Photographer in Colorado

Earlier this month, I made a trip to Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for some birding and make photographs. This year it was windy, overcast and really cold when I arrived at the wildlife refuge. After a couple of days, the wind subsided but it remained cold for much of the days.

For the first time, I managed to get a decent image of an American Kestrel; the overcast weather softened the light so we can see a lot of detail in the shadows.

Near the entrance to the wildlife refuge, a Loggerhead Shrike was perched on a fence post.

Later that first day, I made this image of the shrike on a thistle. It may have been the same bird but was about a 1/4-mile away from the first image.

Alongside the south loop, I found a frozen pond where a group of Yellowlegs were waiting for the ice to thaw that morning. Later in the day, I returned to the same pond to find the ice had thawed. Several other birds had moved in during the day. While observing the birds, this male Buffelhead Duck spent much of the day, paddling downstream in the pond, feeding occasionally. Once he reached the end, he would fly to the other end of the pond, and repeat the process. I did manage to capture this one image as he was taking flight from the end of the pond.

There are several other animals that may be found in New Mexico. I found this Javelina crossing the road to join a group of Javelina grazing in the field to the left.

Towards the end of the day, a Roadrunner approached me. It seemed that this Roadrunner was working one stretch of road that runs between two ponds. This is one image that I captured close to sunset.

At the end of daylight, I headed out of the refuge for some dinner. The sun had set behind the mountains to the west of the refuge. However, the last rays for sunlight lit up the few remaining clouds in the sky.

More to come.

During our afternoon trip to Reynold’s Landing, we discovered a Lesser Scaup (a duck), that was diving for food in the river. I managed to get reasonably close to the Scaup as it dived below the surface. After watching the Scaup’s behavior, I decided to attempt a sequence of several consecutive images from the start of the dive until the the scaup was underwater. After many attempts, I eventually managed to capture a complete sequence from start.

Ten days ago we headed out to Reynold’s Landing, along the South Platte River. Soon after passing the pond, I heard a Belted Kingfisher calling. It turned out that this Kingfisher was fishing at the pond. Here is a sequence of three images as this Kingfisher was hunting for food.

Saw something…

And diving.

Whilst watching this Kingfisher, he caught four critters from the pond. Probably crawdads.

During November, I made several trips to the South Platte River and to Chatfield State Park, so that I can improve some bird photography. Here is a collection of some of the more interesting birds that I re-discovered.

These two Kildeer were chasing each other along the river. I was fortunate to capture the far one as it came to land.

On one day, I spent a couple of hours at Chatfield State Park. This White-Crowned Sparrow spent some 5-10 minutes in one bush, allowing me to capture lots of images. This one bird was the highlight of that visit to the park!

Back to the South Platte on another occasion. There are many Mallards in the South Platte River, year round, so I done often attempt to photograph them. However, sometimes I manage to capture an unusual display.

On that day, I also found a female and male Buffelhead duck.

I found a pair of Mallards feeding. This is the usual position as they dip down to bottom feed in the river. Well timed!

Continuing with my trip to Iceland… During the trip to make images of the wild seas along the east coast, I stopped by one of the inshore lakes that served as a habitat for some swans. During previous trips to Iceland, I attempted to make some images of swans in the wild. Unfortunately the Icelandic swans are very skittish, so as I approached them, they either moved further away or flew away. For the following images, the lakeside was very close to the car. I could make these images without leaving the car, after rolling down the window.

As I wrote previously, gale force winds were pumping in the south and east of Iceland. In the image below, the swans were struggling to make headway against the wind. Looking at the surface of the water, one can see the waves created by the strong winds.

After shooting the rough seas, I headed back to the hostel. These seven horses had lined up near the edge of the farmer’s field.

This was my last day in the hostel at Vagnasstaðir, and the following morning I had to complete a 600km trip to Dalvik, in the north of Iceland. I was up before dawn and headed out after a quick breakfast. As I was driving a few kilometers down the road, the sunrise had started with red, orange and coral colors in the morning sky. In the distance is the Vestrahorn, with a tidal lagoon in the foreground.

On the far side of Vestrahorn, one passes “The Red Chair” that is attached to a rock outcrop along the road side.

Eventually, I arrived at the hostel in Dalvik late in the day. The east coast of Iceland contains may fjords, so the roads usually follow the coastline that is absolutely spectacular. The final leg of the trip between Egilsstaðir and Akureyri was on snow-covered roads. This was the coldest part of the journey where the temperature dropped below freezing (6˚F or -14˚Celsius). I passed several cars that were abandoned on the roadside, because their drivers chose to leave the firm road surface; those cars had become bogged down in the softer road shoulders!

During my two days at Dalvik, I made some trips to some close-by towns. Returning from Husavik, I stopped along the road close to the following treeline.

