Blue-grey gnatcatcher on the left checking out the last little bit of sun through the leaves. Golden-crowned sparrow checking out me through the bushes on the right
Sunset over San Jose looking from Los Altos Hills where we live
Oh dear.. Rona has 3 (?) tiny kits in a den under our house. Everyone in our house COMPLETELY melted when they saw these tiny balls of fluff running around and it's been all everyone has talked about today! How cute are they? I got these sneaky photos through a bush, but they are too cute not to include on this site.
These flying birds are Cedar Waxwings. They normally swoop in around spring, sit in the tallest trees and then quickly disappear again. I've never previously managed to get a shot of them! I was incredibly lucky with this shot, they were only visible for 3 seconds or so and then they were once again gone. Lucky I had my camera ready!
This gorgeous fox has started showing up in our garden, and she doesn't seem very scared of us at all. What you don't see in these photos is 7 of my housemates standing behind me with their phones, only a few meters away from her.
I'm hoping she can stick around as we have problems with mice and rats and those seem to be some of her favorite foods! We also named her Rona (because we likely wouldn't have met her if it wasn't for Corona).
The Grey foxes appeared in North America ~ 3.6 million years ago, and this area has been urbanized since the 80's, so technically we are the ones living in her garden. Maybe the right question would be if us humans can stay?
The above turkey vultures were hanging out on top of a light pole in Los Altos as we were driving to the supermarket. These are super common here but you rarely see them perched like this. To me they are the most beautiful ugly bird, haha!
Above is the American Kestrel, the smallest and most common falcons of North Americas. You see those a lot sitting on power lines when driving through California.
The forrest leading to Pinnacles national park on the left, farmland on the right.
Above is a Red-Tailed Hawk, this is one of my favorite birds to shoot and they are easily spotted as they fly over fields looking for food.
Pinnacles National Park, what a magical place! We did the long route, from east side, above the tunnels (which were closed) down to the west side, and then over high peaks on the way back. It was probably the toughest day hike I've done as the high peaks included a lot of elevation gain. We made it to the top at sunset, the California Condors were sailing over us through the sky and we walked down the mountain in complete darkness under the stars, it was absolutely stunning. Give yourself 5-6 hours to do the loop. Bring warm clothes, headlamps, something to eat and lots of water. Oh, and definitely bring a camera!
The California Condors are the largest flying bird in the US and they are severely threatened by extinction. The wing span goes up to 9.5 feet (Almost 3 meters(!)). In 2017 there were 463 wild California Condors in the world, and the population is currently increasing slowly. You can see the wing tags on the one above. Pinnacles is the best place to see them, as they sweep through the sky looking for dead animals to feed on.
We made it to Pinnacles National Park over the break! Here are some of the photos taken during the day as well as some from the campground. The squirrel and some of the birds were spotted as we were having breakfast. The image on the top is a big panorama (80+ photos) as no lens could capture how grand the rock formations were, it was pretty amazing! I already can't wait to go back!
Top left is a bald eagle flying across the tree lines. One day I hope I'll see one up close. Top right is a Mountain Chickadee, they are way too cute and don't seem afraid of me at all!
On the weekend I finally (!) managed to get some close up shots of a Steller's Jay. We have these birds in our garden and I see them all the time but they are almost impossible to photograph as they never sit still and they move through trees as if trees don't even have branches. For the longest time I called these birds 'Gradient birds' as it looks like someone applied a blue-to-black gradient on them in Illustrator... haha. At least now I know what they are really called.
Above Red-Tailed Hawk is a result of pulling the car over to take some photos for a few minutes. Note to self; - Always bring your camera!
These photos are from the weekend hike around the Stanford Dish trail. We watched this red-tailed hawk really close as it was looking for food in the bushes. The Northern Harrier male (the grey one) was swooping over the fields looking for mice or ground squirrels.
