American Pika are so cute!
Pika!!! Its paws are too much cute for me to handle.
These are some of the most fascinating animals in Colorado. American Pika live strictly in high elevation environments above 8,000' feet (about 2,500 meters). One source I read indicated they only go as high as 13,000' (about 3,960 meters), but I'm certain, from personal experience with them, they live at least as high as 14,000' (about 4,260 meters).
While the short Alpine summer is in swing, Pika collect about 50 lbs. of vegetation to store away for the long Winter months -- pretty remarkable when you consider these mammals are only about 6" - 7" long and weigh around 6 ounces. Pika do not hibernate and use their storehouse of vegetation in their dens among talus fields for sustenance and warmth.
With their small size, nimbleness, and agility, they can easily cover more ground than me when navigating talus fields in a much shorter time. I'd be on my face if I tried to hop and skip my way through the talus like they do.
I got some really cool pics of Pika collecting vegetation when I was in the mountains. Follow my instagram to see all the cute!
Photo recipe:
Canon 5D Mark IV + 600 mm lens
ISO 400
F 5.6
SS: 1/3200
I chose ISO 400 because the morning sun was getting stronger, so I didn't need as much ISO sensitivity and because I had the aperture pretty open at F 5.6. I often shoot wildlife with 1/3200th of a second shutter speed because I want to capture unexpected action and because a faster shutter speed lets me use the camera (and the long 600 mm lens) without a tripod.
Bobcat Mother and Kitten!!!!
How amazing is this?!! The first time I ever have the opportunity to photograph a Bobcat in the wild and it just so happens to be a mother Bobcat and her kitten! Lucky me!!!
They were enjoying a mule deer meal when I happened upon them. I kept my distance and they eventually returned to eating their meal. I have spared my readers the (gory!) details of their meal.
"Dad's Home!" a 2018 Natural Douglas County Photo Contest Winner!
I am thrilled to announce that my photo, "Dad's Home!" is a 2018 Natural Douglas County photo contest winner! The photo shows a tender moment as Father Fox is greeted by two of his kits upon his return to the natal den on a snowy April morning.
"Dad's Home!", along with the beautiful work of eleven other photographers, is featured in Douglas Land Conservancy's 2018 notecard collection. The collection will be for sale in late August; keep an eye on the Douglas Land Conservancy (DLC) web site for more information about how to purchase your set of notecards.
Proceeds from the sale of the notecards support DLC's mission of land conservancy; I am deeply honored and gratified to share this photo in service to DLC's mission.
How to Turn a Mountain Goat into a Rainbow!
I decided to take off work a little early Friday and head out to the mountains. My goal was to photograph mountain goat kids.
I headed up one of Colorado's 14ers (peak that is higher than 14,000 feet) that is pretty well known for mountain goats. As I was driving up to the summit, the weather, as it is wont to do above treeline, became a little wet, cold, and slippery. I noticed droves of cars coming down the narrow mountain road.
At last, I reached the summit. The view was . . . underwhelming.
Alpine View Atop a Colorado 14er on July 13, 2018Do I really need to watermark this photo? :D
Did I really need to put a watermark on this photo?
That's a cloud. OK I think technically, maybe it's fog, but I'm going to call it a cloud instead of fog since I took the pic at around 14,130' elevation. Yes, really. :)
Alpine weather changes fast, so I hunkered down in my truck to wait it out to see if my luck (and the weather) would change, mountain goats would emerge from wherever they were hiding, and the sky would provide some of that gorgeous late afternoon light!
I waited. I read a book. I napped. It thundered. It hailed. It sleeted.
Hail and rain on the hood of my vehicle Hail and rain accumulating on the hood of my vehicle while I waited for the sun (and hopefully some mountain goats) to emerge.
While waiting out the weather, I snapped a mobile pic of the sleet and rain accumulating on the hood of my truck.
I took a walk around some old buildings on the mountain. This thermometer read 43 degrees. It was July 13th.
Alpine SummerThermometer at the top of a Colorado 14er read 43 degrees Fahrenheit on July 13, 2018.
Finally, I ended my mountain goat quest and promised myself to come back again soon to try again. I started the truck and just as I was about to pull out of the parking spot, I noticed a rainbow! I turned off the car, changed the 100 - 400 mm lens to a wide angle 15 - 30 mm lens, and hurried outside to photograph the rainbow as fast as I could. The results were amazing!!!
Alpine RainbowYep, it really looked like that!
Aside from how darned exciting it is to see a vibrant rainbow, what I love about this scene is the huge scale of the photo. For a big view like this, I used a wide angle lens and shot this at 19 mm. I also told the camera I wanted as much of the landscape in focus as possible, which means I set the aperture (also called F-stop) to F22. If I used a smaller number such as F8, less of the photo would have been in focus -- not what I want to do for a big scene like this one!
The weather geek in me finds it exciting because, although the sun is behind my back, the rainbow seems to have refracted the light passing through it so that it appears rays of sun are emanating from below the hillside.
Another thing I adore about this photo is you can see the movement of the raindrops falling through the scene. You can even see a mini prism in the rain drop just to the right of the "r" in the Outsider watermark -- how cool is that? To get the movement of the rain through the photo, I set the shutter speed at 1/400th of a second.
So, while I was unable to get pics of my mountain goat friends, my patience paid off with this gorgeous scene.