Looking back along the road from Husavik, I noticed a rainbow over the road. The morning air was really cold and laden with water vapor, ice and water droplets. These was the source for the frozen rainbow!

Later that evening, I returned to the hostel at Dalvik. The sun was setting behind the mountains on the western side of Dalvik, creating the most amazing sunset.

That concludes the images from my Iceland trip.

Continuing with my trip to Iceland… While in Vik, I made an early morning visit to Skogafoss. It had been raining most of the way there, and it continued to rain after arriving. After waiting for the rain to clear, I decided to abandon this site. However, the next day was clear of rain, so I headed back to make a great image of the sunrise.

About the time there was a major weather change over Iceland. Along the south coast, gale force winds had developed. This caused many road closures, over a 3 or 4 day period, until the winds weakened. I managed to make the following image of the main water fall at Skogafoss. It was really windy here, even with a camera on a tripod. However, other photographers were not so lucky — I did see one tripod blown over, with the sound of breaking glass, probably causing a broken filter.

Returning to Vik, I had breakfast at the hostel. Several hostel visitors that I met had left early that morning so they could complete their journey in case they were delayed by road closures. Later I headed east and stopped at another waterfall, Stjornarfoss, that I had visited during a previous visit to Iceland. This waterfall faces south and is located in a short canyon. Even here, there were strong gusts of wind that blew from the north over the waterfall.

Returning to the car, I passed by the following curved treeline. The low autumn sun cast long shadows, even in the middle of the day.

Returning to Vik later that afternoon, the road leading west out of Vik was closed because of the high winds. There were many travelers in tour buses that had stopped at the main shopping center in Vik, taking a break before resuming their journey towards Reykjavik later that day.

The following day was my turn to move the the next hostel location at Vagnasstaðir, closer to Hðfn, along the southeast coast. I then proceeded to Vestrahorn, a location that I had missed during previous visits to Iceland. Many beaches in Iceland have black beaches, as a result of black sands originating from volcanic and igneous activity on the island. In this image, I found a location where the yellow grasses grew on the black sand dunes — this provided a nice contrast of the yellow against the black.

During my stay there, we had a snow storm during the first night. During the course of the next day, there was a rain/snow mix, that eventually melted by the end of the day. I did manage to get some clothes washed and shopped for some groceries.

The following day, the snow and rain had cleared, so I decided to head towards Jokulsarlon. This is a location when the Vatnajokull (glacier) calves into a lagoon. At low tide, icebergs are carried out to the sea. Later these icebergs are washed up onto the beach when the tide rises. This stretch of beach is often called “Diamond Beach”. Here I made several images of the icebergs as the rising sun shines through the ice.

Even though the snow and rain had stopped, the high winds continued to blow from the north. This gave me a great opportunity of capturing the rough seas as the waves rolled into the coast. The high winds created lots of spray from the surf allowing some backlit waves to be captured. Absolutely spectacular!

Later that day, I headed back towards Hðfn and past Vestrahorn, to the east coast. Along the route, I made images of the snow covered mountains.

There was very little snow along the east coast. However, I stopped at one location to make images of the breaking waves as the wind carried the spray aloft from the breaking surf. In the following image, I took shelter behind rocks below a low hill. Again, some really spectacular conditions.

After making images here, I decided to head further up the coast. I found a parking lot, located above the cliff top. At this location, the winds were even stronger. Also, I had no place where I could shelter, so I had to lean backwards against the wind when capturing images so I didn’t get blown over the cliff!!!

These proved to be another location with spectacular waves.

Continuing on my journeys through Iceland… On day 3, I made a brief stop to capture some of the wetlands close to Kirjufell.

Then I headed out beyond Kirkjufell, towards the Snaefellsnes peninsula. Here is the view of Snaefellsnes Jokull. This is the glacier above a dormant volcano.

As I approached a town, Rif, I noticed this waterfall that is fed from the snowmelt of the glacier.

After passing through Snaefellsnes National Park, I visited this abandoned farmhouse. This is a site that I have visited several times in the past — it becomes even more dilapidated and covered with more graffiti with each visit!

On the return trip to Grundarfjorður, I stopped at the beach near Latravik. The foreground shadow was slowly creeping along the berm as the sun dropped lower behind the mountains behind me.

It was close to low tide when I walked down the beach. The beach is formed from black volcanic sands that are the result of volcanic activity in Iceland over the millennia. This beach had several pools that I could use to include some reflections of the clouds.

In the following image, the edge of the pool had interesting patterns created by the ripples of the beach sand.

There is one feature close to this beach that I captured the day before — A Giant Padlock. This padlock is the main feature of the gate that leads to the berm that I captured.

However, there are several padlocks that adorn the gate, including one on the left side of the giant padlock!

In the final image, I captured the road and the berm framed by the hasp of the giant padlock.