There are times when it is nice to take time from travels and explore the natural beauty and creatures that reside where I do. I get terrific photographs of wildlife and nature wherever I go, but there is a plethora of creatures and natural beauty where and when I am at home. Here are some of them. Photo 1 (seen at the top of this page) is of a female House Finch departing from the bird feeder that hangs in the pinion pine in my backyard. My new Canon R5 MK II has a feature called pre-capture that helped me get this shot. While the smaller songbirds go through the same movements prior to flight that the large birds do, the time for doing so is about a tenth as long as the larger birds, way less than human reaction time. This pre-capture feature is constantly taking photos at 30 frames per second, but not recording them. When I do actuate the shutter it will record the previous half second or 15 photos.
Photo 2
Photo 2 is an interaction between my cat, One, and a bobcat kitten in the backyard. One enjoyed chasing bobcats and chased about 40 bobcats out of the yard. She was fearless! This kitten made her leap off the deck, but the bobcat kitten didn’t know she was supposed to run so they just stood there checking each other out for close to a minute and then walked away. I was relieved.
Photo 3
Photo 3 a Cooper’s Hawk is coming in for an attack on a small Gopher Snake going into the grass adjacent to the golf cart path, the boundary line for my backyard. While Cooper’s Hawks feed primarily on other birds, they also do not pass up tasty snacks.
Photo 4
Photo 4 displays a very happy bobcat heading down into the arroyo with a rabbit for dinner. Rabbits, along with squirrels, have a very short lifespan in the wild and are a food source for other animals such as bobcats and coyotes.
Photo 5
Photo 5 is of a squirrel lying on a tree branch enjoying a peach he just purloined from the tree. He’s a very happy little guy.
