Yosemite and More

When you go to the Merced Wildlife Refuge you're usually looking for large flocks of geese, ducks and Sandhill Cranes. Here's a flock of Ross Geese (black wing tips) heading from a field where they were feeding to the the water area of the Refuge. You'll note they seem to be a little yellow/orange, that's due to the reflection of the setting sun just behind me. Being focused on that we can miss other things. Here's a White Crowned Sparrow, they're all over the place so we really don't notice them, but they have a beauty all their own. Here's one I called butterball because I couldn't find it in my bird book. If you know what it is please leave a comment. Go, See, Enjoy Dave

Yeah, I went there again. Posted something similar last time but this one is much better. Will post some more over the next couple of  days. I really mean it, you need to ... Go, See, Enjoy! Dave

Here's three more photos from my recent trip to the Merced Wildlife Refuge. While this first one is noy great photography I thought it was kind of  a cool image.   Yup, that's the moon. Last time I went to the Refuge there were very few birds, Not so this time. As the sun set the sky was filled with wave after wave of birds coming in to roost. As you can see the sky was wonderful, only to get better. Go, See, Enjoy. Dave

A friend and I took a trip to the Merced Wildlife Refuge.  The first time around, I took some photos of some of the birds.  This is a Killdeer, unfortunately I couldn't choose the background and I'm not very efficient (or care to) at changing background. We were fortunate enough to see a gaggle of Ross Geese taking flight  from a berm. I was afraid we might not be in a good position to catch the  sunset. This is just as the sun went down. It got better as time passed.  More to come................. Go, See, Enjoy. Dave

I took a spontaneous trip to the  Merced Wildlife Refuge last Sunday evening. It was a great decision. I really had trouble deciding what to post here. There were so  many photo opportunities. Outside of the Refuge proper, on the other side of Sandy Mush Road is  a field. I've seen Ross Geese there before but not in this number. The image is only a small portion of the geese that were feeding. As soon as I stopped they started to walk away in a semi-circular pattern with me as the base. The sky was continually changing this is one looking west, just after I got there. This one is looking east within minutes, maybe seconds of the  previous one. I've seen flocks of Ross Geese, Canadian Geese, Sandhill Cranes and ducks. I've never seen swams of Redwing Blackbirds like I saw that night.  The whole western sky was filled with them for quite a while. A real treat. The next two images were taken about...