another location vanished as I looked through what I had already captured. Instead of continuing on I decided upon a nice breakfast and home to process the images!
Yesterday I was looking for an image of the Three Amigos on my website to send to someone and decided that it was time to add a collection with just deer. I have a specialized collection for Deer in Snow but I think it’s now a good time for the Just Deer collection to contain my huge collection of deer imagery including those in snow and all seasons including some beautiful autumn captures 🙂
As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal!
Eureka!
No long photo trip for this morning… just a nice visit to my favorite local mountain. The “Three Amigos” were there, along with a couple of new buddies that have joined them. If these fellows stick around I’m going to have to think of a new name for the group! The guys were not in the best place for lighting purposes but there was no way I was going to make it past them and around to the other side so I just had to do the best I could. Luckily it was a bit cloudy so I didn’t have to contend with a super bright background. I think these came out OK!
A good day, and to top it off I solved a problem that has been vexing us all summer, the issue of setting exposure compensation (EC) when in manual mode. Normally manual means manual and EC is irrelevant but it comes back into play if you select auto ISO, which now means you aren’t really shooting in full manual mode. You can select the shutter speed and the aperture to control the creativity in your shot but if there isn’t enough light for the selected ISO you will underexpose your image. The easy fix of course is to select your creative parameters and let the ISO float, allowing the camera to assure a correct exposure. But then your front wheel is used for the shutter speed, the rear wheel for aperture and there isn’t another control with which to select your EC.
My original solution to the problem was to just use Tv mode, knowing the camera would probably select a decent aperture. But!!!! I finally looked into it and discovered the real solution at least for Canon cameras, the Q button… EUREKA! If you click the Q button all the pertinent parameters come up on the LCD screen where you can change them, shutter, aperture, ISO, and a graph for the EC! If you have a camera new enough for a touch screen you can just change it right there to whatever you desire. With the 1DX that has no touch screen I assume you could wheel over to it and change it with the set button.
I have to say, I have grown quite fond of Tv mode as a method of controlling my images, especially when it comes to bird photography. It is easy to quickly change from bird in
flight to photographing a deer in the meadow with a spin of the front dial to change the shutter speed if you run across an unexpected subject change. However I am glad that I can once again just leave the camera on manual most of the time, knowing that I have control over all my important settings.
As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal! Also I should add that this article was not sponsored by Canon or any other camera company. All equipment used was purchased by me on my own volition.
Winter in May
It was definitely winter when I was loading my camera equipment into the truck for my hike on the mountain today! Yesterday afternoon a cold front came through and we got snow, hail, thunder, lightning and wind! This morning the ice was all still present and it took me about 15 minutes just to scrape out a place to see through the windshield!
It was also winter when I started my hike through the fresh snow at 11,000 feet. The
wind was blowing and I was glad I had a hood on my jacket, which I quickly pulled over my frozen and aching ears. Eventually I cleared the ridge and thankfully the wind subsided. The Sangre de Cristo range soon came into view in all it’s glory, still sporting storm clouds from yesterdays weather. I stopped there for a while to take in the sound of the wind blowing in the tall pines and the chirping of happy song birds, and of course to capture a few images of the magnificent snow capped peaks.
By now the it was warming up quickly and spring had returned to the Rocky Mountains. The prairie dogs were chirping out their happiness to see the sunshine and luckily for me this one little fellow stuck around long enough for me to get his picture. I moved around to the sunny side while he warily kept a little black eye on my movement. I was able to get two captures before the diminutive creature retreated back into his den.
Eleven Mile in Springtime
I’ve been wondering for a while if Eleven Mile Canyon was closed for the Corona Virus and today I couldn’t stand it any longer. It was a beautiful sunny morning in southern Colorado and it would be a splendid morning to spend along the pristine headwaters of the South Platte River if I were fortunate to find it open. As I neared the entrance my optimism was growing… no big nasty CLOSED signs in sight! I arrived before the attendant unfortunately because I only had a ten dollar bill to pay the seven dollar entrance fee. Oh well… an extra three dollar donation for the park is a small price to pay for such splendor.
