Just Passin' Through

Living in the small town of Willits one of the rhythms of daily life is the pulse of traffic on Highway 101 through town. Summertime brings tourist traffic on the weekends to events further north. This weekend is the Redwood Run. A motorcycle ride up into the redwoods to just outside of Piercy. While I was photographing motorcycles (I'll post those later) I also photographed some of the trucks passing through that make up a snapshot of the traffic that passes through on a daily basis.Hmmmmn.... there sure seems to be a lot of red trucks. God's blessings and safe travels to all, chris

Flying His Colors

I spent about a half an hour this evening in the photoblind pursuing the hummingbirds. My favorite image was of a Rufous Hummingbird flashing his gorget. They are just so beautiful. God's blessings to all, chris

Poor Little Anna's

This morning Jay and I did yard work. Too many years of delayed maintenance in some parts of the backyard! Afterwards we headed out and did some shopping and had lunch. When we got home and we were coming through the door one of the dogs kicked something with its rear paw as I was coming through the door. I looked down to see a poor little Anna's Hummingbird that looked too weak to fly. I cupped it in my hands and carried it out into the backyard where I placed it on an oak twig. I ran back into the house and I grabbed my camera to photograph it. It sat there for about five minutes before trying its wings a few times and then flying away. God's love and protection to all, chris

An Alligator in the Studio

Allright, allright, I'll admit it is a stretching the truth a a bit. You can see from the images it isn't really an alligator but a Northern Alligator Lizard. Today in the process of moving an old wood pile from the backyard my son Jay and I ran into some pretty interesting things.We found centipedes,millipedes and some really large beetles. The coolest thing of all was a Wood Rat nest with two full grown Wood Rats in it. They were absolutely adorable and pretty fat from all of the bird seed and acorns they have been eating.Jay managed to catch one of them but we ended up letting it go for fear of injuring it. One of them escaped into the trees. It was so amazing watching it climb away on the branches overhead. At the bottom of the wood pile I found the lizard and I brought it into the studio to photograph on an old tree branch before I let it go. For an Alligator Lizard it was actually fairly docile as it only hissed at me and never even tried to bite me like some of them do.I'm sure it's much happier now being back in the woods. God's blessings to all, chris

Best of the Morning

This morning I spent about an hours time photographing hummingbirds. The end result of an hours work was one good solid image that I just loved. It was well worth the effort.Those of you that follow me on Facebook have already seen the image as I posted it there this morning. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Merrily Humming Along

This morning I finally managed to get in a little hummingbird photography. I have been way too busy lately. For some reason I don't have many hummers this summer. I think it might be that I got my extra feeders up too late. I have only noticed a few Anna's Hummingbirds hanging around when I usually have six or eight with some Rufous Hummingbirds thrown in for good measure.Today it was a bit of a wait and they were slow in coming to the feeder. I kept my ears tuned for the buzz of wings.Most of the time I just waited and waited and would spur into action when I heard wings. The one male Anna's came in several times and I wondered how he could even fly as he was moulting and didn't have too many flight feathers in his wings. I still had a great time and I am looking to doing some more. God bless, chris

Sitting in the Sun

When I went out to BBQ some chicken yesterday afternoon there was a Western Fence Lizard sitting on one of the rocks next to the pond. It seemed pretty reluctant to leave. It was going to take a lot more than someone just walking by to make it give up its warm perch on top of the rock. This gave me plenty of time to go back into the house to grab my camera to make quite a few images of it sunning itself on the rock. These were my two favorites. God's love and blessings to all, chris