Spring: Season of the Macro Lens!

Ah Spring...  The season of...   The Macro Lens, of course!  Who can avoid the chance to shoot extreme closeups of blossoms at this time of year?  I thought this photograph of a Lilac blossom was pretty nice.  And...   Maybe Dean will think that finally I am close enough!  Or not!

Spring is in the Air

Every spring Kathy hangs a basket of flowers from a hook I put at then entrance of the front porch. The Japanese maple tree is the background for whatever flowers we have.  I love the splash of color each morning when I go out to get the newspaper.  It reminds me again that spring is in the air.  Get it?   :-)

We Found the Kittens!

This is amazing!  Kathy found the kittens, and they are only forty feet from where they were born!  I saw a big gray male cat hanging around in the side yard, and we think he is the father of the kittens.  I chased him away, and then Kathy saw a bit of white in the ivy.  She looked closer and saw the head of the mother cat.  When the mother saw her, she took off running.  So Kathy got closer to investigate, and looking into the ivy she hollered "I found the kittens!"  The mother cat had kind of burrowed under the ivy and pulled some of it away from the wall, and that's where the four kittens are.  When I went over to look, I could only see one of them, the cover was so thick.  After I did the closeup, I backed away and photographed the scene.  There is no hint at all that the kittens could be hidden under this ivy.  So we are back to feeding the mother cat now that we know where she stays, and she is accepting of the food.

Spring, Finally

Every year this magnolia tree across the street sheds its blossoms on the lawn.  I have tried to photograph this scene before, but the picture was never quite right.  Either there were not enough blossomson the ground, or not enough on the tree.  On this day, everything looked much better.  How about that - Spring at last!

In Cave Creek Canyon

Here are two photographs from inside Cave Creek Canyon.  This is a shot driving down the main road that comes from the Research Station where we stayed.  Interesting trees, and in the distance, the rugged eastern ridge of the canyon.

And this is a long exposure at night of the starry sky.  The ridge is illuminated by a setting crescent moon off to the right, outside the frame of the picture.  Please click on the photograph to enlarge it - the stars will be easier to see.

Cave Creek Canyon

A couple of days ago, I posted "The Road to Portal" on the blog.  Just after you get to Portal, you then come upon this scene.  It is looking down the valley of Cave Creek Canyon.  It is a stunning landscape here.  It feels like Yosemite National Park.  Stan and I drove here to photograph and stargaze, because we were not sleep deprived enough after two late nights at two different observatories.  This is a birdwatcher's paradise.  Everyone and their uncle is looking for "The Elegant Trogon" which is the name of a real bird, believe it or not.  We did not see one sitting on a branch. Stan saw one flying.   But we met some other hikers and had some nice conversations along the way.  We also got some nice photographs, like this one, for instance.

Oxbow

This is an interesting landform.  Why do you suppose these farmers have arranged their fields in a horseshoe shape?  I think I know.  This area is just east of the Mississippi River, somewhere around Memphis.  The thing about rivers like the Mississippi is that over geological time, they meander.  That is, they create little loops on either side of the river when the flow of water erodes the bank.  It is hard to describe, so look up "Oxbow Lake" on Wikipedia.  Anyhow, I am guessing that the oxbow formed, and the river moved away, and then the land filled in.  This is in exactly the correct shape for an oxbow lake.