Some things I brought down from the mountain

Hey all, I'm back.

The trip was amazing and beautiful. We saw all kinds of weather, including a thunderstorm which had us essentially hiking up the mountain into a cloud, and wildlife, including a perfectly gorgeous mother bear and her cub, who unlike most bears one sees stuck around long enough to allow us to observe them for a few minutes. Being there was very fulfilling, healing and excellent, and the place has an enormous beauty that these pictures only nibble at the edges of.

Back home, I am, as predicted, busy and dealing with some very difficult things. As you can probably guess, I took approximately elevendy zillion pictures, and I will eventually share more, but for now, here's a taste.



( Ansel Adams Wilderness )

Hey, birders!

Want to play a round of 'identify that bird?'

The below lovely feathered thing landed near us on the second day of the trip as we were having lunch at the lower Graveyard Lake. I believe it to be a gyrfalcon, which species apparently does inhabit the high Sierras. Her flight pattern looked more like a falcon than an accipiter to me, she was about the right size, and though I wasn't able to get great pictures of her, they did sort of come out, and they look like a brown-phase gyrfalcon to me.

If it is, I will be very excited. It's a species that I love, and I have never seen either captive or in the wild. Whatever she was, she was a beautiful bird.

Other birds I spotted included a redtailed hawk, osprey, Clark's nutcracker, one little hummingbird at high elevation (calliope?) and a cute little yellowish thing that I've not had time to try to ID yet. But name for me this raptor, please.

And camera people, I am starting to get a tiny little bit less clueless and overwhelmed by my DSLR. What lenses do you like for shooting wild birds that aren't very close to you?



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