The mountain has been drenched this summer and especially so these last couple of weeks. I suspect that it must have rained on it even within the last few days because of all the water pouring off of it today.
Flowers are busting out all over the place, especially ones that need lots of water.
The purple prairie verbena (also known as Dacota vervain) has come out in big numbers, especially in the foothills. Today however, I found a very rare example of a white one.
I also found a section of the mountain just about to break out in sunflowers.
I’m not exactly sure what caused me to look to the east today, for when I looked west, the sunset, while nice, was what I would call uneventful.
However, something caused my path to wander to the back of the house and I caught the reflection of the sunset off of the tops of the clouds in the east.
When I saw the towering cumulus I ran for my camera since I know from experience that the sunsets while sweet, can be very short. I decided to skip the tripod and bounded up the stairs and went out onto my west balcony. I climbed on the chair and hopped onto the roof from which I grabbed a ladder to get to the next level up.
Finally, from here I had a clear view of the sky.
Full sized panorama can be seen here.
Like I said, the light fades fast.
I don’t think the entire show lasted for more than ten to twelve minutes.
It’s good to be back on the mountain and it rewarded me this morning with an unusual abundance of wildflowers. Although August was dry, it appears that the July rains and the most recent rains have brought out the flowers in mass.
I saw a splash of red very early on in my hike and I walked off the trail to investigate and found the Trans-Pecos Morning Glory. Although I already have an image, I figured I’d try for another one, especially since this is only the second time in eight years of hiking that I have see (or noticed) this amazing little flower.
While I was shooting a humming bird came and went into ten to twenty of the flowers, some only an inch from my face. Unfortunately my camera was set for macro shots and I didn’t have time to change over to try and catch an image. After a minute or so I decided to simply record the scene with my mind and enjoy the little green visitor.
Shortly after, I found another species of Morning Glory, the Crestrib-Morning Glory off to the right of the trail. Half the size of a dime or smaller, it was almost easy to overlook but I’ve trained my eye to look for color against the fairly monochromatic desert scene.
The pollen grains are undisturbed so I guess this one has not been discovered yet.
All in all a great day for a hike, even if several weeks at sea level took some of the wind out of me. It took about four an a half hours to summit, but I also took almost 100 images. An early morning breeze made for shooting macro shots very difficult, hence the need for so many attempts.
It was nice to be able to add this Morning Glory to the collection that can be seen in the Slideshow of Wildflowers of the Sandias.
A extremely rare white tailed eagle takes flight from its perch on an island near Stykkishólmur, Iceland. Hand held on a moving boat.
There are less than 250 of these birds in all of Iceland. It’s a close relative of the Bald Eagle that we find in the United States.
At the world heritage site, Bergen Norway.
The fish market, Bergen.
by David Alan
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