El Capitan facing the sunset, Yosemite National Park

As a winter storm was clearing over the Sierra Nevada, in Yosemite National Park, the massive El Capitan faces the setting sun. This time of year, may people visit Yosemite in order to see the "firefall" of the red light of the setting sun causing the the waters of Horsetail Fall to glow and appear to be on fire. Unfortunately, there's no water in the waterfall this year due to a very dry winter. So in this image, we decided we should concentrate on El Capitan and the dramatic-looking sunset. We set ourselves up along the Four-Mile Trail on Yosemite Valley's south side for this picture. We had to leave the trail and go up a little bit of the slope to get a clear view.

This view might also illustrate why Horsetail Fall is a temporary waterfall. The drainage basin that supplies the water for the fall is just the eastern slope of El Capitan. You can see that basin at the upper right of this picture. So without much rainfall or melting snow to feed it, there is no waterfall.

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Black-necked stilt on the move, Cosumnes River Preserve, Galt, California

Black-necked stilts are small wading birds that feed in wetlands. This one was getting in a meal at the Cosumnes River Preserve before the sun set. There were many people at this part of the preserve looking for sandhill cranes, which we could hear in the distance. In this image, notice how the foot is blurred because of how fast it's moving, but it was captured just before entering the water so you can see its reflection in the surface of the water.

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Western bluebird, American River, Sacramento, California

A male Western bluebird perched in a tree near the American River Parkway in Sacramento, California.  The flash of blue that they show when flying can be quite eye-catching.

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Pintail duck pair, Cosumnes River Preserve, Galt, California

A pair of pintail ducks standing in wetlands along the Lost Slough Wetlands Walk at the Cosumnes River Preserve near Galt, California.  Pintails are distinguished from other ducks by their very pointy tail feathers.  The female has a gray bill, while the male has a blue-gray bill and a brown head with a white stripe running along the back of the neck.

We were visiting the Cosumnes River Preserve hoping to get a close look at the sandhill cranes that winter in the Sacramento Valley, but were certainly willing to photograph any other waterfowl or wading birds that inhabited the wetlands along with them.  Unfortunately, we only saw four cranes flying way overhead heading somewhere other than the wetlands we were visiting.  It was a good visit nevertheless thanks to the abundant birdlife flitting about.

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Butler Wash Ruins in Bears Ears National Monument

This is one of the amazing and interesting features in Bears Ears National Monument, Utah. We stopped for a short hike in Butler Wash, within the Bears Ears, on our way to Natural Bridges National Monument, in southern Utah. At the head of Butler Wash is an Anasazi ruin estimated to be at least 800 years old. The hike to the overlook is only about a mile, where there is a railing to protect hikers from the cliff that drops into the wash. When you're there, you wonder how those ancient people could move around from level to level for one thing and get all that material brought in to do the construction of the walls. It's a fascinating site.

It's sites like this that are why this area deserved protected status as a National Monument.

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Arch Rock in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada at night

This is Arch Rock in Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, taken at night.  We posted a photo of the "backside" of this arch in a recent post, also a night shot.  This photo is from the road side of the arch.

Bob took this photo with a 30 second exposure, while Rick used a military grade flashlight to "paint" the arch and its surrounding formation.  The f/stop was 16 and the ISO was set at 3200.

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Delicate Arch with a sunny halo

Delicate Arch is probably Utah's most famous landmark. It stands on the rim of a huge bowl-shaped depression. So we traveled down into the bowl in order to look back up at it. We noticed how brightly the sun was glowing behind the arch, plus the bright wispy clouds. This side of the arch was in shadow, but we were able to bring out the details in the editing process. Bob accidentally dropped a lens cap that rolled all the way down to the base of the bowl. It turned out it wasn't as difficult to follow the slope down as it looked at first glance. He was able to get the lens cap back.

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A white black phoebe along the American River Parkway, Sacramento, California

I, Bob, have observed this black phoebe in white plumage for the last couple of months, but today I managed to get my closest and longest look at it.  Black phoebes are normally all black, except for a white belly, but this one is almost all white with a little bit of cream coloring.  Black phoebes are members of the flycatcher family and feed on flying insects by waiting on a perch and then darting out after an insect flying by.

This phoebe's territory seems to be around a drainage pump assemblage about a half mile upriver from the Watt Avenue Bridge along the American River's south side in Sacramento, California.

This photo was taken with a Canon EOS 6D Mark II full frame DSLR with a 100-400 mm zoom lens set on 400 and the resulting photo was heavily cropped to get this final result.

For comparison, I've posted below my heavily cropped photo from the same day of a normal black phoebe, also along the American River.

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The backside of Arch Rock at Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada at night

This is the rather generically-named Arch Rock between the two campground units at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada about 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas.  Bob believes that a better name for this arch could be Fire Arch.  We posted a couple of photos of this arch in an earlier post, but we visited it again in December 2017 during a winter break trip.  Unfortunately, too many people were abusing the arch by climbing on it, so now the park prohibits anyone from climbing anywhere near it.

This photo is of the side of the arch away from the road between the campground units and was taken at night by Bob with the settings of f/16, 30 seconds, and ISO 6400 with a zoom lens set at 100 mm on a full frame sensor Canon camera.  Rick used his military grade flashlight to "paint" the arch with light during the exposure.

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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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