In Focus Daily

Yesterday afternoon I was practicing with my long lens on a tripod with the Wildlife head to make sure I was up to speed on using it since I’ve been home for a while and haven’t used this combo in a while. Not much was going on outside so I set up the tripod inside. When I looked out to see if Spike was there, sure enough he was, sound asleep. I put one leg of the tripod outside, turned the lens in Spike’s direction and fired away. He didn’t wake up even when another hummer showed up and buzzed around one of the nearby crepe myrtles. It wasn’t long before Spike sensed something because he suddenly looked up and zoomed off to protect the other feeder, quickly returning and falling asleep again. And, it looks like Spike’s got only one spike left, on the top of his head.

Yesterday’s CBS Evening News reported on the sighting of a rare bird in California, the Purple Gallinule, that is bringing bird lovers to Irvine where a young Purple Gallinule has found itself at the Irvine Ranch Water district’s San Joaquin Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary. It is only the eighth documented sighting of this bird in California. I am from California and I have seen this bird many times but just never in California. I appreciate the fact that I have been privileged to see and photograph this bird, as an adult, not in California but in Florida.

Sapphire, Emerald, Periodot are three gems that describe this flying gem, a male Broad-billed Hummingbird. With Sapphire coloring his throat, Emerald gleaming on his sides, and Peridot sparkling under his wings what else could you call this hummer but a gem? Taken July 2025 in Madera Canyon, Arizona.

And just like that, Spike’s spikes are gone. He will still be known as Spike but in just a few days, most of his namesake spikes have disappeared and have emerged as feathers. Next time I shoot him, I’m sure all of the pin feathers will be gone.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be back in Kodiak, Alaska photographing Kodiak Brown Bears. I am excited to be returning to that pristine world and to watching these massive bears consume equally massive amounts of salmon. As we drifted along the Uganik River last September, this bear looked up at us while it munched on the remains of a salmon carcass on the shoreline. It seemed not to notice the fish paddling near the surface between us, dorsal fin and tail protruding from the water. The bear had a choice. It could continue to consume what remained or chase after a moving fish. It made a choice to keep munching on what it had in its claws.

My little Anna’s Hummingbird has a name! I realized that I have to call him Spike. His head is covered with spiky looking pin feathers surrounding his eyes and under his beak. When they emerge, they are itchy and in this image, Spike is vigorously scratching those itchy pin feathers. Spike, it is!

Every moment of sunrise is spectacular in Monument Valley. The flare of the sun and the godbeams radiating from it help to define another spectacular moment.

While I was in Monument Valley a couple of weeks ago, I set a camera to run all night on my balcony to capture the stars as they moved across the sky. Although I had some user error glitches, I did manage to capture the night sky as it gave way to the dawn. Because the exposure was a 13 second exposure, a satellite appears as a straight line as it moves through the sky.

The little Anna’s Hummingbird that I introduced on my blog the other day seems to be my new friend. He sits on the same perch overlooking one of the feeders throughout the day and he doesn’t seem at all bothered by my presence when I plop down a few feet away with my camera and my morning coffee. He does chase away the occasional interloper but returns. I’m enjoying getting acquainted but I still haven’t come up with a name for him.

When I shoot sunrise from my balcony at The View in Monument Valley, West Mitten Butte usually only appears in images when I use a wide angle lens. Because the sun rises behind East Mitten, I tend to zoom in on East Mitten and I ignore West Mitten. One morning, though, the colors in the sky were gorgeous and West Mitten deserved some attention.

For the first time in a very long time, I spent early morning on my patio with a cup of coffee, the soothing sounds of the gurgling of my fountain, and of course, my hummers. It’s been so long since I’ve just sat and watched and talked to them that I didn’t think they’d be comfortable around me but this guy perched just a few feet away from me, nodded off a couple times, defended his feeders from other hummers, looked over at me occasionally, and finally, after about half an hour, stretched his wings and flew off. He’s got a cluster of pin feathers emerging behind his left eye. I think he’s one of the three male Anna’s Hummingbirds who grew up here last year. I’m going to have to think of a name for him.

I wasn’t expecting to see the Milky Way while I was in Monument Valley but when I looked out from my balcony on our first night there, I could see the Milky Way over Mitchell Mesa. There were a few unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) streaking through the sky (or perhaps only slogging through since this was a 13 second exposure) but they were there. UAP is apparently the PC way to describe what used to be known as UFOs. What amazed me was the sheer number of stars filling the sky.

One of the few things I remember learning from my high school chemistry class is the order of the colors of the rainbow, abbreviated by the initials of the colors, ROYGBIV. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, when there is a double rainbow, the reflection is VIBGYOR, something I just learned a few days ago. Somehow, those initials don’t roll as easily off the tongue, but this image illustrates it pretty well.

As the clouds built up on our last afternoon in Monument Valley, I had a time lapse running from the balcony of my room.

The morning rainbow at Monument Valley was one of the most vivid rainbows I think I’ve ever seen. And, it was a double rainbow at that although the more transparent outer rainbow is just barely visible at the left of the image. My friend Emerson pointed out to me that when there is a double rainbow, the outer, paler rainbow is actually a reflection of the main rainbow and instead of the standard red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet (ROYGBIV) order of the colors, the outer rainbow is its reflection so it is VIBGYOR. If you look closely at the outer rainbow, you’ll see it.

The weather changed as we sat on the outdoor deck near the restaurant at The View watching the sunset in Monument Valley on our last evening. The color in the sky disappeared quickly, the clouds piled up, and thunderheads rolled in so I shot this scene in black and white to give emphasis to the impending storm.

On our last evening in Monument Valley, we had quite the light show! When the pouring rains came, I had to run out to the balcony to save my camera from getting drenched before the light show was over but I did manage to capture this cloud to cloud strike.

Yesterday morning’s sunrise here in Monument Valley was the most spectacular we’ve had this week. Gorgeous clouds moved in and it even sprinkled while I was shooting this scene.

Although I try not to anthropomorphize animal behavior, I do have a tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate objects like rocks. I see faces and other man-made and artificial features in stone and since I’m currently visiting Monument Valley and environs, that tendency is now front and center. I have just discovered that this tendency of mine stems from something called pareidolia which is the human brain’s instinct to spot familiar shapes in random patterns. Yesterday, we visited the Valley of the Gods near Mexican Hat, Utah, a rugged but scenic sandstone valley with towering red mesas, buttes, and pinnacles that is considered by some to be a miniature Monument Valley. One of the rock formations that jumped out at me looked like the corner of an ancient Greek or Roman building constructed using the Corinthian architectural order, which columns are ornate and decorated with acanthus leaves. This mesa in the Valley of the Gods has a square corner that looked to me like a column with a capital decorated with carved acanthus leaves and small corner scrolls. When I blurted that out to my photographer friends, no one could see it but me. I stand by my illusion.

Three iconic buttes of Monument Valley are West Mitten Butte, East Mitten Butte, and Merrick Butte, seen above, left to right, with Mitchell Mesa behind West Mitten Butte. I wake up every morning to a view of those three buttes, but not this view. It is amazing to see how the look of each mesa and butte changes as you drive the loop. We drove to Ford’s Point lookout which is one of the iconic movie locations that John Ford used to film a number of John Wayne movies. This is the view that John Wayne must have had of these buttes.