Yosemite and More

 I had an appointment in Fresno yesterday and afterwards I decided to visit Cat Haven, https://cathaven.com/   a large cat sanctuary about 30minutes from Fresno. Note to self, next time ask if there will be any large groups. The group before me had two people, mine had over 30, a combination of kids and adults. That said I really enjoyed the experience, next time I'll take better notes of exactly what I'm seeing and what the names are. For some reason they don't let you in the cages so you have to shoot through the wire mesh. It can be challenging, and I hope you'll forgive my lack of photoshop skills to clean up some of the mess. First up  is a Canadian Lynx.  Salsa is a Cheetah, the fastest land animal. Her roommate is Jazz, they're just friends. Jaguars have a square looking spot patterns. I didn't name these because they have a lot of jaguars and I couldn't tell the difference from looking at their website    https://cathaven.com/ In this instance the wi

 The fog in the valley was really getting to me so I decided to take trip to Yosemite.  On the way up I took these. They're doing work on the electrical lines to Yosemite. Because of the rough terrain helicopters are needed. That thing below, and hanging  from the helicopter is a guy in a harness, just sitting there swinging  with the breeze. Remember this is taken with a telephoto lens and then cropped. He was way up there. Just when I was entering the Valley I stopped to do some photography and a gentlemen informed me there was a bear near-by. Black bears can be anything from cinnamon colored to completely black.  This is a small one eating oak acorns. I was wondering if any of the fall colors would still be showing. I needn't have worried, Yosemite is always beautiful but fall colors are special. I asked this gentleman if I could photograph him painting  near where I had just photographed. He has a lot  more patience than I do. As I said the fall colors were pretty good. The

 Took a couple of trips to the Merced Wildlife Refuge. First was during the morning with the intent of catching some fog shots. While the air was heavy with mist there wasn't any real fog. On the road  I saw several hawk with their wings slightly spread out. I guessed they were sunning themselves and drying their wings. Inside the Refuge I caught this one doing the same thing. I saw nine raptors throughout the Refuge, many of course too far to photograph. This one barely moved except to keep an eye on me just in case I got the idea to trespass. This is one of my favorite birds. Since it's black and white  I thought I'd give it that treatment. Another resident of the Refuge is the Killdeer. This one looked a little apprehensive to me.  The Refuge is know for it's seasonal Sandhill Crane migration.  They even offer tours in some years.  Here's one of the smaller flights coming in to roost for the night. Snowy Egrets are smaller than the Great Egret and less common at

I went on a little vacation earlier this year to North Eastern Nevada and the Nevada Northern Railroad in Ely Nevada. My timing wasn't very good. The engines were in the Roundhouse, and excursions were only on the weekends. I was allowed to pretty much wander around wherever I wanted and was  actually invited into the roundhouse and maintenance facility. Here's one of the two photos of steam engines I'm going to post. It's #81which had just gone through a rebuild and inspection and ,of course, was going to run the day after I left.  You'll have to go through a bunch of other photos before you get to #93 With the engines in the roundhouse I wandered around the yard. These two towers are iconic at the Railroad. However neither one is used anymore. This backside view shows a little of high country color. No the tower isn't leaning or falling over, the photographer was. The depot warehouse is both colorful and quite large. With 56 buildings on site they can't ke