Happy Christmas

 Happy Christmas, my friends. I spent time by the creek today and literally felt tears in my eyes because it was so beautiful.

Happy Solstice

The creek is icing over so slowly this year, and I love it! It has given me lots of opportunities to capture the beauty of the ice. These vivid colors are so welcome on the shortest day of the year. Happy Solstice.

A female mountain lion caterwauling

This female mountain lion is searching for a mate. She caterwauls and scent marks. A male mountain lion was sniffing around the area within a few days.

Pop Goes the Weasel!

Watch what this weasel did to move through the deep snow!

The jewel like colors

 The creek ice is blowing my mind. I gasped when I caught sight of this water hole with its jewel-like ice surrounding it. The colors are from the reflection of the steep sunlit hillside on the north side of the creek. 

 

The song of the creek

 When I do creek photography, one of my favorite things is the gurgling of the water under the ice. During the 30 second exposures, I listen to its music. 

 

Early morning beauty.

As I gazed at the ice, I could hear the creek gurgling under the snowy pillows covering the ice. I never knew that I'd love living next to a creek so much!

 

 

An ermine takes down prey four times its size!

This is a capture that blew my mind. I'd always read that weasels were amazing predators. This clip shows that so clearly, as a weasel takes down a rabbit

Turkey Mothers are Umbrellas for their Chicks - Happy Thanksgiving!

I never had seen this fascinating and cute behavior before my trail cam captured it. Happy Thanksgiving! 

Bear Buddies Play!

I explored a lot during the summer, and I found new trail camera sites. This one was at a small pond that stayed full of water all the way until the end of the fall. When the bears were fat and just biding their time until they went into dens, two male bears hung out by the pond together. On more than one occasion, they wrestled! They appear to be good buddies. Here's a link just in case embedding it below doesn't work. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Purple glow

 It is a warm and windy day but the creek is still glorious. The reflection of the sunlit wall of the gulch can take many different colors. It doesn't seem predictable. I was stunned by the otherworldly color that I saw a few days ago.

 

More reflections

 The creek is freezing over fast. It is one of my favorite sights. I have to be there at the right time of day to see the reflected sun on the ice and water. Even with my fingers and toes freezing, it makes me happy.

 Thanks for the warm welcome the other day. I hope to keep posting occasionally. My life has become much busier since my days of daily blogging but it is nice to post every now and then.

 For those who are curious, Shyla is almost 13 years old, and she's doing well. She still loves to run. Hachi is such a joy for me and the Runner. His affection is overwhelming. He doesn't like strangers but we are fine with that. We are letting Hachi be Hachi. 

Reflections

 Winter is moving in fast.

Brilliance

  

Cottonwoods in brilliant colors in a desert canyon.

I have come to realize that the overarching theme in almost all of my nature photos is that there is brilliant light in the most inhospitable places. That is a metaphor for there being a glimmer of hope even in the darkest times of life.

This is one of my favorites from the year.