Wood ducks are the most colorful ducks

Wood duck males are among the most colorful birds in America. This one was swimming in the ponds in the Sacramento area during the 2016-2017 winter season, one of the wettest on record. They are called wood ducks because they nest in trees and their young have to jump out of the tree onto the ground to get to the water for the first time. Their call is somewhat of a whistling sound.

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California scrub jay perched in a winter tree without leaves

A winter-time deciduous tree serves as a perching site for a California scrub jay. This tree is in the Sacramento area. Scrub jays are often confused with blue jays, which are similar except the blue jay has a blue crest and is almost all blue. The scrub jay has a white bib and white eyebrows. Jays tend to be very noisy birds and often are the first to make noise when you're walking through the forest.

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Red-shouldered Hawk in the American River Parkway, Sacramento, California

I, Bob, photographed this red-shouldered hawk perched in a tree along the American River in Sacramento, California.  The red shoulder patches that give it its name are not visible from this angle.  This guy stayed perched on this spot for a long time allowing me to try shots from different angles and from progressively closer distances, until I was able to get this shot from my closest approach.  This picture was taken in December, so the tree had shed its leaves for the season and made it easier to see him on his perch.  Not long after this shot, the hawk flew to another nearby perch.  I went looking for him again and realized that I had gone past him and turned around to get more pictures.  Apparently this hawk had had enough of me by then and soon flew almost at me missing me by just a few feet just right of overhead and continued on to another tree perch.

Red-shouldered hawks live mainly along riverside forests and other moist deciduous forests and hunt from perches like in this photo.

I took this photo with a Canon EOS 70D with a Canon 100-400 mm lens.

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Deer mouse during low tide at Point Reyes National Seashore

During a night-time hike along the shore south of Coast Camp at Point Reyes National Seashore, we were using our flashlights to check out the creatures in the tide pools and the tops of rocks. At one of those rocks, we noticed something darting along from one side of the rock to the other. After shining our lights on the darting critter, we found this deer mouse settled into a spot where it seemed comfortable enough to pose for us to get several photos of it. What is was doing in a tidepool was a bit of a mystery, maybe it has a taste for mussels.

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Window Arch in City of Rocks National Reserve

Window Arch is one of many arches and other granite features in the City of Rocks National Reserve, in southeastern Idaho. This feature can be reached by hiking an easy 0.1 mile trail from the parking spot for campsite number 37. It is situated along a ridge that allows for getting good photos of it from either side. I chose this side because of the interesting cloud formations in the sky that you can see under the arch.

To give you a better idea about the size of the arch, look at the picture below with Rick standing in it.

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Butler Wash Cliff Dwelling in the Bears Ears National Monument

This is an area within the Bears Ears National Monument. You reach by parking at a turnout off of Road 95, west of Blanding, Utah, and then taking a short hike, about 1/2 mile or 1 km) to reach this viewpoint. It's called Butler Wash and has an Anasazi cliff dwelling at the upper end. The end of the trail has a steep dropoff, so there is railing there, which also makes it easy to know where to stop. There's no developed trail in to the ruins, but it is possible to get to the bottom of the wash and work your way there. We were on our way to Natural Bridges National Monument and couldn't spend as much time here as we would've liked. We definitely intend to go back.

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El Capitan and a leafless oak in silhouette, Yosemite

April showers in Yosemite led to this formation of clouds that has the peak of El Capitan looming above and below the clouds, while the lower cloud provides the proper background for a bare oak tree's silhouette. This picture was originally taken in April of 1984 with slide film, specifically Kodachrome. Rick stood in El Capitan Meadow to get this photo.

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The Windows, in Arches National Park, from the west looking eastward, plus the North Window Arch, up close

Within Arches National Park is this dramatic feature that can seen several miles away along the main park road, well before you turn off to get a closer look. There is a path around these features, which you can see at the right edge of the image. You can also see people underneath the left "window." In both cases, going through these arches leads to a somewhat dramatic drop off on the other side. We visited this park as part of our Spring Break 2017 trip through southern Utah. The second picture is the North Window Arch, up close and consisting of four shots that have been merged to create a detailed image of this feature.

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Yosemite Falls reflected in a seasonal pond in Cooks Meadow

This is Yosemite Falls as viewed from the Sentinel Bridge parking area. During the spring and early summer, Cooks Meadow fills with meltwater and runoff to become a temporary pond. If you stand in the right spot and crouch down a bit, you can get the falls and its reflection in one shot. We've also taken multiple shots from this perspective and combined them, but this one was taken in one frame with a film camera in 1992. The trees have had another 25 years worth of growth since this was taken and are noticeably taller now.

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Chuckwalla posing at Valley of Fire

A chuckwalla lizard poses for the camera at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. We saw this critter along the trail out to the park's equivalent to the "Wave", pictures of which we posted earlier. We don't know if it was curious about us so that's why it hung around, but it could have been disturbed by the kids pointing him out to their parents and by us looking him over and taking some good photos, but it didn't seem to mind.

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Yellowstone's Tower Falls with the boulder on the brink, before and after

In Yellowstone, one of the popular places to stop and look at the scenery is at Tower Falls. Until the spring of 1986, this 132-foot waterfall had a precariously perched boulder on the brink. That year, the boulder fell to the bottom. We visited Yellowstone in the 1970's several times and got pictures of this waterfall with the boulder still there, as you can see below. The boulder to the right of the one that fell is still there. During the 1975 trip, we hiked down to the base of the falls and looked up at the boulder and tried imagining what it would be like to be under this waterfall when that boulder finally came down. The sign at the overlook asked the question about when the boulder would fall, but now it's not there, of course. It also looks like the same trees are there to the left of the creek after 40 years. The trees closer to the overlook have obviously gotten taller.
Tower Falls gets its name from the volcanic pinnacles that line the stream course.

   Here are the two pictures side by side for comparison.

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Grand Prismatic Spring from the new overlook in Yellowstone National Park

This is a view from the new Grand Prismatic Spring overlook that Yellowstone National Park opened just this year, 2017.  A number of visitors had hiked off-trail to get this view overlooking the spring before the Park Service decided to make the overlook view official with this new spur trail off the Fairy Falls Trail.

This overlook allows visitors to get a much better view of the different colors of the Grand Prismatic, the world's third largest hot spring, than they can get from the boardwalk that runs along the far edge of the spring in the picture.  The spring is 370 feet in diameter and 160 feet deep and discharges 560 gallons of 160 degree water every minute.  The colors in the spring are from thermophilic (heat-loving) microbes that appear blue, green, yellow, and orange depending on the temperature of the water at that point.

The rising steam behind the Grand Prismatic is from the Excelsior Geyser Crater.  This thermal area is known as the Midway Geyser Basin.

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Gibbon Falls in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

This is Gibbon Falls in Yellowstone National Park between the Norris and Mammoth areas in the northwestern quadrant of the park.  The falls are about 84 feet high and are about 4.7 miles upstream of the Gibbon River's junction with the Firehole River after which this watercourse is known as the Madison River.  The park provides a large parking and overlook area for visitors to enjoy views of this feature.

This photo was taken with an eclipse filter on the lens which enabled Bob to shoot a long 15 second exposure which gave the waterfall its silky appearance.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.