Bighorns in the Canyon
![Rocky Mt. Bighorn Sheep [Ovis canadensis]](http://pronghornwildlifephotography.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rocky-mt-bighorn-sheep-ovis-canadensis_mmsh-0275.jpg)
Watching a bighorn dance down a nearly vertical wall can take your breath away. Drop to an invisible knob of rock, hold there for a split second, turn slightly and drop to another nearly invisible ledge, turn again on one hoof and find yet another place for hoof and balance to work with and against gravity. With hooves built for walking or running on rock, hard bony outer ridge protecting an inner softer pad , grips, wedges and holds the dancer going up or down. Bighorns, like cats, can turn in midair to land on their feet. (more…)
Cougar: on sighting the ghost of the forest
It is laying there among large gray boulders in the dappled shade, body relaxed, yet alertly watching as we sit among autumn colored wild roses with their bright red rose hips. A distance away to be sure, yellow Aspen and Willows coloring the gray boulders, a small waterfall nearby. Mountain Lion, there is no other animal in our mountains that says “wild” as these big cats do. While traveling back roads in western Colorado, looking for some jaw-dropping autumn scenery Barb said something like “There! Its a, a, stop! See it? Stop, it’s a…..Stop!” OK, you get it, and no, she isn’t usually incoherent, I stopped but ol’ Eagle Eye here didn’t see the Lion in the tawny grass of the road side. It quickly disappeared down the steep slope to our left and even though having stopped, I had only a small glimmer of hope that we might get a very brief view of the cat moving off through the trees. Across the space of a small mountain canyon, below us was the lion. To see a Puma, Cougar, Mountain Lion, Catamount, Painter, and whatever else people call these big , solitary cats is rare and is usually a very brief flash in the headlights.
Sleepy Cat
Where the time goes and bears…
Don’t know if you have noticed but there has been a lack of posting here lately, seems as I’m not so good at doing this in a timely manner and I will try to do better. Want to take macro photos, or better macro images? Stay tuned. Meanwhile, here are a few thoughts on spring, droughts and our local bears.
- Surveying the neighborhood
Hello world!
This blog is a new experience and an experiment, we don’t know where it’s going and the direction it takes will at least some of the time be up to you. Hope you enjoy the ride.
We will share some of our insights on image capture , the equipment used, as well as environmental and natural history tidbits. We pretend to no expertise in all things photographic but we manage to have some success at capturing interesting and beautiful creatures (they are all beautiful) as well as the land that they and we share. Please check out our web site Pronghorn Wildlife Photography for more images.
When Nikon released the D2x we snapped up a couple of them and our transformation from using film (remember?) to digital began. Suddenly we needed more computing power, Photoshop and Lightroom, external hard drives, copying to dvd, and on and on. Sometimes shooting with film seems like a really fine idea, and then I look at my camera histogram or increase or decrease the ISO and I think this digital thing is good, it might even catch on. In truth I really wish we had todays digital cameras back when we were working on our book The Common Plants of Costa Rica. Slow film in the rain forest? Oh yeah, but it all worked out, and we learned a lot, not just about photographing in difficult situations but about one of the most beautiful and environmentally diverse places on Earth.
So let’s see where this ends up. We look forward to you sharing your comments and or questions and we will endeavor to reply to all.
