I’ve been stealing moments to photograph the birds. I’m missing dedicated photography time.

Late afternoon golf game.

Today I had a new visitor outside my office window. Peterson Field Guide of Western Birds says the bird is a Black-headed Grosbeak.

I went online to view photos of the Grosbeak and found this informative site. I’ve listed the contents of the site I visited below.

Black-headed Grosbeak (Male)

Like clockwork, male Black-headed Grosbeaks arrive every spring on nearly the exact day – April 26 every year. The juveniles from last year and the females wait a week or so before they arrive. The arrival of these tropical-looking birds is a sign that spring is here.

Because their bills are so large, strong, and powerful, they have a broad range of food choices. They can eat soft berries to very hard seeds. They are particularly fond of peanut butter cakes, suet cakes, black-oil sunflower seeds, and sunflower chips.
Black-headed Grosbeak (Female)
Black-headed Grosbeak (Female)

Female Black-headed Grosbeaks have a bicolored bill. The upper mandible is dark while the lower mandible is light colored. Look at the bill to differentiate a female Black-headed Grosbeak from a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The female Rose-breasted Grosbeak’s bill is not bi-colored; both upper and lower mandibles are light colored.

Female Black-headed Grosbeaks fight fiercely for territory just like males of other species. The females are also extremely aggressive at feeders. They often nest in elderberry bushes or blackberry bushes.

My camera is always right on my desk ready for any of the local visitors who continue to entertain me throughout the day.

Now that the day has warmed up I’m off for a walk.

Yesterday I asked Ray about the weather forecast for tomorrow. I asked if we had a storm front coming in. I guess I’m getting good at reading the clouds because I was right in my assessment. Around 8pm last night gale force winds sounded scary and I can see we had some weather overnight.

Things change fast in the mountains. The sky is almost free of clouds now.

2pm Oops. The dark cloud filled sky is back.

And at 5pm…..

Ray’s sponsee Scottie, drove out from the SFV for a game of golf with Ray this morning.

I made them lunch and then Scottie worked on Ray’s computer a while.

I spent the day quite unfocused, playing with my new lenses. I was trying to get some sense of what range of infocus I could get using the EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens while shooting Scottie. Later reviewing the photos in Lightroom, I couldn’t believe when I noticed the metadata on this photo. Unknown to me at the time, I handheld this shot at a 1/13th of a second. I really need to pay more attention to my shutter speed. Most of the other photos of Scottie shot (at the same shutter speed) were blurry. My aperture setting was f|3.2 from 2.25m, and the focal length was almost at the end at 68mm. Duh, it’s hard to determine the depth of field or infocus range when I shoot at such a slow shutter speed. I need more focus when determining focus:-)

This photo of Ray was taken in our darkish den (while Ray was watching the Masters) with my new Canon 5D Mark ll camera fitted with a new EF85mm f/1.2L ll USM lens. I’m in heaven with how much crisper the photos are and love how Ray’s face pops out from the rest of him and the background.

Initially I was going to be away until April 16th. Now home early, I’m giddy with the extra week of time. Right now I’m looking at how I want to schedule my time.

Next Thursday I leave for the ADZPCTKO weekend. This is an annual weekend backpacking event held in late April as a send off for the current year thru-hikers that will hike 2,660 miles from Mexico to Canada along the PCT.  Since 2003 I bring, to the event at Lake Morena, CA, the free bandanas for the current year PCT hikers. Here is the story of how the ADZPCTKO event started. And here is the page on the official ADZ website talking about how the gifting of PCT bandanas started.

May 6th I drive to Moab, UT to attend the DLWS. They ask that you come fully prepared for their four 18 hour days of learning. I’ll be reviewing ALL the pages and links I was sent to help me be the most prepared I can be before the start of this exciting workshop. I’ll be meeting Laurie Excell, Moose Peterson, Joe McNally – all my heroes.

Off to my calendar now to schedule myself in each day.

Follow the link to see a few more photos from the backpack.
http://gottago.smugmug.com/Travel/Backpacking

The best thing of all happened when JJ stayed with Ray and me last night…….He solved the couple month long problem I’ve had not being able to receive/receive email on my Blackberry. Thanks JJ!

Ray picked up JJ and me yesterday morning at Boulder Oak campground. We had gotten up almost to Kitchen Creek Rd and JJ got sicker and sicker.

JJ is going to see his doctor before getting back on the trail in two weeks.

It’s nice to be home, and I was happy to be out on the trail, still able to hike miles and carry my pack comfortably. (Each year I go through the same self doubt that “I’ll be too old this year”.)

Loaded with 3 liters of water and 2.5 days of food, my backpack weighs in at 33.5 pounds.

Here are the contents of my hiking partner’s pack:

In case you can’t tell his pack will be much lighter than mine. Most hiker’s packs are lighter than my pack.

One thing I know, I won’t run out of food. Yes, I have a fear of not having enough food.

Hoping to blog from the trail.

Bye bye:-)