Birds Sightings Wildlife
October 14, 2020

October 14, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:00 AM Temperature: 56 degrees Sky: High clouds hindered the Sun, gloomy Kind of an iffy day. Very gloomy flat light – I almost didn’t come out this morning. But I did and I am glad I did. There was much more bird activity today compared to yesterday as the Sightings box demonstrates. The prize of the day (and the reason I am glad I came out) is today’s featured image of a Cooper’s Hawk. These birds are pretty shy and are usually very hard to photograph but this one was just as calm and content as could…

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Birds Sightings Wildlife
October 13, 2020

October 13, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:15 AM Temperature: 49 degrees Sky: Sunshine, no clouds, light breeze, Blue sky Yet another near perfect day for hiking and birding. Probably would have been better with a few more birds around. Most notable today was the birds I didn’t see. No Robins, Sparrows (of any stripe), Warblers, Chickadees, Kingfishers or Juncos. Bird-wise it was all Raptors all the time (except for the ducks and Starlings.) There were a couple of Osprey flying around with one trying to steal what the other had in its claws – though it didn’t look like much of a prize to…

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Birds Critters Sightings Wildlife
October 12, 2020

October 12, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:20 AM Temperature: 42 degrees Sky: Sunshine, few clouds, light breeze, Blue sky Autumn continues to take root at Lake Pueblo State Park in grand form. This was an excellent day to be out there especially since the there was no noticeable wildfire haze to be seen. Pikes Peak was visible in all its splendor as were the Wet Mountains. Many birds were out enjoying the clear air as well. I saw many different types of Sparrows and at least three Osprey – none eating fish. It wasn’t only birds out and about today but I also managed…

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Infrared Photography Landscapes Process Software
Lone Tree on the Prairie

Lone Tree on the Prairie

Posted above is a new infrared image that I shot October 10, 2020. This was shot with my Kolari Lumix ZS100 Full Spectrum conversion. The image was shot in Raw format using a custom white balance set in camera using a 590 nm filter pointed at an 18% gray card. Once home I developed the raw file using Affinity Photo adjusting exposure, contrast, black-point, shadows/highlights, lens correction, a touch of sharpening and an S-curve for added contrast. Once the image was developed I added only a channel mixer adjustment to swap the red and blue channels to get the great…

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Birds Landscapes Sightings Wildlife
October 11, 2020

October 11, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:30 AM Temperature: 56 degrees Sky: Sunshine, few clouds, light breeze My original plan was to sit out the walk today due to forecasts of high wind. When I finally looked out my window this morning I “saw” no wind – just a beautiful day made for walking by the river. So that’s what I did. It was kind of quiet out there with not a whole lot of activity (except fishermen) at all. The only bird images I got were a bunch of an Osprey perched high above the Arkansas River munching on a fish. This Osprey…

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Birds Critters Sightings Wildlife
October 10, 2020

October 10, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:00 AM Temperature: 49 degrees Sky: Sunshine, few clouds, light breeze A steady ridge of high pressure hanging over Colorado provided another stellar day for photography and hiking. Of course, the environment is still hazy thanks to those pesky northern wildfires though it was not so bad this morning. Pikes Peak is still not visible. On the bright side, birds and Mule Deer were very visible. Today’s featured image is of a Flicker who had perched nearby while I was trying to capture an image of a Dark-Eyed Junco. I settled for the more cooperative Flicker. But the…

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Birds Critters Sightings Wildlife
October 09, 2020

October 09, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:45 AM Temperature: 60 degrees Sky: Sunshine, high clouds, light breeze Today I was back on the prowl for birds and wildlife. I really am hoping to run across a Tarantula somewhere on or near the trail but so far nothing. Kind of hard to see them when you are constantly looking into the trees I have to admit. As far as other critters go I got a nice postcard style shot of a group of Mule Deer grazing in the morning sun (today’s featured image.) On the birding front I struck gold when I saw an Osprey…

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Landscapes Sightings
October 08, 2020

October 08, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:45 AM Temperature: 52 degrees Sky: Hazy sunshine, light breeze With Autumn showing it’s colors more and more at Lake Pueblo State Park I decided to put my vintage Olympus Zuiko 14-54mm zoom (a lens I have still not written up in this blog) on the Panasonic GX-85 and went looking for scenery. Once I got looking around I decided that maybe I was jumping the gun a little since there is still much that is green on my normal route. But I did manage some color – mostly thanks to the early morning low angled light cutting…

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Birds Sightings Wildlife
October 07, 2020

October 07, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:35 AM Temperature: 59 degrees Sky: Sunny with wildfire haze Today’s climate was practically a carbon copy of yesterday. The haze was a little heavier (Pikes Peak almost detectable) and the breeze may have been a tiny bit stronger. And, like yesterday, I did not encounter anything particularly exotic or even unusual to photograph. Though there was an Osprey checking out the Arkansas River pretty intently s/he managed to stay well out of camera range. So my luck was limited to a single female Downy Woodpecker and a White-Crowned Sparrow. The leaves are starting to turn in earnest…

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Birds Critters Sightings Wildlife
October 06, 2020

October 06, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:30 AM Temperature: 47 degrees Sky: Wildfire haze filtered sunshine The plague of wildfire haze continues. Though it is not super thick it was as perceptible in near objects as it was on those further away. Pikes Peak was barely distinguishable today. I don’t know if I can blame it for the slightly subdued wildlife activity but at least during the first part of the walk there was not much going on. Things finally got going and, if I had come out to specifically shoot Robins, things picked up quite a bit. At one point there was a…

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