I've got to admit, these photos are actually from Washington state, not California... A friend took us sailing for the weekend and we did a hike around a small island outside Seattle. As I walk past something looking like a cherry tree I look up to see two little raccoons staring back at me. To me they are some of the cutest, most intelligent animals and I've dreamt of shooting some wild ones for a long time now!
Right below the house we live in there is a hiking trail and a forest area where we often spot wild animals. The coyote above literally jumped out of the bushes 1.5m in front of us and James yelled out "WOW, what is that?!" And started running after it! We also have a honey bee nest below our house, last year we watched them swarm to find a new place to live and they moved into this old oak tree with a large hole where a branch used to be.
These photos are taken with my brand new 16-35mm iii lens! Hopefully there will be more landscape shots going forward, I'm already super excited about it!
Turkey vultures are super common in California. They are these huge magnificent birds (with really ugly heads) who sail on the updraft winds when it's sunny outside. As soon as the sun disappears they disappear with it which makes most photos of turkey vultures a really dark shadow against a super sunny background. This was the reason for me being SUPER excited when I got this shot from above showing off this vultures beautiful wing patterns. This photo is from Big Sur, from one of the high look out points.
The bird in the top right is a Red Shouldered Hawk. The bottom left image is a Banana slug!!! Fun fact; they are the University of California in Santa Cruz team mascots! Most other universities have strong powerful animals, but they chose the local and adorable Banana Slug. Photos from the Boulder Creek area!
The above and below images are from out back yard! I believe these are of an Anna's Hummingbird female. I love the spring here where our whole garden is full of these purple flowers which slows the hummingbirds down enough for you to get a good glimpse of them. They are the fastest bird compared to their body size in the world!
Above image is from Yosemite, which is a stunning national park in California. Just don't expect to be alone as 4 million people travel there every year. Below left is from Squaw valley (I'm gonna try taking more photos this season!). Below right is from Sequoia National Park.
Above shot is from Rocky Creek Bridge, along Highway 1. Fun fact, it's a MASSIVE panorama; probably 60 or so images. I love making the most out of the equipment I have. This is also why it has almost a fish eye effect.
Above and below are from Northern California. We drove up to the Shasta area over thanksgiving 2017 and camped out in the backseat of our car, which was AWESOME fun. Mount Shasta is a magical mountain, it's white and huge and covered in snow and really stands out against the rest of the otherwise brown and green environment around it. It also has spectacular cloud formations, below is shot from the village below the mountain.
Fire season sunrise (sides) and sunset (middle)
The Acorn Woodpecker above is one of my favorite Californian birds. It works tirelessly with collecting acorns and hiding them in cracks in trunks of trees. You can see the acorns this one has hidden in the stem of the electricity pole, there are hundreds of nuts along the whole thing. I watch the scrub jays and the woodpeckers fight over acorns in our backyard, it's very entertaining.
This Californian scrub jay is absolutely covered in tar. I took this photo outside Santa Barbara where there are oil rigs along the whole coast. As we came back from the beach I looked down at my feet and they were absolutely black of tar. It took me a lot of scrubbing to get the thick black sticky oil off my feet, I can only imagine how it would feel to get this in your fur or feathers.
Below is an image of what the same specie of bird 'should' look like. Pretty scary, huh?
This butterfly landed on a flower in a pot in the middle of the fuel station at Alices restaurant, on Skyline Blvd. The light in the background is the light of a car reversing out of the parking lot. I couldn't have planned this shot. Sometimes it's all about just bringing your camera everywhere, the world looks different through a lens...
All the whales above are really happy hump back whales feeding on anchovy in the Monterey bay. The big one above has just filled its whole mouth with fish and water and will push the water out of its brushlike teeth called baleen which basically works as a filtering system, allowing it to swallow only the fish left. The hump backs come into the bay to feed and gain weight before swimming far away on adventures.
This baby mule deer likes to hang out in our backyard. For the longest time I thought she was alone but I've later seen her with her mother. It may even be the one who happily eats all the things James plant in the garden....