St Barnabas

Diana and I spent much of Sunday in the Tooele valley, where she started the day by being the supply priest at St. Barnabas. Then we had lunch at the Bonneville Brewery just across the RR tracks.
St. Barnabas church building is relatively new and has interesting colors and shapes.
Just as Diana was walking into the church, she spotted the Meadowlark sitting on top singing to everyone! Later on we found this neat old barn in Erda, one of many in the valley that are very photogenic.

Loverly

A seed pod and a quickly vanishing Kingfisher for today's views.

Loving the sun

Today was a wonderful sunny spring day with no clouds all day! Not that clouds aren't useful - often prefer to have them when photographing landscapes and birds.
Murph and I drove around and captured a few shots from the day - there is always something to photograph at any time of day.
Enjoy!


First we said hello to the Great Horned Owl - who really didn't seem to care that we were there!

Then, a short ways down the road, we stopped to hike a bit and this Kingfisher swung by to check us out.

Some things are better in color.

This little one sang his heart out as we meandered through the marsh.

Finally, the American Kestrel gave us the eye and then jumped off the wire - showboat!

A few more from the Island

There are cottontails on the island - good food for coyotes - as shown in the photo below. The others are additional photos that I liked from the day.

Something about the bison that makes me stop and watch them.

Peter Cottontail!

Beauty amongst beauty.

I snuck up on this Chukar to get a photo of him - he saw my head and slowly walked off the rock.

Antelope Island - first trip this year

The cold weather kept us away from Antelope this winter, then I just got busy after the first of the year. But today was to be the best day before a series of fronts come through so off Murph and I went to Antelope.
As I used the restroom at the causeway entrance I listened to and watched as a pair of Sandhill Cranes landed a long ways away in the bulrushes. Then a little bird posed for me and a male pheasant crossed the road as I was paying my entrance fee - all in all an auspicious start to the adventure.

The day progressed quite well, from Western Meadowlarks serenading us to Chukars and Jackrabbits checking us out. Buffalo posed with their birds, Burrowing Owls are back for spring, antelope browsed for food, coyotes made their normal elusive appearance and a pair of mule deer bucks with nice antlers sparred briefly as I watched.  This could be Groundhog day for me - wow, what a plethora of treats!

Here's our initial greeter at the beginning of the causeway.

Murphy is the best dog in the world, but he uses his nose and the rabbits run far ahead of him. Here's a 'jack' who ran a bit and then stopped to look.

The Chukars were out - a very beautiful bird.

The Burrowing Owl is back at the nest - honestly all I could see was a bump on the ground!

The language of love - sung by the Western Meadowlark. To listen to it's song you can go to http://birds.audubon.org/birds/western-meadowlark .

A surreal photo of a surreal landscape.

Wily coyote snuck through the grass - I thought I would cut him off at the pass and get some closeups but no such luck!

The two bucks had a couple of younger bucks with them;  the one on the right wanted to spar a little so they played with their horns together a bit - I have a neat sequence of that.

And you cannot show a buffalo without the ever-present bird on its back!

Review

A busy day today with folks working on our project at the house so I'm around while they are here. Tomorrow a friend and I are going to spend some time at Antelope Island to see what we can see.

For today, here's a look back at a couple of beauties - first a sunset in the Manti La Sal mountains, secondly a fish jumping in a pond at Solitude. To capture this, I just pre-focussed on an area where the fish were jumping and shot at high speed - 6 fps. Use a medium f-stop, 8 or 9 to get the detail you will want. Or if you are real quick catch the fish in mid-air!

Dog days are over for a while

As of today, the refuge prohibits dogs on site through the first of September. Nesting season is in process and the natural disruptions - raccoons, coyote, muskrat, etc. are all that the wildlife needs to handle.
On our last sunny day trip this week a couple of landscapes appealed to me and show the promise of summer in the refuge.

Thinking of drifting down this channel in a canoe...

This is a piece of 'driftwood' that I have looked at a least a thousand times wondering how best to present it.

Soon White Pelicans, ducks, GBH, geese and others will be frolicking in the water and mud.