Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Distant

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I’m participating in the online adventure travel and outdoor photography magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s Challenge is distant.

I have a 12x optical zoom on the camera I take with me most often. It doesn’t allow me to zoom very far but it’s usually good enough to capture what I can see with the naked eye. For this “distant” theme, I decided to focus on animals that fly (but are sitting still at the time), since they are the ones I mostly have to zoom on to capture on camera. Here are a few recent shots, and a couple of older ones. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

I took the first photo this past weekend at Dos Picos County Park, not far from San Diego, California. This red-tailed hawk was sitting at the top of a tall sycamore tree and being very noisy, so I thought he deserved to have his picture taken. We have a lot of red-tailed hawks around and it’s always a treat to watch the male and female hunt for food for their young together.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant red tailed hawk
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant red tailed hawk

I took the next photo last week at the San Diego Zoo. I believe this blue heron is a local freeloader since they water basin was mostly occupied by reptiles – turtles and crocodiles. This big guy was eyeing the little fish swimming in the water and slowly walking towards them for a taste.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant blue heron
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant blue heron

This little guy below is a Stellar jay bird. Isn’t he beautiful? I took his photo in Idyllwild, California, where there are a lot of these birds. What’s interesting is, we only live two hours away from Idyllwild and we have regular blue jays here, but no Stellar jay birds.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant Stellar jay bird
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant Stellar jay bird

I love this last photo of a blue dragonfly. We have a lot of orange/red dragonflies here and I still have to take a few photos of them, but this is the only blue dragonfly I’ve seen. I feel lucky to have been able to capture it with my camera, since dragonflies can fly for hours without taking a break.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - distant blue dragonfly
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – distant blue dragonfly

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Macro Monday: ice plant blooms

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

Today I’m taking part in Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos. This will be a short post as it is spring break and I have a full day of fun ahead of me.

Here is a macro of an ice plant bloom I captured a couple of weeks ago. I love the tiny dew drops that are still present on the petals as the ice plant flower slowly opens up in the morning sunlight. You can click on the photo for a larger view.

Macro Monday: Ice plant flower
Macro Monday: Ice plant flower

And for the people who think all point-and-shoot cameras are the same and cell phone cameras can just replace a point-and-shoot, here’s one reason why it’s not really true. I took the photo below the day before the photo above with my cell phone camera. Even though I edited it a lot in Photoshop to correct the lighting, contrast and color values, it still doesn’t compare to the first photo and what I saw in reality. I love that the ice plant flower featured more dew drops that day, but the clarity and bright colors of the first photo beat it hands down.

Macro Monday: Ice plant blooms
Macro Monday: Ice plant blooms

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge theme is lines. Nature is full of lines, but they’re not always straight, vertical or horizontal so it can take a little time to spot them in the scene.

Here is a selection of a few photos that display all sorts of lines. Remember you can click on each image for a larger view.

I took this first photo at SeaWorld San Diego. I love the lines formed by the legs of the various flamingos in the shot. By the way, check out the duck that’s walking in front of the flamingo in the water. He thinks he’s one of them but his legs are about two feet too short!

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Lines - flamingo legs
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines – flamingo legs

I love the lines on this tiger swallowtail butterfly’s wings.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines on a tiger swallowtail butterfly
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines on a tiger swallowtail butterfly

I love the numerous thin lines the petals form on this bottle brush tree flower. Also take a closer look at the leaves on the left and how they’re outlined with a lighter shade of green.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines on a bottle brush tree flower
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines on a bottle brush tree flower

The pistils of this yellow lilium start in a straight line but take a vertical turn halfway.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines of pistils on a yellow lilium
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines of pistils on a yellow lilium

Spider webs are made up of many lines and the morning dew can make them more obvious to the eye. You can see more photos of these spider webs here.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines of spider webs
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines of spider webs

My last photo for this theme is an ice plant lined up with frost, leaf by leaf. The brown blade of grass in the background also displays lines of frost. This is one of my favorite photos of frost I’ve taken so far. You can see more photos of frost here and here.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines of frost on ice plant
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lines of frost on ice plant

These are just a few photos that highlight lines in nature. I hope you enjoyed them!

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Reflections

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I’m participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s Challenge is: Reflections.

Water is a great medium for reflections so it will be featured in every photo below, but maybe not always in the way you expect it to be. Remember you can click on each photo to see it in a larger format.

My favorite photo when it comes to reflection is the first one below. I took it at the San Diego Botanic garden and it features a green heron standing above some very still water, so the reflection is almost identical to the original subject.

Let's be wild photo challenge - reflections of a green heron
Let’s be wild photo challenge – reflections of a green heron

The next photo shows the reflection of the sun rays on the wet sand at Coronado Beach, in San Diego. Can you guess it’s my favorite beach here?

Let's be wild photo challenge - reflections at Coronado Beach, San Diego, California
Let’s be wild photo challenge – reflections at Coronado Beach, San Diego, California

I displayed the next photo in yesterday’s post but I want to share it here too, as I love the reflection of the blades of grass in the large water drop. I can’t help admiring the beautiful little treasures that nature leaves everywhere for us to discover.

Let's be wild photo challenge - reflections in a water drop
Let’s be wild photo challenge – reflections in a water drop

As for the last photo I’ll display for this theme, I took it last weekend at Dos Picos County Park, in Ramona, California. I love the peace and quiet effect of this pond. As you can see, it was a beautiful day.

Let's be wild photo challenge - reflections at the pond
Let’s be wild photo challenge – reflections at the pond

Macro Monday: The beauty of the morning dew – Part 2

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

Today I’m taking part in Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos. I thought I’d take this opportunity to continue sharing the photos of morning dew I captured almost a couple of weeks ago. You can see more photos of the morning dew on pretty purple flowers.

Today I’m featuring close-ups of the morning dew on blades of grass. Here are a couple of shots I really like, as they show both tiny droplets and one much bigger one in the middle of them. You can click on each image for a larger view.

I love how well you can see the reflection of several blades of grass in that one big drop of water.

Macro Monday: The beauty of the morning dew on grass
Macro Monday: The beauty of the morning dew on grass

I never noticed how fuzzy grass blades can be. The dew makes the fuzz stand up pretty clearly.

Macro Monday: The beauty of the morning dew on blades of grass
Macro Monday: The beauty of the morning dew on blades of grass