Along with me were my heavy tripod and four stop ND filter, but the water wasn’t
roaring as I expected so no long exposures with smooth water. There were some rapids, but not really anything worth getting out the four stop for. I drove slowly along the banks of the river looking for the most scenic spots but some of the best places were still in the shade and I was thinking that I would catch them on the return trip when the light was better. I explored some new locations and some new trails along with some fairly sketchy river bank access points. Saw some deer, some ducks a few geese and finally just as I was about to leave the park I spotted an eagles nest in the distance.
This was going to be worth a closer look so I parked Big Blue and attached the long lens to the camera to get a birds eye view… so to speak. Much to my surprise, there was a bald eagle on the nest with one chick occasionally popping his little head up to look around. The nest was a long way away though so I knew I was going to have to exercise some extraordinary care if I was going to get any kind of a usable picture. First I attached the 1.4 lens extender and the 100-400 lens to the camera and placed them on the tripod. Once I had that equipment set up it became clear that I was also going to need my shutter release cable in order to avoid camera shake when pushing the shutter button.
I also decided to use Live View with the extra zoom capability to accomplish the best 
possible manual focus and to lock up the mirror to avoid even the slightest vibration from mirror slap. The mama eagle moved around in the nest a bit, looking in every direction, something I would not have really been able to see at the extreme distance I had to settle for. There was no way to get closer with the river flowing in front of me so this is the best I could do! I was hoping mama would take flight so I watched the action for about an hour before giving up. Obviously I do not have the patience of a successful birder 😦
As always, these images and more will be available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Also available with one of the many pictures available on my site are tons of cool gift items including coffee mugs, t-shirts, stationary, blankets and pillows, tech gadgets including battery chargers and phone cases and much much more!
Deer on the Mountainside
Had a good hike this morning… finally found the deer herd close enough to get a picture of, and they even stuck around for a couple of pictures! It was also nice to get out and hear the birds chirping and feel the warm spring sun on my face 🙂 Unfortunately my experience with the deer lasted only seconds but it was gratifying that my favorite one of the whole set turned out nicely.
Climbing the steep hillside to the top of the ridge seemed a little easier today but I felt more tired at the end of the trek than I did yesterday. Maybe that’s a sign that I should take the day off of hiking tomorrow! Maybe I’ll just take a cruise in the truck up to 11 mile. Hopefully since it will be May 1st the place will not be closed.
Venturing Out
It was unavoidable, had to pick up a prescription at Walgreen’s down in Woodland Park. I rarely look forward to going down there, today even less. In addition to Walgreen’s I had to brave Walmart and Tractor Supply as well, mask on face avoiding all contact with people. Of course there is no place to have lunch, no place to stop for a micro brew, nothing to do but get my supplies and get out. Thankfully the panic in the mountains appears to be pretty much over with and supplies were plentiful. Walmart is monitoring how many people are in the store, but it wasn’t busy and fortunately I didn’t have to wait in any lines.
I did decide to drive up to Paradise Open Space Park to see if I might be able to take a little hike in the woods on the mountainsides of Ute Pass. Saw quite a few deer on the way, looks like we’ve added significantly to the herd! Sadly it looks like the pine beetle have laid waste to quite a bit of acreage with a lot of trees cut down, ugly stumps left in their place… victims of the drought that is thankfully over with. The trail was steeper than I remember, or perhaps the gravitational pull of the earth has increased significantly. I suppose the month that I’ve been sitting on my butt recovering from surgery may have contributed to me sucking wind on the inclines… but I’m going with the gravitational disruption story, it has a better ring to it 🙂
I usually write with some joy about the arrival of the spring equinox and the glorious light of the sun on the north face of Pikes Peak, but I was in the hospital on that day with the north face of the Great Mountain far out of view and out of mind. And I have to say, there isn’t a whole lot of joy going around this year and even the beautiful light of spring shining on fresh snow did little to lift my spirits. I am thankful though to live in such a beautiful sparsely populated place where a person can still go hiking without getting arrested.
There are rumblings of a loosening of the stay at home order coming next week, but I also saw a warning to go with it to “Stay out of the mountain towns.”. Can’t blame them I guess, I don’t really want the city people bringing the virus up to my little mountain town either.
All in all I would have to say it was a pretty good day, assuming I managed to avoid contracting the virus. Speaking of which, stylish face masks printed with one of the many images on my website are now available for purchase! I’m going to get one or two for myself, as soon as I can figure out which picture to use!
