Colorado Photographer / Author / Wildlife Advocate | Steven W. Krull
Renowned Colorado wildlife photographer and author advocating for our wild living legacy
The holidays are behind us, and I'm getting back into my photography routine. This weeks adventure took me to Eleven Mile Canyon, in search of our bald eagle pairs. Unfortunately I was only able to capture one sighting, but a new winter storm has arrived in the area, and I was able to capture a few ghostly images of the snowy landscape.
Today is the day when the sun reaches it's southernmost position in the sky, and begins the journey north in it's march to summer. Of course the sun is not moving around in the sky, but the solstice is "the shortest day of the year, marking the official start of winter, and happens because Earth's tilted axis points farthest away from the sun in one hemisphere."
The cold moon, the last full moon of the year was a good excuse to get out at sunrise yesterday. Some wispy clouds ultimately obscured my view, but it was a beautiful morning and I think I got some excellent images anyway, plus a couple of unexpected bonus wildlife pictures.
I was fortunate this weekend to get to take a photo adventure to Waterton Canyon to shoot the beginning of the Bighorn sheep rut, when the rams are down in the valley challenging each other for the right to breed with the herd of ewes.
We just returned from a few days photographing the elk rut in Rocky Mountain National Park. The last few times Kevin and I have visited the park, including an adventure to Yellowstone, we were thinking we were probably too early for the full experience. This time we thought delaying the trip until October might result in cooler weather, smaller crowds, and perhaps a more vigorous rut season.
Aspen leaves in many parts of the state of Colorado are reaching peak color this weekend. A brief excursion around the Cripple Creek and Victor area revealed a variety of gold and red colors adorning vast swaths of aspen stands in the 10,000 foot elevation range.
Today at around noon Colorado time, the sun will cross the celestial equator, marking the passage of summer and the advent of celestial autumn. For me it means that the best photography of the year is nearly upon us.
On a rare occasion people do come to visit me, and often it's because they want to climb the Manitou Incline. There may come a day when my old legs will no longer carry me up the 2700 rugged steps over the old cog railway that takes one to 8500 feet in elevation in just one mile of near verticle climbing, but on this day I was willing to give it one more try. Even though the previous sentence may have set a record for word count, last weekend's climb to the summit did not 😦
Quiet has returned to the mountains. The labor day holiday has marked the unofficial end of summer and thousands of tourists with their RV's and trailers have headed back east to their homes on the great American flatlands. Wildlife are tentatively returning to their favorite feeding grounds, and they didn't seem to worried about a lone photographer. In fact they seemed to recognize me from the quiet months I spent with them, prior to the summer invasion.
It was supposed to be a regular photo trip to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. However as it has been so many times this summer, photography in the Refuge was a stunning failure. Birds we have seen in abundance the last few summers are strangely absent. The coyotes were sleeping and the bison nowhere to be found. That's when it began... our short road trip was extended.
Colorado Photographer / Author / Wildlife Advocate | Steven W. Krull 