Sunrise over Point Reyes National Seashore

Landscapes are certainly not my strength, although I'm making an effort to get better at them. It can be tricky though since I almost always have my wildlife lens (ie, 200-500mm zoom) on the camera to make sure that I'm ready if an interesting animal appears. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and it was hard to pass up an opportunity to shoot the gorgeous sunrise light falling on the sandstone cliffs of Drake's Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore in early January. This particular sunrise was one of the most amazing I've ever seen, since most of the park had a fog bank hovering above it, except for the area I was in.

Here's a second view, taken a few minutes earlier from the parking lot area (looking in the opposite direction).

Quick post -- when you've got an itch, elk style

Watching this bull elk scratching those hard to reach places was fairly comical, and seemingly dangerous with those spikes. Taken alone the Tomales Point Trail in Point Reyes National Seashore in January.

It seems like it might be fairly useful for helping to get rid of that thick winter coat too.

Blackbirds at Ano Nuevo

I'm going back through all of my unposted shots from a January trip to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Reserve in hopes of putting together a post about the pups, and remembered that I took a few frames of these curious blackbirds as we waited for our tour to start. These birds seem to hang around the picnic areas there, and were happy to land on posts only a few yards away.



I really like the pose in this shot (it looks sort of like he's mid-dance), although I wish the head was turned just a bit more so it was brighter.

Northern Shoveler Pair

There is such a great duck diversity around here -- much more than I ever saw growing up on the East Coast, and its fascinating to observe how different they can be. One that has always stood out to me as among the most beautiful and most interesting is the northern shoveler. For my first few years of bird photography I really wanted to get some nice shots of these ducks, but getting close to one had always alluded me. However, after I finally made a few trips to the Radio Road Ponds in Redwood City last fall -- I have more shots than I know what to do with!



And while not nearly as stunning in coloration, the hens are still quite pretty.