Mesa Verda Square Tower House

 

The only bad thing about visiting Mesa Verda National Park in early April is that you can't sign up for any tours. You can see the structures from the overlooks but you can't get up close and personal as the tours don't start for the season until later in April. We missed it by a couple of days. However, what we were able to see was amazing. The drive to build shelters out of the weather, near water and in secure locations was incredible to see. As you can see from the wider shot, no one is coming on this location from behind or above. So, like most of my national park trips, I want to go back and visit again and get the full tour. We couldn't on this trip, but maybe someday!!! 

Canyonlands National Park

 

Cell phone shot with some photoshop cleaning and editing. Just amazing views in Utah. Looking across one of the valleys in Canyonlands National Park.

Blue Jay

 

Went out last week to see some warblers in the midst of migration. All I saw was this Blue Jay. It happens. Yea, I see you....

Yellow-rumped Warbler

 

Warblers are on the move, millions flying overhead at night on the way to Florida from breeding grounds further north. Can you blame them? I haven't seen any warblers locally yet and I tried three different times. I think you need to go out in the morning as evening walks aren't getting me any action. This yellow-rumped warbler was coming in for a landing in La Jolla, California this past March. Warblers are small, quick moving birds. Tough to shoot between tree limbs and leaves. Going to try to get some shots tomorrow here locally but I am not that confident of success. You never know and the worst that happens is you get a nice walk in some brisk fall weather. 

The Reef in Capitol Reef

 

This is a shot of the reef view of Capital Reef. When traveling by horse or wagon, this was a 100 mile long barrier that had to be crossed or worked around when traveling east to west. Makes it a wonderful place to visit. Very remote. From our trip last April. 

A Road Runs Through it

 

If I remember the sign correctly, this view is split by a 100 year old road that runs through Canyonlands National Park and was originally built as an old mining road to get to the valuable resources in this area. Once the land was designated a national park, the park service maintained the road to access remote areas of this very large and little visited area, not far from Moab, Utah. My buddy Bill and I visited the area last April on a 6 park road trip. Canyonlands is a beautiful area with lots of overlooks in the Island in the Sky area of the park, overlooking the Colorado and Green Rivers which cut through and jointly created the park though long history of erosion. 

Peregrine and Effie

 

Mostly we just try to make sure that Peregrine doesn't accidentally hurt Effie when he plays with her but these shots caught their relationship here at the beginning with Effie just starting to move around in a sort-of crawl and being able to sit up at a little over 6 months. Going to be an interesting ride with them just under 2 years apart.  

Capitol Reef National Park

 

Another shot of the Reef part of Capitol Reef. Didn't climb back in there but it would have been fun to go up to the wall. 

Capitol Reef National Park

 

On of the great things in managing a photo catalog is that you get to go back and relive parts of your trip. This month, I realized that I forgot to rank pictures that I took on our National Park trip last April. This is definitely a 5 star shot as when you blow it up, it is quite dramatic. This shot shows part of the "reef" in Capitol Reef National Park as this series of ridges goes for around 100 miles with about 60 miles of it protected in the national park. I only rank 4 and 5 star shots and by the end of the year, I would be lucky to have a couple of 5 stars from shots taken this year. Good family shots I rank as a 3 star to keep them separate. One stars are for good bird shots. I delete anything that is blurry or repeating to keep the catalog from growing too quickly. Too late for that as I now have over 109,000 shots. Oh well. Need to starting rating shots for 2022. 

Common Gallinule field of bulrush

 

While this isn't a great picture of this Common Gallinule, I liked the framing of the bulrush at the edge of the pound with the reflection in the water. From Memorial Park in Houston earlier this week. 

Schreber's Watershields

An app on my phone called "Picture This" tells me that these are Schreber's Watershields floating in a pond in Houston's Memorial Park. No clue but as good a name as any. Walked around after meetings this week looking for birds and got this tight shot of beautiful greens and yellows. Still quite warm in Houston. No fall showing up there yet....

Sandhills Gathering

 

Got an email update that said the Sandhill Cranes are flying back south. Reminded me that last year, I got the northwards trip while driving through Nebraska. Quite the thrill to see parts of the sky filled with Sandhill Cranes. Must have been an unbelievable sight when they were at their peak before being almost hunted out of existence. Glad I got to see the show. 

Ancient Spacemen

 

Looking through pics I took this year, I see this one shot in Capitol Reef National Park of ancient drawings and I wonder why we never heard of these drawing before? Isn't this evidence of ancient spacemen with bubble head space suits who came down to visit earth in prehistoric times? There is even a spacecraft looking thing on the upper right. Come on conspiracy buffs. Here is your evidence. Aliens have been here. 

Winter is Coming

 

According to Brookstone, Winter Is Coming. Quickly. Perhaps this is an advertising tie-in with Game of Thrones reboot? I don't know but I am digging out my winter clothes already.